Rembrandt-A Self Portrait

This month for picture parent we had many new opportunities to learn about Rembrandt.  We dressed up with the help of Mrs. Wayt, and Mrs. Meadows took our self-portraits.  After the pictures were developed we were able to sit down and draw our self portrait.  Thank you Mrs. Meadows and Mrs. Wayt for making this a memorable experience.  Look at how well they each did!

Good Friday Service

This Friday is Good Friday and there is no school.  What a sweet way to start your Easter weekend than with a Good Friday service.  If your church is not having one or you need a church to attend this Friday, I would love for you to join my family at our church.  The service will be this Friday, April 22, 2011 at 12:00 pm.

Mount Vernon Baptist Church
850 Mt Vernon Highway
Sandy Springs, Ga 30327

We are also having our Easter service at 10:30 on Sunday.  Hope to see you there as well.

The Celebration of a Wonderful Life

 Today, we would have been celebrating my Grandmommy's 87th birthday.  My students keep asking for me to bring in some pictures.  So here are a few of the lady that impacted my life in more ways than just one.  Here is to the best friend a little girl could have ever asked for...

Hard to believe, but that little blondie is me!

Most of the cousins with Grandmommy, Aunt Belle, and my Mommy.

Happy 84th birthday.

My sisters and me with Grandmommy.

My side of the family at our wedding last August.

My last picture with my Grandmommy.

 
Here are a few memories of my sweet Grandmommy:

Grandmommy always had a sound reason why we should or shouldn’t do something, and it never failed that her joyful twist would be added at the end.  For example when I was learning to drive, she was brave enough to let me drive her car and be in it.  She told me that I needed to get in the lane I needed be in and stay there.  Even if that meant that it would take longer because of traffic to get there.  She would tell me that patience is a virtue and then she would chuckle… “On top of that you would be less likely to get in a wreck.”

For Grandmommy tears were easy to fix, just hop in her lap and with in moments they were all dried up, which of course was soon to be followed by a bowl of vanilla ice-cream with Hershey’s chocolate syrup and a cherry.  Of which we always ate the cherry first then we would mash up the ice-cream to make our own version of chocolate ice-cream that was actually more like a milkshake once we were done.

Grandmommy taught me how to fix things.  Which usually consisted of me watching her fix it.  Until later when she needed my help and I would show her how to fix things and she would watch to make sure I was doing it right.

Grandmommy taught me the importance of family.  That you are never too busy to help someone in your family; and if you are too busy, well you better just make time to help them anyway.  There are so many life lessons that we have been able to learn from Grandmommy.  It was just who she was.  Her love and devotion to family was unbelievable.  As we grew up and learned more about Christ it was evident to each of us as her grandchildren that was just who she was, a follower of Christ.  Her life was a quiet steady example of faith in Him.

I will always have fond memories of us in the kitchen.  Grandmommy helped me learn how to make many things from fried okra to cookies.  She let me come over and destroy her kitchen to learn how to make my first birthday cake from scratch, for my mom.  We also spent lots of time together playing with everything in her china cabinet.  I remember how we would take out everything in the china cabinet and recreate her last minute dinner parties.  She would always say, "Keep in mind that your Granddaddy would call me when he was headed home and that guest were arriving with him."  She always had s steady grace about her that never let you know anything might have been rushed or unplanned.

Grandmommy’s opinion was always very important to me, and I asked her what she thought of Cameron.  She told me that he was a very nice young man, and that if for some reason we were to no longer be seeing each other…she would adopt him and I would be stuck with him anyway.  That was her way of telling me that she approved, and later welcomed Cameron into the family.  Of course, the rest is history now.

Spelling, Language, and Food?

A few weeks ago we had the opportunity to put our skills to the test!  I have been waiting to use something I found at the grocery store.  In the snack isle there was something I couldn't resist as a teacher!

So without any hesitation we turned this into a practical, yet yummy time to practice somethings we have learned.   Some started right away to look for clues on how to make certain sentences using contractions, synonyms, antonymns, and homonymns

Here are a few of our yummy creations:

Fractions are FUN!

We have started our chapter on factions and we had a little fun "making a pizza."  Look and see how we started with a whole and how many pieces we ended up with...

First we had the whole pizza with toppings on all of it.

Second we "cut" our pizza in half.  We discovered that the fraction of pizza that had toppings was...

1

---

2

However, that was only enough pizza for two people!  So we had to divide those pieces in half to see how many we would have then.

 

Now we have 4 equal pieces, but what fraction of the pizza still has toppings?  The students very quickly figured out...

2              1

---     =     ---

4               2

We had enough pizza for four people and figured out that half of those 4 would have topping and the other half would have just cheese.  We knew this because we learned that two-fourths is the same as one-half.  However that was still not enough pizza for the whole class, so back to "cutting" our pizza we went.....

Yippee we now have eight pieces of pizza and the fraction of pieces that have toppings are...

4              1

---     =     ---

8              2

Out of our eight pieces of pizza, 4 people can have topping and 4 people can have cheese.  The students figured out faster than I could ask that still meant that one-half of the people would have topping on their pizza and one-half would only have cheese.  So, four-eighths is equal to one-half!  However, you guessed it, we still don't have enough for the WHOLE class!!!  One last time we went to "cutting" our pizza, and.....

We have 16 pieces of pizza!  There are 8 that have toppings and 8 that have only cheese.  That meant that half of the students could have toppings and half could have only cheese.  So our fraction of pieces that have toppings is:

8             1

---    =     ---

16             2 

Finally, we have enough pieces of pizza for everyone in our class.  We had one more problem to figure out.  We ended up with two extra pieces of pizza, because we only needed 14 for our whole class!  The students decided to share with Miss Mackie and Miss Boyd!  

Don't forget to start talking with your child about where else they might see fractions in their daily lives.

The Atlanta Opera Comes to Visit Heiskell

Today we had the opportunity to have the Atlanta Opera come and perform.  The brought "The Pirates of Penzance" by Gilbert and Sullivan.  It was loads of fun to watch and listen too.  There were a few of our students that were able to participate as well!