Juniper was chosen to be student of the week last week, so she got to choose a favorite book to share, a treat, and we could do some sort of optional project with the class if we chose to. After much brainstorming, we chose Stephanie's Ponytail by Robert Munsch. Being the art teacher mom that I am, I was stressed about choosing a project that would be age appropriate, kid friendly, and apply well to the theme of the book. The story is all about Stephanie, who chooses one day to have a ponytail coming right out the back. When she goes to school all the kids say, UGLY, ugly, VERY ugly... but the next day they all come to school with ponytails. Then Stephanie does a side pony, one right on top, one in front, and so forth. The underlying message is that she wants to be an individual, and it is important that kids make decisions independent of other people. Sooooo, we decided to draw a picture of Stephanie bald, and then draw all of the hairdo's to go along with it. I also added a bunch of silly facial features and weird hairdoos that didn't go with the story. When we read it for Junie's class I had June come to the board and add the hairdoos each time they changed. Then, at the end of the story, we had a little game. I added strange noses, weird ears, fangs etc. and had the class give me a thumbs up or a thumbs down to tell me if the additions were actually a part of the story. They thought it was hillarious. Then we passed out copies of Stephanie and her wacky features, and they got to cut out pieces and glue them in place as they wanted. Junie chose to give out Tootsie pops for the treats, because when you take off the wrapper, they look like BALD HEADS! I got excited about this and wanted to glue little hairdoos on all of the lollipops, but June just looked at me like I was an idiot and said, NO! Ugly Ugly VERY ugly. (okay, I may have added the ugly part.) It was fun to be a part of her class.
Big thanks to Gram and Papa for making our St. George trip such a blast. We invited the Williams Family to join us, and we crammed our four kids and their five into one little house, and we had one weekend full of laughs. We swam a ton, did some shopping, had scrumptious meals thanks to Beth and Joel and their hunting, gathering, and cooking skills. The boys had a great time exploring "hawk hill" and "man and woman rock" and "speedboat rock". They also collected a small mountain of "ancient" golf tees. We told them repeatedly not to go on the golf course, and they assured me that they never did. (However Atticus admitted that all the golfers he spoke to were very friendly... I'm not quite sure how they spoke to golfers without setting foot on the course). With all of the adventures we had, only once did we get a knock on the door from a few concerned golfers who had a very cute and Houdini-like two year old in their arms. (Seriously, what kind of a parent let's their child wander like that! ;) We enjoyed some late night adult conversations, which meant the ladies fell asleep at nine and the men chatted until DAWN. (Or rather, Jordan talked, and Joel patiently nodded...You're a good man Joel.) We also visited the quietest library on the planet, followed by the quietest sacrament meeting on the planet... Don't they have kids who tantrum in St. George? My kids could give some detailed tutorials. In short, a good time was had by all.
