Some February Goings On

February 6th, 2019, 6:44 am
This was one of those mornings when everyone took a turn helping to shovel.
(Usually, Ben does most or all of the shoveling himself because he's awesome.)

The kids' school this year doesn't have a PE teacher so one of the ways for parents to volunteer

(and try to meet their suggested amount of volunteer hours) is to teach PE.  I have been teaching both Eliza's and Luke's PE classes twice a month since the beginning of the year.  Honestly, it's not my favorite thing to do, both because it pulls me way outside of my comfort zone and because I have no idea how to manage a class of kids who I see infrequently enough that I can't recall more than a few names.  BUT it's good to be there and see my kids with their classmates and all of that.  And even though Eliza said that the other mom who teaches PE is more fun than I am (actually, she said that a lot of kids say that) I think she and Luke both like that I come.

Luke's class does Cosmic Kids Yoga videos on a regular basis.
My kids have done these before but now Luke has done enough of them that
he recognizes poses on magazine covers in Target, etc.  It was cute to see him
follow along with a video at home the other day.

One Saturday in February we had a boys' date and a girls' date.  I had tickets to take the girls to see a BYU Young Company production of Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors and Ben took the boys to see "The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part."  The boys had a blast at the movie!

Eliza would have preferred to go to the movie with the guys and I finally agreed to let her do that, but there weren't any seats near the tickets Ben had bought for the movie.  So Eliza sadly attended the play with Cat and me.  This was a fun beach-movie adaptation of the play and since it was geared toward families and children, Eliza was able to sit on the floor in the very front and even interact with the actors during the show.  The play was shorter than normal, too, and used props in very creative and funny ways.  We were all thoroughly entertained.  Eliza had such a good time that she collected as many autographs from the cast as she could when the show was over.  (But she still wants to see Lego Movie 2.)

One idiom that was omitted from the above collection: No rhyme or reason, which I noticed during this play.

During reading time one day Luke preferred flash cards over books.
After reading the words he started putting them in groups and making up little stories.
I only wish I'd written down what he said, because of course I can't remember.

My birthday present was that our whole family went to see the Broadway tour production of Wicked in the new(ish) Eccles Theater in Salt Lake.  We had way-in-the-back seats and made use of binoculars during the show, but loved it nonetheless.  The actors (especially Jackie Burns as Elphaba!), the sets, the costumes, the special effects, and just the atmosphere were awesome.  Everyone had a great time.

Luke's Kindergarten class celebrated their 100th day of school by doing a craft with 100 items each kid was supposed to bring from home.  After I named a few small items that would work, Luke was excited about chocolate chips.  Here he is counting them out the day before.  This fell on the same day as "Dads and Doughnuts," which was basically a time for dads to come to the classroom and hang out with the kids and do some school activities together.

Jack is required to complete a book report each term.  The book for term 3 had to be in the historical fiction genre, and the book report was in the form of a printable dodecahedron, with each side being a specific aspect of or reflection on the book: a cover drawing, a summary, three character spotlights, things you learned from the book, who you would recommend it to, a written review, etc.  Jack read War Horse by Michael Morpurgo and enjoyed the process of completing the sheets for the dodecahedron.  He was particularly proud of the horse drawing in the top picture.