Southernbelle Mommy: Open House 2011

Last night was Open House for Gracie & Katie. Gracie's last elementary school Open House. It's hard to believe, but it's true!

The girls had fun getting their yearbook signed (we only buy 1, so Katie got autographs in a notebook, and we'll put it in the yearbook later.)

Snapshots of the evening, Gracie & friends:

Katie & her friends:

Katie was excited for me to see the little game on her desk. I had to guess which picture was her, based on the clues she left me.

Sweet Ms. M has been such a good fit for Katie this year! She appreciates & respects Katie for the great little kid that she is! :)

cute bulletin board

I love taking pictures of the girls' work. It's pretty much inevitable that at some point, some of this will get lost, so hopefully this will help me to remember it.

Gracie wrote a sweet poem, along with a really great illustration to go with it. (Click on the picture to make it larger.)

Cute bulletin board outside Gracie's classroom. Each student decorated a fish to represent themselves. Here is a picture of Gracie's fish. It's a fuzzy picture, but she had it decorated it with music notes and words like "peace," "love," & "leadership."

More yearbook signing:

waiting to see what Mrs. V will write:

Mrs. V has really been a great teacher for Gracie this year! I have enjoyed getting to know her through emails, etc. She has always responded to any concern or request quickly & nicely and says such nice things about Gracie. I think she has done a good job of getting her ready to transition into Junior High! (I love how in the background of this picture Ellie is "signing" someone's yearbook! LOL)

More yearbook signing:

waiting to see what Ms. K will write. 1st year teacher, Ms. K, has been a sweet "switch teacher" for Gracie this year. Unfortunately, the budget cuts seem to indicate she won't be back next year, but we'll be praying she gets re-hired. She said they are starting to re-hire some of the teachers who have been let go, so prayerfully she will be one of them!

I love living in a neighborhood with a large park area right next to the school, an area close enough to walk to. I like seeing other parents walking their children to school and chatting with the other moms & dads and the crossing guard in the mornings & afternoons. We were able to walk to school for Open House, which is a good thing because there are lots of cars looking for places to park! The school pre-sold Chick Fil A for a dinner and the park had many families having picnics and children playing. I love the general atmosphere of the neighborhood school.

Here are some more work samples we got at Open House. I love looking through their art portfolios!

This picture is fuzzy, but it's an Asian village and really cute!

I love this one, too. The fruit bowl is made out of recycled paper...it looks like maybe newspaper or magazine paper. Very cute.

Katie has been excitedly telling us about her report on the Red Eyed Tree Frog, so I was happy to see the final product! Click on the picture to make it bigger if you'd like to read it.

Last week, I set out a shirt for Katie to wear that had a whale on it. She was excited about it because they were studying oceans in class, and it'd go along with that! :) Here is the cute Ocean Unit she studied.