Well, life so far has been pretty quiet here in the 'hood. I rode the city bus the first time without my parents and that was tons of fun. I am looking forward to riding it again. It is nice to know that I have some way to get around independently. The only problem now is, after riding the bus once, I want to ride it everywhere by myself. But being undereducated as I am, and knowing practically nothing about riding a bus, I would probably lose myself within minutes. Hopefully I will be able to ride the city bus to high school now. Since I am going to Southwest I will have to provide my own transportation, so I will end up biking or riding the city bus. I have always wanted to ride my bike to school so I am looking forward to the fall.
Speaking of high school, on Tuesday night everyone went to Southest for registration. We had some quality family time in the hot stuffy gym. We all felt very left out as everyone around us was waving at friends they knew from thier neighborhoods. But since we come from the 'hood, we knew no one. So to make it look like we knew people we waved our hands frantically at the bleachers on the other side of the gym. Just kidding we are not that pathetic. I did see a few friends from school though. It is nice to know that I will not be the only one from Emerson going to Southwest. I now have some idea of how rigorous this program will be. As I walked in to get my registration form, they handed me a book on how to study in the IB program. Gulp!
To anyone who wants to hear about Emereson, I have some interesting news. First, each kid in our Spanish class has to write a 10 chapter book in Spanish, somewhat like the Magic Tree House books are set up. Does anyone have any good book ideas? Secondly, some of the Emerson student council representatives went to the City Wide meeting today. For those of you who don't know what City Wide is, it is a meeting of all the city's student councils coming together and talking about how we can influence our school community as leaders. Well, we had to create a board showing all of the community projects we have done so far this year. Emerson won first place for the second year in a row! Some of the projects we have accomplished so far are; raising money to send two girls this year to Washington DC for a leadership conference, food drive (2000 items) for St. Mary's shelter, a coat drive (400 items) to St. Mary's, working with kindergartners to read in Spanish, sent Christmas baskets to homeless children, we will be sending Mother's Day baskets to the mothers of those children, we got student picture ID's in place for the middle school students, we want to work with the Heiffer project, and we want to send some money to Sudan (probably women and children support), and lastly we want to organize a park clean-up again at Loring park (the park a block away from school). The final news is that Bill Green, the superintendent of the Minneapolis public schools, is coming to talk to Emerson tonight about his vision for Minneapolis public schools. I am going with a friend because I have some concerns that I want to look in to . When I get home I will tell you if anything interesting has happened.
11 comments:
You know, John Francis is doing IB curriculum down here in Atlanta...and I have to say, it's pretty challenging. He has already done three "reports," that involve researching (which Mom & Dad help him with, of course), writing the report, and then presenting the report in front of the whole class. This is definitely *not* something I was expected to do when I was in 1st grade!! Show and Tell was as far as Mrs. Halvorson went to get us comfortable with public speaking.
Luckily, he seems not ever to get nervous about these speeches; then again, we are talking about the kid who almost got sent to the principal's office a few weeks ago for singing the "Weenie Song" in another teacher's classroom. He's just lucky that the same day we found out about Weenies was the same day he brought home his straight A progress report.
What the heck is the "Weenie Song?" Is it anything like the "Vagina Monologues?"
What a lovely post. It makes a daddy proud. My sisters on the other hand are obsessed with weenies and vaginas.
The Weenie song, for those of you not in the know, goes, "WeenieWeenieWeenieWeenieWeenieWeenieWeenie." Air guitar should accompany this insightful tune, and, in the case of John Francis, if you are not doing air guitar, you have your hands strategically placed over your weenie parts (on the outside of your pants, for goodness sake!).
You might want to record that for posterity/blackmail. Who could forget "The Wiggle?"
Item one: Kysa, are you supposed to use the same characters and concept (treehouse and time transport) for your book, or what? If you have more leeway, it might be fun to do a different "magical" concept, such as an animal (dog, hamster, etc.) or inanimate object (like a car) turning into a human and experiencing an adventure. Whatever you choose could still retain some of its original characteristics - a dog's sense of smell (and subsequent sniffing habits!), a car's tendency to travel only on the road and be most comfortable sleeping in a garage, etc.
Item two: Thanks for the "Weenie Song" lyrics, Jen. Is this something they teach in music class in the IB curriculum?
This is Anika-I like the "weenie song"! (dad, what's a weenie?)
Ditto.
Maddie
Jenn, I didn't know JF was in an IB program. They're starting to crop up more now in the younger grades. Pretty expensive to buy all the texts and train all the teachers, from what I understand. It'll be interesting to see how it goes for Kysa. She was one of 150 students district-wide that got accepted, so we're very proud of that. Who'da thunk that you'd have to 'apply' for high school, send examples of your work, get recommendations from your teachers, and shadow a student for a whole day prior to even being considered. Didn't we do that (actually LESS than that...) to get into college? ...course, I may be the wrong one to ask. I'm STILL in college. They probably wouldn't have let me into an IB program.
Thanks Tracy for the ideas, i will start right away, now that I have something to use.
'Nika, Madster when JF is back up for a visit, he can tell you all about weenies.
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