Butterflies take over the Hill/Box Cluster

Today was the day that our butterflies emerged!  The kids were so excited to see the butterflies begin to come out of their chrysalis.  Here are some pictures I was able to snap!

a butterfly that had just emerged from its chrysalis

Mrs. Hill explaining to the students what is happening

They were so excited!

A view from the bottom of the butterfly net looking up

The bottom of the butterfly net.

Mrs. Hill took a few of the butterflies out and placed them on a plant in our room.  Amazingly they stayed there all day!

 They have been such great observers the past few weeks just waiting for this moment!  It was so great to see how excited the kids were! 

Moundville

This year our "year long theme" has been changes.  In October our kids learned about the Native Americans that used to live in Moundville....the kids learned about what life was like back then and what all has changed since then.  During the Moundville Native American Festival we were able to take our class and spend a day at Moundville.  I was so proud of our kids...they did a wonderful job listening to all the presenters and I believe they really learned a lot!

This woman taught us about how to make pottery.

Dr. Hall (one of my former teachers at The Capitol School)

Lantern Festival 2011

This blog post is about something we did back in October......before I even started this blog.....but it was such a cute activity that I couldn't resist writing a blog about it!

Saint Martin's Day is a traditional German holiday that falls on November 11 (you can read more about Saint Martin's Day here).  Since we are an international school and we have students from all over the world we try to have celebrations from each and every culture.

On this Friday we had all the parents and students meet at the school around 5:30.  Every family brought food and we all had a wonderful time talking/eating and getting to know our Hill/Box cluster family.  After we finished eating we all went outside and gathered around a fire pit that our director, Dr. Rountree, brought for us to use.  In the weeks leading up to this the children had worked so hard on creating their lanterns and they turned out adorable!  With help from several of the adults we got all of the childrens' lanterns lit and then we walked around Capitol Park and sang German songs.  It was wonderful to see my students taking part in a tradition from another country and singing songs in another language.  My kids are truly amazing!   Here are some pictures from that night!

And can you believe we had over 20 kids with lit lanterns....not the battery kind....actual fire candles....and not a single person got hurt and nothing caught on fire!  I thought that was an amazing feat in and of itself! 

Tennis

Here at The Capitol School our students are able to have P.E each day.  For our class we break our 23 kiddos into two groups and each group gets 30 minutes of P.E.  Currently our kids are learning how to play tennis.  Our P.E instructor, Coach Moody, is a brave woman to give twelve, 5-7 year olds rackets and tennis balls!!

Here are some pictures Mrs. Hill took of the kids practicing out on Capitol Park.

Let's Go Fly a Kite

Today was a BEAUTIFUL spring day.  The sky was the most amazing shade of blue, the wind was blowing, and it was cool enough you needed a jacket...well cold natured me needed a jacket!

This afternoon as all of the elementary students were outside playing one of the teachers mentioned that it was "perfect kite flying weather".  Fortunately Mrs. Spencer remembered someone had donated some kites to her class some time ago.  So she got the kites and after we put them together we let the kids have fun!  It was a wonderful afternoon.....to me there's no better sound than hearing my kiddos laughing and having a good time.  I took some pictures from my phone...because of course I didn't have my real camera at school today....so these pictures might not be great quality, but I hope you enjoy!

What a great afternoon!  I love (and am so thankful) that I work at a school to where we are able to do something like this.....it was a perfect afternoon!