Samantha's first blog

pamelamyers | May 18, 2018

Back at the beginning of the year when Mark was at school for Sam’s star of the week guest day, and he brought the robots, he had mentioned to Sam’s teacher that he’d love to come back to do another demo for the kids. She thought it was a great idea and suggested he do something when they are in their science unit in the spring. The kids at her age sort of spend half a year on social studies and half a year on science.

They finally set something up after Mark emailed some suggested topics. They settled on doing squishy circuits, which Sam loved doing at home. Basically, it is an experiment that uses a battery pack, Play-Doh, modeling clay, and LED lights. Each table built their own working electrical circuit! They learned about how batteries work and learned about conductors, insulators, and polarity. The kids were freaking out they were so excited. They had a blast doing it! You can really see the excitement on their faces. I was impressed at how well they followed directions , wore their safety glasses (which they all wanted to keep) and they even had some pretty thoughtful questions and comments. After they were done, I left them all a Mad Scientist bookmark to commemorate the day. I think they all went home that day talking about their experiment!

Sam played at home with some of the supplies. 🙂 She loves this activity!

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pamelamyers | May 10, 2018

Sam’s school has an art showcase every year and she has been talking about it pretty much since September. Art is definitely her thing. She loved having an art show in preschool and at her kindergarten/first grade they didn’t have anything (which they should!) so this was a real highlight for her. They have been working on projects for the show all year in art class. I did some volunteering to do the prep work, mounting pictures and so on, and I always hoped I’d get a sneak peek at some of Sam’s work, but I always seemed to have fourth and fifth grade art to work on.

When the day finally arrived I thought Sam was going to burst with excitement! She just about dragged us down the hall to find her art first. This scarecrow they made in the fall. She was very disappointed that she couldn’t bring it home at the time, but she loved seeing it displayed now.

This is her color wheel.

Do you think she is proud?

I did get a sneak peek at her name poster one day when I was guest reader. It was already hanging a few days before the show. I would bet this one is going to be hanging in her room when it comes home! She has been really into personalizing her room lately, hanging things up, applying wall decals, etc. She is getting older now and she definitely is trying to make the room her own.

We walked every hallway to see the displays. Some of the kids are very good!

Outside the second grade classrooms there were pictures of the kids. We spied this one, with guess who making a guest appearance! It always kills me. I am at the school so much more than Mark, but who gets to be famous? Not me!

I was happy to see this picture from her class trip to the police station because I couldn’t be a part of her trip. They look happy (and cold!)

After seeing all the art, we went to the ecology center to see the baby ducks. Sam was super excited about the babies. She can see the ecology center from her classroom window so the kids are always sneaking a peek!

She is always asking me about drawing and really, really wants to take lessons. I have been looking for someone to teach her, but no luck yet. I am going to keep working on it. I loved to draw when I was young and sadly got out of doing it. Sam is not into dance, or gymnastics, or sports, or anything like that and I really want her to have some sort of interest. If it’s art, great. I want to help her to grow in anyway I can. She has her drawing table now, which she has wanted for a while, and now we just need to give her a real incentive to use it. Maybe she will be famous one day!

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pamelamyers | May 4, 2018

Today was PSSA Fun day at school. The Home & School sets up an event to give the kids a fun day after spending so much time on the standardized tests. Even though the second graders don’t take the PSSAs, their schedule is altered a bit because of the other grades taking the tests so they get to participate. There were a number of stations, most with some sort of inflatable, and I volunteered to help out. This was my station. Can you believe this crazy thing?  have never seen such a large inflatable in my life. It was literally like an obstacle course inside with things to climb over, go around and slide on. My job was basically to tell the pairs of kids when to go in so they would be timed right and not all in there at the same time.

Here’s Sam! She said it was really hard to do some of it, mostly because it was horribly hot that day and they were all sweaty and sticky. She had a blast though! I was wondering what she thought about the PSSAs and if she was dreading it or didn’t really care. She doesn’t seem to be that stressed about it happening next year, which is good. She doesn’t like tests, even though she usually does pretty well. I tried to emphasize that they are not anything to worry about and I think the school does a good job of that too. We’ll see next year!

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pamelamyers | April 19, 2018

Sam’s class had her field trip today. In second grade, they do a “walking tour” of Springfield and visit the police station, the Township office, and the library, which conveniently, are all in one area together. It turned out to not be a walking tour since the weather was not great (they rode the bus), but all in all they made it. Only the homeroom parents were chaperones, and I was informed by my friend Alisha that Sam was so excited she was literally bouncing while waiting for the bus. That does not surprise me. 🙂

I think the highlight was the police station but alas, there was a glitch. The kids were supposed to have a behind the scenes view to see the cells and whatnot, but of course, one of the few times anything happens in our town, someone was arrested that morning for a drug related crime and was being held in one of the cells, so they couldn’t take the kids through. Sam was so mad! She didn’t understand why they couldn’t go because the “bandit” was in the cell and it is not like he could get them. Yeah….how ’bout we don’t let the kids traipse by, Sam. No.

The principal, who uses Twitter a lot, posted a thank you to the police department for having the classes there and they wrote back, “It was our pleasure. They are always welcome. We owe them a spin around the jail cells though. Unfortunately a bad guy ruined our appointment.” I doubt the kids will get that spin, but maybe some other time.

One of Sam’s homeroom moms did send me this picture of Sam, which I was so happy to see! My little prisoner. 🙂

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pamelamyers | March 10, 2018

Last night we went to Bingo night at Sam’s school. It was only a few dollars to get in and we thought it would be a fun thing to do as a family. I mean, who doesn’t like Bingo? We didn’t win any of the actual Bingo games, but we did win $55 on the 50/50! So I would definitely say it was a successful night! Sam tried to talk me into giving it all to her, but I said I think $10 is enough, thank you very much!

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