Samantha's first blog

pamelamyers | June 16, 2017

Today was Sam’s last official day at the SLC! We are so proud of our incoming 2nd Grader! Here’s some shots of her last day at her bus stop. She is both sad…

…and happy!

Sam will miss riding bus 17 with Mr. Corey and all of her friends – Alyssa, Kate, Benjamin, Annabeth…she made so many friends on the bus this year. From start to finish, she loved it every day. I really though the appeal would wear off, but it didn’t, not one bit.

Sam came so far this year in first grade. It is amazing to me how when she started she could barely read at all. Her books had about 5 words per page, and were about 10 pages long, if that. Now she is reading such complicated words, and reading early chapter books! She knows so many things, and was always coming home from school and spouting facts at us about the world, nature, science, math. I can’t get over how much their minds absorb at this age. Samantha, we are so proud of you. You amaze us every day with how smart you are, how kind, how funny, how sweet. We know that moving on to a new school is going to be scary and strange, but we have no doubt you are going to be a star! And we’ll be with you every step of the way. I can’t wait to see you thrive in your new environment. Second grade, look out! Sam’s on her way!

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pamelamyers | June 14, 2017

Well, I just attended my last event at the SLC. Actually, I just stepped foot into the SLC for the last time. Ever. Wow. That is a weird feeling. Sam had her end of year party today and all the parents were invited. It was fun seeing her with her classmates one last time. There was a slide show of photos from the year, then her teacher gave all the kids awards. The awards were all named based on candy bar names. Sam received the Nestle Crunch award, for always being willing to help out and always coming through in a crunch!

After that, they had pizza and pretzels and then went outside to play some water balloon games. I was actually pretty impressed that none of the kids threw water balloons at each other, even though they expressed a desire to do so, many times!

Their first game was to carry the water balloons to a bowl and break it in the bowl. Whichever team filled their bowl first won. The boys beat the girls, unfortunately!

They had such a great time being outside. Thankfully, our heat wave is over. This was the first day in a while that it wasn’t in the 90s! It’s a good thing too — the air conditioning in Sam’s classroom wasn’t working. Boy it was hot.

They played a game where they raced to roll a balloon to a line using only their nose, chin or head. It was a tough one, but Sam managed.

A lot of the kids had trouble carrying a balloon between their legs without it breaking, but somehow, Sam flew! She was the fastest kid in the class!

Their last game was tossing a balloon back and forth with a partner over and over and trying to not let it break. Whichever team was the last one with an unbroken balloon won. Mrs. Hall, her teacher, played too, and won!

They played the game twice, and the second time, when only two teams were left, Mrs. Hall’s and another, all the kids lined up and chanted, “Go, Mrs. Hall! Go, Mrs. Hall!”  A bunch of kids, Sam included, ran up to her and hugged her when the game was over. It was pretty darn adorable. I remember at the beginning of the year, Sam was having trouble adjusting to school, and so often she would say to me that she wished Miss Cipolloni, her kindergarten teacher, was her teacher this year. Now, she thinks Mrs. Hall is the greatest teacher ever. What a fantastic year Samantha has had. I am so happy she loves school. This was a great way to end it. Only two more days to go (well, one full day and one two hour day) and she’s outta there!

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pamelamyers | June 13, 2017

Today at school, their balloon activity was that they all got to go outside and draw with sidewalk chalk and blow bubbles. (Yesterday was beach blanket day and they all laid around like they were on the beach). Sam begged me to go over to the school after dinner so I could see their drawings. I must admit, I was curious and if I waited until the next day, it likely would be smeared from kids running all over it, or gone completely if it rained. Off we went! The kids at her table made a picture together of Dinosaurland.

This is a portion of it. Sam drew the pink rocketship, the green pterodactyl and the red T-Rex.

Here is the whole picture. She explained to me that the bottom left shows the island. Her friend Teagan drew the trees, but Sam added the coconuts. The brown spot on the island is the escape hatch so that the dinosaurs don’t go extinct. Why extinct, you ask? Oh, well, you can see in the middle the giant volcano spewing lava. The red and white ball sort of things in the sky are meteors. So, there you go. Lava and meteors may cause extinction…I am not sure why there is a rocket ship. Sam didn’t really say. But I do like their picture! We walked all over the school and there was chalk everywhere, but honestly, none of the other classes or kids did anything this detailed, and it certainly didn’t look like they worked together. I am proud of Sam and her class!

After looking at the drawings, Sam wanted to run the ABC walk. This has always been one of her favorite things.

One more time for me to see her on the monkey bars…

…and off to the treehouse, where the kids blew their bubbles.

Sam is going to miss the SLC so much, and so are we! It is such a nurturing, amazing place. I  hope she loves her new school just as much.

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pamelamyers | June 11, 2017

We have noticed a lot of birds building nests recently in the various birdhouses in our trees and on other people’s property. We got a chance to peek at some baby birds poking their little heads out of a neighbor’s birdhouse when the mama bird came to feed them. Sam loved it! Then, to make things better, I discovered that there were baby birds in a birdhouse that we have inside some of our arborvitae bushes in the backyard! That birdhouse has been there for years and years and there is never a single stick in it. I just checked it a few weeks ago and thought about taking it down and moving it. Well, someone quickly moved in and had a family! I lifted Sam up so she could peek inside to see the baby birds (which were the cutest little things ever) and she could not have been more excited.

Our next door neighbors on the other side went down the shore and asked me if I could water their hanging baskets while they were gone and when I went to water them I noticed that a bird had built a nest in one pot, which seems to happen in his pots every year. It didn’t take long for the mama bird to lay her eggs. I showed Sam and now she cannot wait for them to hatch!

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pamelamyers | June 10, 2017

Sam has been really into riding her bike and also her scooter this spring. We have been really adamant about her wearing a helmet every time, even when she roller skates. We always wear helmets when we ride bikes too as a good example. She is so funny – whenever someone rides down our street without a helmet, she is always yelling that they are not being safe! She was goofing around the other day with her doll, Baby Ann, and having her ride the scooter. It was funny because our driveway slopes a little bit, and the scooter (with Baby Ann tied to it) kept rolling down the driveway and away from Sam. She kept pretending that Baby Ann was going off on her own without permission. Anyway, the other day, Mark made a comment about how Baby Ann wasn’t wearing her helmet and Sam tried using this old hat of hers (which was 1,000 times too big for a doll). I started wondering if they make bicycle helmets for dolls….of course they do. Voila! Baby Ann is safe now. 🙂

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