Eliza Lately

**At home one day, Eliza had fun making and decorating little cupcakes using clay, mini cupcake liners, and sprinkles.

**Eliza played the part of The Queen of Hearts in her class's performance of Alice in Wonderland after reading the book together.  The cool part about it, though, is that this was not a teacher-organized event.  The kids decided they wanted to put on a play and they planned and prepared it during recess and performed it for their fellow classmembers when it was ready.

**When they finished their unit on Ancient Rome, Eliza's and the other 3rd grade classes had a Trip to Rome activity where the kids were encouraged to dress as Romans and parents had various Ancient Rome-inspired stations for the kids to visit, including Chariot Races (wagon races), a feast (grapes, cheese, etc.), and aqueducts (marble runs with water poured through - this was my station).  I also like this paper Eliza brought home showing the layers of Roman roads, with the quotes "When in Rome, do as Romans do," and "All roads lead to Rome."

**"I left my shoelaces at school."

**A new look.

**This school requires a lot of book reports.  Luke did a few.  Jack did a few. But I'm pretty sure Eliza did the most.  The April book report was supposed to be science fair-like: read a scientific book and put together a poster or presentation board about it.  Eliza chose a book that was a collection of meteorological science experiments.  This is the board she put together.

**After the 3rd grade classes finished reading The Wizard of Oz, they put on a little performance that would probably best be described as a reader's theater/musical.  The named parts were minimally acted out on the front of the stage, almost all of the kids had some speaking part - mostly narration - and everyone sang most of the songs from the movie.  Eliza had a character part: the Wicked Witch of the West. Her main responsibility was to melt at the end, and she did it spectacularly well.  I had a couple of people comment to me afterward saying that they were impressed with her melt.  She'd practiced it at school and at home so I'm glad she pulled it off!  I didn't get a picture or video during the performance because the spot where she was onstage was blocked perfectly from my view but she obliged when I asked her to do it again after the performance.

**I'm so thankful for Eliza's teacher!