Things That Go 'Round

...and more importantly at the fair, things that are round:

Nearing the end of the elementary school era for our family means a break in my hectic volunteering schedule. I'm losing steam, but couldn't resist the end of year trip to Playland.  I don't go 'round anymore, only up and over (I LOVE rollercoasters).  I think she does, too.

Creativity 9

Please indulge me and allow a moment of parental pride here.  Daughter D had her showcase last month, but this time son T gets a shot.

Tomorrow he writes a provincial math exam and that will be the official end of Gr.9.  Last week was locker and classroom clean out so we finally got to see some of his creative work when this came home.

Early in the new year we were asked to pick up a can of stain. For the 'stool' he was making in TechEd (aka wood shop). Details were sketchy...."it's just a stool, you know, one of those stepping stool things".

Uhm, this is some kinda stool!! I was completely floored by this project and am so impressed that 14 & 15 year old kids are making something so complex in their second semester of wood shop.  Previous projects included two turned bowls, a soup-stirrer and a paper towel holder. This seems like rather a large step up (in more ways than one - the seat is 26" high).

But that's not all!  T also had a really inspiring fine arts teacher that assigned really interesting projects so that kids who were not keen or confident in drawing and painting could still find success. There were very cool pictorial collages with photos the kids took themselves as well as magazine images. It seems like ceramics was the big winner for my son, though. He created 2  beautiful bowls for the Food Bank Empty Bowl fundraiser (we managed to 'buy' one back but the other one had been purchased by the time we got there) and this amazing vase.

I absolutely love the colours he chose for the glaze and all of the motifs he used to stamp the clay.

Although he says he didn't realize it at the time, I'm pretty excited about the "K" stamp all over it!

T's definitely got it goin' on in math and science like his mom and dad, but it's great to see that he's been inspired by excellent teachers and creative assignments to work hard at art.

I was thinking maybe next year I could get him working on a sewing cabinet, however he appears more interested in building a Tesla coil for his Gr. 10 personal project.  Just what every parent wants in the back yard: homemade lightening. Yikes.

Golgibody

Nope. Golgi body is not another Word Verification. As you'll see when you leave a comment about how AMAZING T's science model is (coming below), word verification is a thing of the past here at Poppyprint. In over 24 hours since I turned it off, not one icky spam comment offering to enlarge any of my body parts! How come no one's trying to do the reverse? Magic pills for smaller parts, please! Did you see Ayumi and Nina-Lise's comments on that post? Apparently both of them could use one of those words in a sentence and get this: it's the same word!!

INGEN means "green beans" in Japanese AND it also means "none" in Norwegian. That's so much fun. Thanks for all of the comments and advice on that post. Clearly, I am not alone in the word-verification-is-a-pain-in-the-ass club.

Okay, on to my incredible son. Two days ago he came home from school and headed straight to the kitchen, took his own life in his hands by opening the Tupperware cupboard, and emerged with a clear square container. He asked if he could use it. Uhhh, sure! What for? He needed to make a cell. More specifically, a model of a plant cell, for his 8th grade science class. On his own accord, he then headed down to the art area (the place under the stairs where we store all manner of craft kits, pipe cleaners, glue gun, markers, crayons, Perler beads, felt, paper....etc.). Oh, he also asked if I had any whole peppercorns. What?

Look what he made!!!! And he only asked 2 questions. I did nothing (B did coach some hacksawing). Pretty cool.

I've come to learn that any school project involving the glue gun is 100% more likely to be finished before the due date than, say, an English essay. This plant cell model comes complete with recycled bottle caps and a butter tart tin to hold various little cell bits (Michele, are you watching?). You have to understand, while I'm fairly handy with needle and thread, I am not really a crafty momma. My recycling goes in the blue bin, not the art area!

The Mitochondrion is my fav: that was always my favourite cell word in school, too. I like squiggly things.

The nucleus is a golf ball hacksawed in half and coloured with a sharpie. Once the cell project was labelled and safely encased in a protective layer of plastic wrap, T then went about trying to figure out how to stick the other half of the golf ball to some part of his body so it looked like it was imbedded by a killer slice (of the golf variety) gone awry. Boys.....

aren't they awesome?

Cake Walk

There was a fundraising event at D's elementary school today ~ Christmas in Whoville ~ that included a cake walk, photos with the Grinch in his sled, costume contest, surprise jar wheel, beanbag toss, 50/50 draw, popcorn & candy floss, carol singing and crafts. The volunteer parents really got into it and there were great costumes. D rocked her purple wig!

I made two cakes for the ever-popular cake walk. Man, what kids will endure for a free cake!

I just didn't have the energy to create a Whoville cake, so went with a peppermint candy design instead. I traced my 8" cake pan onto paper and drew out the swirly design. Then I cut a template out of a plastic page-protector sleeve (the kind you put in a 3-ring binder) with an x-acto knife and laid it on top of the iced cake. Sprinkled red sugar over the cut out part and then carefully peeled back the template (some icing repair was required in places). There was red sugar all over the kitchen, but it swept up well!

I was tempted to flavour the butter cream icing with peppermint extract, but was advised that "kids think that's gross", so just went with vanilla.

If you're into making a low-cal version peppermint ornament, check out pinksuedeshoe's post!

Winding down....

Our school year is almost at a close. Only 3 full days left and then an hour next Tuesday to receive report cards (why do they do this to us???).

The kids' school has the best sports day every year. Last Friday, the students (and a good number of parents & siblings) came dressed in their house colours. Every member of the same family is in the same colour house. Our family is green. The kids go crazy with coloured hair spray, face paint, hats, wigs, sunglasses...you name it! This year's theme was Hawaiian, so there were plenty of grass skirts and leis on hand as well. House teams spend the morning in friendly competition that starts off with the cheer (Green team rocked it!!), grade relays, parent relays, then group games and finally the grade-level tug of war. This year they had a parents tug of war. The red team seemed to have an unusually high number of beefy firefighter-dads: they won.

I have never witnessed such a display of flexibility from T before!

D is a circus acrobat - the limbo is made for her.

The mass hulahoop stamina contest is a popular one every year, too.

I feel the need to point out that these shorty-shorts were on loan from a fellow green-team cheerleader...they have been returned!

Green team finished the day second overall, narrowly missing the big win that was taken by Yellow for the first time in recent memory! Yay Yellow Team! (we practice good sportsmanship).

This is my favourite shirt of the day, worn by one of our student teachers:

Things will be a little quiet here on the blog over the next week or so. T's elementary grad is tomorrow night, then we are heading up the coast for some R&R with B's sister and on Tuesday, my sister and her family arrive for a week's visit!!! Some long time readers may remember that my sister lives Far, Far Away (not in the land of Heather Ross, but the land of Anne of Green Gables! Yes, she lives on PEI, clear on the other side of Canada!). We are anxiously awaiting their arrival. And cleaning the house. A lot.

It's a good thing my Pfaff is in for it's annual check-up. I needed a little sewing pause to re-charge my creative batteries and focus on some other things that I've let slide....like the vacuuming.

Back soon!

Our Village

The other night our elementary school held a family fundraiser. I won't even start with the sorry state of public education funding in our province, and our school district in particular. Nope. Instead I'm going to focus on the positive. The incredibly hard work and dedication of a small group of parents and teachers who made this event so fantastic.

It was a "Celebrate Your Culture" night. Families were invited to bring small taster food items from their country of origin, or ancestry, to share. Students were encouraged to play music, dance or sing as well. Major success! For $1 per taste, you could sample Japanese Sushi, Chinese friend rice, Mexican tostadas, English scones with clotted cream, Ukrainian perogies, Swedish meatballs, Dutch pannekoeken (with chocolate sprinkles of course....hmmm, wonder who brought those?), African chicken, South African sausage rolls, Korean bbq, Iranian rosewater rice pudding, Italian tiramisu, Filipino spring rolls, American apple pie an a whole lot more. Yummmmmmmm!!!

In addition to the incredible food, there was a silent auction. Each class room had painted a platter with a local 'paint your own pottery' place. They were all beautiful, but my son's graduating seventh grade class really outdid themselves. I could not resist.

Many of the teachers chose a quote as the theme for their class platter...like this African proverb we all know so well that "It takes a village to raise a child". Another one I loved was "Art washes away the dust of everyday life." The fun part of owning this piece of art is that each of my son's classmates drew their own home, many of which he has visited.

That's our little blue cottage up there on the right!

They did such a good job. No word on the final totals yet, but I'm sure we raised heaps of money towards library books, phys. ed. equipment, computers, teacher classroom allowances and many other necessities for school.

Continuing the community spirit, tomorrow is Mom's Creative Day. It's a retreat I started last year for moms from school to spend a day together sewing, knitting, scrap booking, sorting their children's art, painting...you name it, we do it. What a great way to celebrate our talents on Mother's Day!

I hope you all enjoy Sunday and get some time for yourself to create, or watch your children do the dishes for you. Wouldn't that be a gift?!