Newspaper star!

Ryan made it to the Indy Star this week!

His 4th grade class is working on a really cool segment in school right now. It's tied to both a geometry section in math, and creative writing for english. They are studying different geometry shapes, and also writing about fairy tales. How do these 2 tie together you ask?

The geometry shapes get made into castles. Students bring in all different shapes/sizes of boxes, cylinders, you name it. This past Wednesday, each student was allowed to bring a 'special guest' to help them construct their castles. Mike went to help Ryan. Ryan's teacher asked if I would be available to help other students whose parents were unable to come, so I helped a boy named Austin. I have to admit, I had a blast! Mike & Ryan had a blast as well! Each student had a list & had to pick a certain amount of different shapes that were to be represented in their castles. Not only did they pick shapes, but also different angles to be represented. Let me tell you, my brain had not thought about obtuse angles in quite some time... had to clear the dust a little! ;) After castles are made, they tie in with the fairy tales the kids are writing in english class! How cool is that?!

On Thursday, the kids painted their castles. What a transformation! Their castles went from looking like a stack of Rice Krispies boxes to gray/red/blue/green castle walls! Oatmeal canisters turned into turrets. Nerds boxes turned into the tops of the castle walls. Toothpicks with triangles glued to them turned into pennants. It was so cool to see the transformation!

On Friday, the kids were able to decorate their castles with beads, glitter, paper, or anything brought from home. I noticed that most of the girls used beads, glitter and cotton balls. The boys had a lot of Lego pieces, dragons, skeletons and gladiators! So funny to see the differences.

Please enjoy this article. While Ryan wasn't featured by himself in any of the pictures, he was in several of them (in the background). http://www.indystar.com/article/20090314/LOCAL0103/903140366/1015/LOCAL01
Be sure to click on the gallery pictures...he's in several of them!

Ryan's 4th grade teacher has been nominated for a "Golden Apple Teaching Award", and this project is one of the reasons WHY she was nominated. She really gets the kids to think outside of the box, all while having fun doing it! She is truly phenominal, and has made quite an impact on Ryan. I have a feeling that she will always be "the teacher" that he'll remember.

Please let me know if you cannot get the link to work, and I'll try to fix it.

Enjoy!
Jenni

"Spritz" the Tree frog

What a week!

Ryan had ISTEP testing all week, and was exhausted.

Brandon had strep throat, and recovered.

Mike met himself coming & going with work & Cub Scouts.

Jenni had a meeting every day of the week.

"Spritz" the tree frog, however, had a much worse week. You see, Spritz led a very boring life. Get up, take a dip in the water, eat some fruit flies, sleep, repeat. Spritz was looking a little thin at the beginning of the week. Spritz wasn't moving around a lot. Spritz was only 1/2 inch long... he never grew!

On Thursday afternoon, while straightening up Brandon's room, I noticed that Spritz was even thinner than usual, and looked like he was a little shriveled. Spritz had passed.

At 4pm I picked up Brandon from his after-school "cooking club" and broke the news. Brandon was upset for about 2 seconds, then said, "Y'know mom, maybe we could sell Spritz's skeleton to the Children's Museum... I bet they'd want it!" That caught me off guard! It was a little alarming to me that my little darling was out to make a buck off of a recently deceased tree frog! There's my little entrepreneur.

At 4:30pm we picked up Ryan from is Math Bowl practice, and I broke the news. He burst out into tears. (Quite the opposite reaction I got from Brandon!) We got home, and Ryan had to check it out... well, both of the boys did. Ryan came down & alerted me that Spritz was still breathing. Sure enough, he was. I felt like a moron for announcing that he was dead.

About an hour later, Ryan came back downstairs to me, crying. He announced that Spritz was dead again. Okay, so I go up to check. Nope, he was indeed breathing again. What??!

So, we left Spritz alone. Honestly, I was afraid to look to see whether he was dead or alive. I was starting to doubt my ability to tell!

As of Friday afternoon, our beloved Spritz had passed. And yes, this time I was sure of it.

A burial was done in the front bushes.

We have, as a family, decided that while raising tadpoles, froglets, and frogs was fun; however, we probably won't do it again.

Let's hope that this next week is a little less eventful!