Field Day 2012

Today we had our annual 3rd - 5th grade Field Day. Our theme this year was the Olympics. Each class chose a country to represent and then we designed banners and flags and "uniforms" to go with our country. We chose Egypt and my class decided they wanted to be The Mysterious Mummies of Egypt! LOL! So I enlisted the help of my extremely talented and artistic son (something he did NOT get from me LOL) to help us out. He made us 2 banners and he drew a picture of a mummy that I then copied onto iron on transfer printer paper and ironed on to our shirts. Here are a couple pictures of our finished products:

This is a close up of the kids' shirts - my baby drew that picture!

Here is my very talented and artistic son holding one of the shirts, standing in front of the banners my class made for him. His birthday is Tuesday so we had a surprise "Thank You/Happy Birthday" party for him yesterday

Not a very flattering picture of me, but this is my shirt, and my son had one just like it

Today was the big day and the kids were so excited! We always have an opening ceremony that includes a parade of classes and gives the judges a chance to see all the costumes and banners the classes have made and at the end of the day they choose a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winner. The winners are judged on their costumes and creativity but also on their sportsmanship and their respect for each other and the other teams. I am very proud to say that my class won 3rd place out of all the 3rd - 5th grade classes (about 22 classes) Here are some pictures of our parade "gear" and some of the kids participating in the activities

2 of my little mummies holding the Sphinx

The flag of Egypt

a scene from Egypt including the pyramids and some camels

my mummies

more of my little mummies

more of my little mummies

My son is awesome! He let us drape him up in linen cloth like a mummy!

Me and my baby boy!

Getting ready for the parade

my group with all their banners

my son doesn't give us time to pose, he just starts snapping pictures LOL

Now we're ready! 

Scooter races

cone/ball race - hopping on 1 foot

Belly Ball

My son has a heart as big as the Egyptian Pyramids - this young lady is a 4th grader from another class and none of the kids would be her partner for belly ball so my son stepped in there and was her partner - he encouraged her all the way! I am SO proud of the young man he has become.

Here they are coming around to the end of the course

getting ready for the foot races

Lets go girls!

There goes the boys!

bat relay

Literature Circles

Since we are all finished with state testing I have been trying to figure out what is the best use of time for my reading block. We are currently reading "Hoot" as a class and we have been doing class novels all year long. So I thought I would try something new and do literature circles. I have never done them before but I thought that since we have sort of been doing them all year long as a class that maybe it was time to let the kids try it on their own as well. SO I found some great resources on Teachers Pay Teachers for literature circles (sorry the link is on my school computer) and I made a folder for each group and let them choose their book and explained to them the expectations. They were so excited! They did so well choosing their jobs for the week and figuring out how many pages they needed to read each day to meet the goal of finishing the book buy the set date, and they started reading.  I am thinking, if this goes as well as it did today, this may be something I begin to implement every year after our state testing. Below are some pictures of my kiddos in their literature circles. Since this is all new to me if you have any advice for literature circles please share!

Walk Like An Egyptian...

I have been absolutely MIA lately I have been so busy taking care of my sweet daddy and I set up a family blog to keep family and friends from out of town updated on my dad and posting pictures from our visits. I haven't had much to post either because it has been testing time here in Florida but now I'm back...

Well one of the best times of year is upon us my school does an annual Field Day and every year it is a big deal! Every year we have a theme and each class comes up with a team uniform and cheers and other team building and class spirit things. Then we have Opening Ceremonies where we have a parade and the classes are judged on class spirit and sportsmanship and the kids just have a blast with it! They even have trophies for the classes with the most spirit and creativity. 

My school has only been open for 6 years and each year the themes get better and better. The first couple years it was just colors. Last year each class in the school chose a different college and we used their colors and mascot to define our team. This year our theme is the Summer Olympics and each class in the school had to choose a country that was participating in the 2012 Summer Olympics and my class chose Egypt! We have spent a few days discussing our team name, our uniform and our banners. The kids have all made an Egyptian Flag to carry during the opening ceremonies (just like the real Olympics). The kids have decided that they want our team name to be "The Mysterious Mummies of Egypt" and they want to dress like mummies LOL They are too funny! So I had to figure out a way to make them look like mummies and still have them able to participate in the sporting events that are the main focus of field day. So I got white t-shirts and tie dyed them tan to give them an old look. We weren't done yet...

We enlisted my son (the soon to be art major) to come and help us draw up 2 banners, one with the pyramids of Egypt and the other with the Sphinx. We set up 3 stations and had the students volunteer for a "committee" we had a flag committee, a shirt committee, and a banner committee.

The Flag Committee was in charge of creating a large Egyptian flag banner that we can carry in front of our class for the opening ceremonies

The Shirt Committee was in charge of cutting up the tie dyed shirts to make them look "mummie-ish"

The Banner Committee was working with my son Garrett to create our banners. While Garrett drew the scenes for us the banner committee wrote out each of their classmates' names in hieroglyphics!

The kids are so excited for Field Day on Friday and they have decided that they are also going to use toilet paper to add to the mummy look LOL I can't wait to take and post pictures of them all decked out! Below are some pictures of them working in the committees

Making our Mummy shirts

Having fun cutting up shirts

Flag committee hard at work

Writing a classmate's name in heiroglyphics

Hard at work on the flag

Garrett busy working on our banner

Putting the final touches on the flag