Great News!

Here's the update I promised in my last post.  Scholarship night was last night at the high school.  The students at Arlington High School have earned more than $800,000 in grants and scholarships.  Alyssa was honored for being in the top 10% of graduating seniors in the state.  She also received recognition for the Presidential Scholarship she received from Eastern Washington U.  Last night we found out that she had earned a $2000.00 scholarship from the Kiwanis Club and $200.00 from the teacher's union.  She's a great kid!  It was amazing to see so many kids recognized, including some of my former students.

You might be wondering why I am posting in the middle of the day. Well it's that lovely time of year again when I have to torture my students with our lovely No Child Left Behind test.  Today is day two of writing.  The 9 and 10 year olds at my school have to plan, compose, revise, edit, and write a final draft of a 5 paragraph essay today.  We started at 9:30 this morning.   Most of the 4th graders finished by 1:30.  Now I have the final 11 kids from all the classes in a side room still writing.  They have had snack breaks and lunch, but no recess today.  That's part of our test security protocol.  Someone somewhere thinks that 9 and 10 year olds might talk about their test if we give them recess.  They don't know kids very well.  All of my students can come up with lots of other things to talk about.

Spring Update

I can't believe that it's been more than a month since my last post.  Sorry readers.  Yesterday all the fourth graders at my school spent a sunny day at the beach.  It was warm and sunny with no wind at all.  The Beachwatchers from the WSU Extension Service ran stations for the kids and helped them identify creatures. I'm posing here with my student teacher, Kate. The most exciting part of the day was siting a young gray whale playing just off the pier in Port Susan Bay.

Noah and Alyssa enjoyed fried ice cream for dessert when Mom and Dad came up to celebrate Noah's 14th birthday.  They got to see a track meet and try out our new bakery.  Very yummy quiche and lemon bars at the Blackbird Bakery.  

Noah has made great progress with his track events this year.  He has taken 12 seconds off of his 400m  time and has formed a 4x100 relay team with some of his friends.  Shot and discus were supposed to be his only events, but he decided to try some running events and found that he liked them.  We even bought him spikes which really seemed to help.  They make him run on his toes.  He has one last regular season meet and then district prelims. He should participate in the shot and 400m at the prelims. 

The march to graduation continues for Alyssa.  She has completed her AP calculus test so math class is just marking time.  They have no more work to do.  She has 19 school days left.  Noah and I have 24.  We are getting her announcements ready to mail this week.  The third week of June will be very busy.  Alyssa graduates June 15 and Noah's 8th grade recognition night is the 17th.  We're having a graduation party for Alyssa on the 12th.  We'll find out which scholarships she has earned May 18th.  I promise to try and post more regularly.