6th grade

Hannah ended her 6th grade with a bang! Her first year in middle school and first time participating in Spirit Week! She was so excited that she laid out all her outfits for the week a week in advance!

Each day is labeled.. I wonder where she gets that from!

Monday was PJ Day.

Apologize for our messy garage..

Tuesday was Character Day.. can you guess who she is?

She has a badge and holding a donut! .. It's Officer Benjamin Clawhauser from Zootopia

Wednesday was Sports Day.

Go Warriors.... next year!

Thursday was Fashion Disaster.

Apparently wearing glasses is not fashionable!

They ended with their Spring dance: Luau themed!

Oh to be young again!

I Am the Vine

Well she finally let me post this. She didn't think it was a big deal. "It's just an assignment," she says. But I, her mother, wanted to share it.

So here it is:
"An assignment in Emily's Bible class: choose a teaching of Jesus that you find most inspiring/helpful/challenging. Then illustrate it by creating a music video, a still shot slide show or another art form using MacBooks."

NOTE: Matthew and I had no idea she created this video much less knew she was working on a project of this kind. Apparently Hannah said she did work on it at home but I just never noticed! You can tell we are 'very' involved parents! NOT! LOL!

Let her know what you think.

First Day of School...First Day of School... Again!

Yes.. another summer has come and gone and it's time for the girls to go back to school and I to go back to work to do the CELDT test thing at my old school.

Emily, a 6th grader, and Hannah, a 3rd grader (with her inseparable blankie)

With cousin, Marissa, a 1st grader (who lines up in the same playground now)

First day morning pledges with Ms. Robbins her new teacher

Much better than last year...

First day morning pledges with Mrs. Allendar, 2nd grade teacher

What a difference a year makes right? Well... she did almost cry and did complain of a big tummy ache etc.. Thankfully her current teacher was my co-teacher last year when I long-term subbed so she got to know Ms. Robbins very well. It's a nice benefit of attending a small private school.  You get to know all the teachers and it becomes one big extended family.

Hannah with Ms. Robbins with matching boots... both are fashionistas!!

Open House 2012

Every year at KHA, each grade prepares for Open House. It's a big deal at the school because this is the time where the students (or parents) can display their creativity in regards to making a school project. It is also a time where the parents can go visit all the other classes in the school to see what the students are learning or to just check out the next year's teacher or grade for your own child.

Every grade has a theme: Kindergarten is Farm Animals; First Grade is Rainforests; Second Grade is Oceans; Third Grade is Space; and Fourth Grade is CA Missions/Gold Rush/Transcontinental Railroad. For the Middle School (5th - 8th), it's a mix of displayed materials: such as their US State Models and reports (5th grade), International Cities (6th grade), World Architecture (7th grades),  Pig Dissection and Roller Coasters (8th grade) and visual media (they create their own videos such as reenacting a passage from one of their literature books or reenacting an important battle/war in history).

This year Emily made her Open House project in class (her State model was already made in November). Thank you God.. says her Daddy! All he had to do is to help Hannah with her Ocean project.

Hannah's 2nd grade Open House animal she chose was the clown fish.

We are thankful that she did not choose the whale since it is supposed to be 'life-size'. You might think that this is completely made by her daddy... it actually cannot be. You need to take pictures documenting the making process with the child so she actually has to help make it. This is a part of their report. Then she gives an oral report on how she made it to the class.

Matthew makes a significant effort in having the girls have ownership of their projects, age-appropriate of course. He designs it and 'enhances' it where needed.

Below are some of the girls previous projects which are still displayed in the house or in the garage somewhere.

Emily's Kindergarten Theme was Animals so they made a diorama in class.

When Hannah got to Kindergarten they changed it to Farm Animals and it had to be in a form of a puppet. She picked the horse.

S

In 1st grade Emily made a Macaw.

When Hannah got into 1st grade she picked the Amazon pink river dolphin.

For Emily's 2nd grade project she chose the leafy sea dragon and Hannah made her clown fish.

For  3rd grade, Emily made a constellation, the Big Dipper.

4th grade, she made a Transcontinental Railroad. Can the railroad tracks BE anymore straighter?

For 5th grade, she chose her state report to be on Rhode Island, because it's the smallest state in the U.S. of A.

So much more for Hannah to look forward to. And so much more for us to store in our little home. And no, we will NOT be storing a dead dissected pig in the house!

Competition

We woke up early Saturday morning and headed out at 8am to Milpitas Christian School for the annual ACSI Math Olympics. Six schools were represented in this competition along with KHA: Los Altos Christian, Hillside Christian, Alpha Beacon, Valley Christian, and Milpitas Christian. Over 150 students competed.

Emily was a participant and so were many of her schoolmates from KHA. A total of 35 students from KHA participated representing 3rd through 8th grades. Five students represented our school for the 5th grade.

Our great 5th grade mathematicians: Mihir, Charles, Adrianne, Shawna and Emily

Emily competed in the Math-Reasoning portion (which are word problems). There is a Computation portion and Reasoning portion. The kids are assigned to only one portion. They each take 4 tests, 11 minutes for each test.

While Emily was test taking, we went to have a nice breakfast with some of our favorite family members, my cousin, cousin-in-law and their children (our godchildren). Our Munchkin (junior in high school) and Big Fella (freshman in high school) have grown quite a bit haven't they? We are very very proud of them! They'll both be going to Costa Rica on a Missions trip this summer!

It's been a long time that we all got together. Far too long... and never enough time to catch up!

After breakfast, we went back to the school to hear the results.

Emily placed 2nd in 5th grade Reasoning. Boy, was she so happy!

I was a little bit worried that she would expect a ribbon since the first time she competed was in 3rd grade and she didn't get a ribbon (she cried). Of course she also did the computation portion.

Last year in 4th grade she did the reasoning portion and ribboned in 5th place. I wasn't sure if she would get one this year and told her to be prepared to just do her best and not expect a ribbon. The competition is tough. We usually see the same kids there every year especially the ones that get a ribbon. There is one 5th grader from another school (that's also named Emily) whose parents are good friends of my sister and brother-in-law.  She usually gets a ribbon every year. Like I said, tough competition. This year she wasn't competing in the same portion as Emily. Whew.. one less competitor to worry about.

It's tough for the parents too, you know. Now I kind of know how you parents are when your kid is competing in a sport. It can be very nerve-wracking!

So Emily won a ribbon and we are extremely proud of her. She probably got her math smarts from her Daddy since math is my weakness especially word problems.

Her Daddy wants to reward her with a prize. She said she wants a new backyard so she can make it more bird friendly (apparently our current backyard is not bird friendly enough!) So I guess we have to look for a new house with a big bird-friendly backyard... so NOT! She'll have to settle for a bag of bird seed.

CAS

The fifth grade finally went on a field trip. Their first for the school year. They went to the California Academy of Sciences. It was a beautiful clear day in the City.

This is Emily's class (minus two absent students). 21 students total.

Fifth grade at KHA is a part of the Middle School. She has four teachers which she rotates through throughout the day. One teacher for English and History; one for Science and Math; one for Bible and one for P.E. Most of these students she has been with since Kindergarten. The majority of these students were my kids whom I taught in 3rd grade. They all have a very special place in my heart.

So whenever there is a time where I can spend with them, like a field trip, I do.

The rainforest had birds.. of course,. that is Emily's obsession.

Blue -Necked Tanager

Neon colored fish

A gorgeous nautilus

Up on the garden rooftop, we saw huge red-tailed hawks..

Emily has some great friends!

Band Club

The KHA Band performs twice a year in the school's musicals: once at Christmas and once in the Spring. The Band is comprised of two separate bands: the Concert Band (which has the Beginning band members (4th graders) and Intermediate band members (5th/6th graders)) and the Advanced Band (6th/7th/8th graders).

Emily is part of the Intermediate band along with her classmates, Caryn (on clarinet) and Shawna (on flute). Nine of her classmates who were in band last year did not want to be a part of band this year. Yes, it was a huge loss. So I am very proud and appreciative that Caryn, Shawna and Emily kept at it and did not quit.

The Beginning Band has nine 4th graders that are all gung-ho to be in band. And they play really well!

During the Christmas Musical, the Concert Band played two songs while the Advanced band played three songs.

Caryn and Emily, the clarinetists

Over the weekend, both bands had the great opportunity to play at our local mall. They got to wear for the first time their official KHA Band polos in the freezing cold. The sun was not out that day for some reason. The kids were allowed to wear white long sleeve shirts underneath their polos. Emily didn't have one so she ended up wearing one of my long sleeve thermal shirts. Let's say it was very big for her but it kept her somewhat warm.

The Concert Band with Band Teacher Mr. B

We had a good turn out... probably because the majority of the audience were parents and family members!

Emily, Caryn and Shawna

Grandpa and Grandma were one of the first to come and watch! Thank you for coming Yeh Yeh and Mah Mah!

Chris-Myth Busters

Happy New Year! Welcome 2012!

The girls' annually perform in their school's Christmas Musical Performance. This year the musical was entitled "Chris-Myth Busters".

As always, the performances were excellently done. Emily performed on a Thursday and Hannah on a Friday. This year we did not luck out on coming only one night. Both of their classes were assigned to sing on different days. (Half the school sings on one day and the other half the other day). So Matthew and his mom (she especially came to see her granddaughters sing) sat through the performance twice while I sat through it four times (I was subbing the day they had rehearsals so yep I sat through it two more times).

All the grades with the exception of Kindergarten (they sing as a solo class) and 7th and 8th grades (the Junior High are part of the drama and tech teams) have to stand and sing during the whole performance. They memorized and sang nine songs. It was about an hour long. You have to sing and do all the motions or you'd stick out like a sore thumb if you don't participate. I have to say everyone sings and does the motions the whole time. It's pretty incredible the dedication these kids have to make this performance great.

Emily singing with her 5th grade classmates along with the 1st and 3rd graders.

Kindergarten has a special separate performance before the musical starts. They come up to the stage to perform four Christmas songs. They are so adorable! My niece did an excellent job for her first musical. Next year, she'll be singing with all the other kids!

Cute Kindergarteners!

Hannah performing with her 2nd grade classmates along with 4th and 6th graders.

Hannah was laughing at herself when she started a song too soon. She said 'Glory" when she wasn't supposed to.

A very proud grandmother with all her granddaughters plus her silly grandson who tried his very best to keep quiet and occupied during the 90 minute performance.