My Creative Family Fun: What's going on in Athens TN?

My Creative Family Fun: What's going on in Athens TN?: Upcoming Events in September 2014: Dolly Parton Imagination Library 10-year Celebration.  When: Saturday Sept 20, 2014 10 a.m. to 2 p....

Let's go Hokies!!!!

As Summer turns to Fall each year, my husband’s favorite thing happens… the College Football season gets under way!  Now I have never been much into football, though I did go to many a game in High School as part of the marching band and I have joined my husband at Lane Stadium for a few college games now too, but the smile it puts on his face to hear “Enter Sandman” start playing and see his Hokies take the field is a priceless gift I get to see year after year.

Today marks the beginning of the 2014-2015 football season for the Virginia Tech Hokies.  This is the 50^th season the Hokies have had the honor of playing in Lane Stadium and they will be playing against the same team this year for the season opener that they did for that first opening game 50 years ago.  The game starts today at 4pm EST and will be broadcast on ESPNEWS, when they face off against William & Mary for their season opener.  We are hopeful that we will see a win and start this season off right!

 

For those fans that want even more, there’s an app for that, leterally.  This year Virginia Tech has partnered with IMG and Sportslabs to create a Game Day app available FREE in the Google Play Store and Itunes store.  This new app will feature live game audio, live conference and top 25 stats, as well as helpful resources for the fans attending the games.  Another addition for Hokie fans this year is the premier of the Hokie Village across from Lane stadium where fans will have free access to games, concessions, campus displays and the Hokie Spirit Team (1230-130)!  Even if you can’t make it to the game it is a great festival for Hokie fans of all ages and open to the public.

So if you’re not decked out in your Hokie gear already the clock is ticking ….What are you waiting for?  Let’s see some Orange and Maroon!

Proud Momma Here!

I am super excited to announce that Aiden has been selected to participate in the City Park Book Club for 2014-2015.   At the beginning of the school year each student is given a STAR screener ( a universal test to determine their academic standing.) Then the school selects 10 first grade and 10 second grade students from the school to participate in the book club, based on their STAR results.

I am so super proud of Aiden and I really hope he enjoys this experience.  The Book Club is going to be working in groups to create either a fiction or non-fiction book with text and illustrations for submission to the Scholastic Kids are Authors competition in March of 2015.  This is a national competition hosted by Scholastic and the winning books are featured at the Scholastic book fairs and awards are given to the group and the school.  In addition students will create and publish an individual book for the Young Author’s Conference in February 2015.  Then they are going to round out the year by having students create and publish their very own e-book or professionally bound book.  The students in the Book Club will be collaborating with one another along with extending and accelerating their reading and writing skills throughout the year.

At first when I told Aiden that he was going to get to be in the Book Club his response was “I hate reading!”  But, once I read the letter that was sent home to him, his excitement blossomed and he truly looked happy and honored to be a part of this special group.  Even though Aiden says he hates reading, one of his favorite “specials” at school is library day and right now his favorite books are the ones in the Black Lagoon series by Mike Thaler.  I can’t wait to see the books he works on and hear his feedback once they get started.

Let's talk "punishment"

If your child is anything like mine he likes to push the limits and see just how much he can get away with.  As a result his behavior is our biggest challenge.

 At Aiden's new school they have a 5 card behavior system.  All of the children start on green card at the beginning of the day.  If they misbehave and are told to stop and either continue or repeat the same action they get a card pulled. 

There are green, yellow, orange, red and blue cards, each with different consequences including having to sit out of activities, notes to parents, parent/teacher conferences and removal from the classroom.  At the end of the week a behavior chart is sent home and marked with any wrong-doings for the week and coded with the type of misbehavior.  (FD= Follow directions, T=talking, R=respect, and H/F=hands and feet to self)  If the student stays on green card every day for the week they get a sticker on their sheet and a special prize. 

We have not gotten a whole good week yet, but we are doing everything we can think of to get through to our son and get him to realize it is very important to follow the rules.   Surprisingly enough Aiden has not gotten a card pulled for talking, but he has gotten his card pulled for the other three individually 2-3 times a week.  I started just trying to reiterate the rules each morning on the ride to school, like the drill sergeant mommy I am, hoping that it would help. I took away a couple of after school playground play times and a trip to the big playground, but when Aiden had 3 yellow card days week 3 vs. the 2 he had gotten week 2 I decided we needed to try yet another punishment to see if we could get through to him.  For two weeks now he has gotten his daily "rules drill" and had to write sentences related to his behavior chart as his at home punishment for misbehaving at school.  

We make him write "I will keep my hands and feet to myself.", "I will respect other peoples things.", "I will follow directions all the time." and to add insult to injury we added "I will be honest about my card color." to the list this week as well.  He has to write the respective sentences 6 times each time  that behavior shows up on his chart, before we will sign his behavior chart.  Then we send the sheets to school give his teacher the comfort of knowing we are trying to work on this at home too.

I hope Aiden did learn an important lesson about honesty this when he ended up writing 6 extra sentences, because he "forgot" (lied about) what color card he had.... twice (on Tuesday and Wednesday)...annnd by the time he was finally done writing his sentences only one of the neighborhood kids was still around and he left after 20 minutes. If it had just been one day, I may have actually shown him mercy and let him off with a stern warning. Since he tried to confess to lying about at least one day and he mentioned that two days had yellow strikes on them at bedtime on Thursday, though he couldn't remember what he did and he only fessed up to having his name on the board once this week, I only made him write the honesty statement 6 times. 

It seems like we are making an impact since there was an improvement in the number of days Aiden behaved at school last week, but only time will tell.  Now as long as he continues to improve on his honesty and behavior, we will  be heading in the right direction.  

Aiden is doing Really Awesome academically and I have some fantastic news to share about that tomorrow, for now it is getting late and time for me to sign off. I hope you have enjoyed this article and as always feel free to leave any comments, feedback or suggestions.  I love getting to hear from my readers. :)

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Library Fun this week!!!

The girls and I actually got to go to two programs at the library this week since Head Start still does not have their classroom operating on a full schedule yet.... 


On Monday we went to "Tunes for Tots" which was very relaxed, there was a basket of books for the kids to choose from and the Librarian read to them and prompted them with questions about the books as the girls browsed through the choices.  Once they were done with the books we listened to children's songs and danced and played with bubbles for the remainder of the hour.

This is a new program at E.G. Fisher Library held at 1:30pm on Mondays.  Since it is so new and word has not spread well and we were the only ones there this week, but we are hoping that after the Labor Day Holiday more children will join us for reading and songs (and bubble blowing, oh my).

 On Tuesday we went back to the library for "Preschool Story Time" held at 10:30am each week.  At this program there was some music at the beginning and then 3 stories followed up by a craft at the end.  During the stories each child had a carpet square to sit on, which seemed to help a lot with getting the kids to sit still through the stories.  The girls really enjoyed getting to put animals on the felt board as "Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What do you hear?" was read.  The last book we listened to was "The very clumsy click beetle" by Eric Carle and then we go to make click beetles of our own.

(Emma's left, Isabella's right)

To make a click beetle of your own all you need is a paper oval, a clothes pin, 3 pipe cleaners, some glue and some crayons.  You want to start by drawing a face and coloring the body of the beetle.  Then take the pipe cleaners and wrap them around the clothes pin to make the legs.  Last you glue the clothes pin to the bottom of your paper oval and let dry.

 Aiden, my son, would have really loved this story.  He has played with many click beetles, though we always called them "popping bugs" because they would pop off the ground or out of his hand.  I think the proper name is even more fitting. :)

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We moved!!!

As many of you already know, my family and I have recently moved to Tennessee.  We had been renting a home from my Mom, but she was ready to consolidate some of her assets and as you can imagine it's nearly impossible to keep a house "show ready" with my family living there, so we knew we had to move so that she could sell the house. "Where to go?" was the next choice that needed to be made.  My husband had graduated from college after 3 long years and was more than ready to go to work, but he didn't like the options in our hometown.  So we decided to start a new adventure and a new chapter by moving away from the security of our family and hometown area and try out something new.

 We looked into Colorado, North Carolina and Tennessee, but ultimately we decided that we wanted to give TN a try, so we packed up the house and set-out to find a new home.  Now ideally, we would have found new employment and a new house before moving, but we have always seemed to take the road less traveled and we chose to wing it instead.

 With our three kids in tow, we set-off for my best friends house to set-up camp.  For 5 days we stayed in tents in her back yard while we tirelessly searched for a new home to put our things in (with a 26' truck packed to the gills we really did not want to put it in storage even for a short time and then have to move it again).  It was really challenging to find someone to rent to us with no income source, but finally we found just that person and were able to move into our new house.

We have been in Athens, TN for a little over two months now and I have lots of stories to share, but for now it's time to head out to E.G. Fisher Library for "Tunes for Tots" with the girls.  I can't wait to fill you all in on our trials and tribulations through this adventure and share with you all the awesome "Free and Cheap" things around our new home.