Hodge Podge

Kerry and Grant put up Christmas lights last night. Grant was pretty proud although most of the labor was Kerry's: I caught Grant eating pickles in the garage while Da-tee was adding candy canes around the flower bed.

Carving pumpkins on the back porch for Halloween.

Grant standing next to my pumpkin. It's a dump truck. Beat that, Uncle Kory!!!

Rhett is "helping".

Look what we made!!!!

Finished product. I'm still pretty proud of my dump truck. It's one of those things I thought I'd never do because I was only going to have daughters, remember? I think it would be fun to carve a princess crown or a castle, but I must admit that I had a jolly good time making my boyish dump truck. As hoped, Grant really liked it. Who needs princess crowns and castles anyway???!!!

Introducing the Amazing Grant and his new magic trick!

(he's trying to catch a Cheerio in his mouth)

My sixth language and literature students have to do a Greek Myth project when we have completed our Greek myth study. It's quite a challenging project that covers the three domains of learning (cognitive, affective, psychomoter). It also demands research, creativity (they have to draw or construct it all - nothing can be traced or printed off a computer), Biblical applications, scientific principals, Greek mythology (DUH!), synthesis and analysis of material learned, and very specific guidelines that I'm sure no one cares to read about (except for me because I'm a DORK and I think this kind of stuff is tooooooo awesome). Once again, I was blown away by the kids' projects. I'm a pretty hard person to please when it comes to projects as they not only have to look good, but I expect the mechanics to be flawless and the content to be exact. If you are not a teacher, than you have NO IDEA what a feat this really is. To get quality work from students, sadly enough, is almost unheard of these days, and the parents accept poor effort. I, on the other hand, do not.

And without further ado, here are some of my favorites from this year. And yes, despite what you heard growing up, teachers DO have favorites.

This one (below) was JAW DROPPINGLY good!!! Not only was it 3-D, but it was interactive. I mean, HOLY MOLY - this kid MADE MY DAY!! I think I will add this to my rubric for next year. How cool to have all of them include 3-D and interactive aspects??!!! I can't wait until next year to try it out!! (Bummer! These pics don't do these projects justice.)

Does anyone else get totally pumped about Greek mythology other than myself?? And, how cool was it to actually see art (paintings, sculptures) during my visit to the Louvre in Paris this summer??!!