October 1st, 2006

Six years ago today was the worst typhoon in 100 years in central Vietnam. Jazzy was born on that day. August 10 lunar calendar = October 1st solar calendar. After ballet tonight, we are going to have a nice quiet Vietnamese dinner. Already had Jazzy's party in August. Here she is today with Mrs. Walker, her teacher.

Long Day for Jazzy....

School all day, then ice skating lessons- practicing her "Boots" by Nancy Sinatra routine, then Greek Festival for dinner. The Greek Festival is just down the street from us... lots of Greek food, music and dancing... Only had the ipad with me, and photos didn't turn out too well with the extremely bright lights at night... Jazzy still had her school uniform on because she hadn't gone home all day!

Ballet Bun Class...

Who'd have thought there is a proper way to make a bun for ballet class!! Well, tonight I attended a "bun class"!!! The buns have to be just right for ballet:) Class taught by Jazzy's ballet teacher, Ms. Terri.

Jazzy's All About Me Poster

Chocolatier....

So proud of my Jazzy today. She worked all afternoon on a skill on the uneven bars at gymnastics. She needed to master this one move (don't know the name of it) to be able to get to the next "level" in gymnastics. She didn't make it today, but maybe in a few weeks. Now.. as is usual... she is watching cooking shows on U-tube. She pretends to make chocolates and says she wants to be a chocolatier now!!!:)

Star Student...

This is Jazzy's Star Student week! The star student for the week has alot of responsibilities- make a poster about their likes/wishes/family and hang it in the classroom for the week, lead the class in and out of the classroom every day, "teach" the class for a few minutes every day that week, share something from home every day, and probably other responsibilities that I don't know about. Jazzy brought her camera one day, her Native American flute another day, and today... her ice skates. She gave a little talk about ice skating:)) She also "taught" the days of the week and a couple of addition problems. On Friday (tomorrow), they are supposed to bring a book to read to the class. She is taking her Wildlife Explorer book to read about meerkats:) Of course... I forgot the camera:(... but did go back to school later to take a picture of Jazzy and the poster she made. It describes her favorite color- pink and rainbow, her interests- cooking and ice skating, things she loves- Mommy and Jessie, her wishes- a boyfriend for Mommy:))))), and a "cookie maker" which she continuously bugs me for. I don't even know what it is that she wants in that department. Then, we put pictures of everyone on the poster... including her Vietnamese family.

Then, being the room volunteer for the day, I had a few assignments. On Thursday mornings, Mrs. Walker has a list of things for me to do.... other parents too on their volunteer days. Usually it is a list of alphabetizing papers, filing things, making thousands of copies, cutting out about 7000 trees for the bulletin board... stuff like that, then.. working with the kids part of the time. Today my "assignment" was to work with groups of kids on the four seasons. Talk about the 4 seasons and make the craft. Above is the craft (made by Jazzy) that all of the kids made. On other Thursdays, I've read with each individual child, gone over math problems, and made fall apple math crafts that are hanging in the classroom:) Something really funny: As I spoke to/with each group about the seasons and we made the craft, they each started singing that song by Carley Simon... "Winter, Spring, Summer or Fall.. All You Have to Do Is Call.. and I'll be there....etc". I asked a couple kids about it and they said their parents played it on the radio!!! which I found hard to believe since their parents are all 25 years younger than me. Then I asked Jazzy about it later. She said that Mrs. Walker brought the song to school and they all sang it:))!!! So funny.

Funny!

Tonight, Jasmine had a little reading assignment. Before she read this to me, she said very seriously, "Mom, you have to be really prepared. This is a really really sad story. I'll tell you before I get to the sad part":))