School fun

So much has been going on... here are some of the school-related things that have been keeping us busy. 

In April we got to go see Annie and the rest of the 2nd grade in the concert they've been working on in music this year. The music was based on cats and dogs--Annie's class were dogs.

 She wore her baptism dress so she could look extra fancy. She was glad Grandma and Grandpa got to come hear her, too.

 Rachel finished her last reading fair project ever! Yay! It was low priority on her teacher's radar, so it was low priority for Rachel (and me), but she got it done.

As a side note, Rachel was a little obsessed with the Harry Potter series so we encouraged her to take a break from rereading it again and again and again (Jacob hid the books). So Rachel discovered the Ranger's Apprentice series and is on her second time through that series and has taken to making her own bows and arrows. Archery at girls camp will be pretty fun for her, I think. 

In March Rachel got 5th place in the Tucson Region of the Mathleague competition, which qualified her to go on to the State competition.

 She got to do that competition last weekend and did really well, placing 20th place in the state, which is only 5 places away from qualifying for nationals. Right where we wanted her--good enough to show how awesome she is at math, but not so high up that we have to figure out how to fit a trip to Texas in to our short summer. Way to go, Rachel! We're proud of you and your mad math skillz!

Annie had an invention project where she had to learn all about something and when/why/how it was invented. Since she has a decent mini eraser collection that she loves, she decided to research the eraser.

 Interesting fact I learned from her research: rubber got its name when one of those guys on her poster realized that if you rubbed it on pencil marks, the pencil marks would go away.

Megan has been having fun at preschool. Her teacher planned a super fun drive in movie night in her back yard. Megan decorated a box to look like a car and Ryan brought his dump truck to sit in. It was a fun family evening watching Tangled.

 I got to go with Rachel's class on a field trip to Old Tucson Studios. I had 4 girls in my group, including Rachel, and we had a pretty fun time.
We rode the train, the carousel, went in the haunted mine, locked the girls in jail and got to have the stunt men show us how they did some different stunts.

 We even got to see a stunt man fall off the top of the tower on the right. On purpose. And yes, that is where The Three Amigos was filmed. :)

Last night Rachel had to help with a fundraiser at Arby's as a part of the National Elementary Honor Society. She stood outside for an hour passing out fliers, then toward the end of her shift we ordered dinner for the family and sat down to enjoy dinner together. The bonus was that several of Annie's classmates showed up while we were there and Annie had fun eating together.

It's been a busy month an a half with a lot going on with the kids at school. But we just have a little over 2 (very full) weeks of school left, then it'll be SUMMER and a much more open schedule. Yay!