A Week of Firsts

If July was a relaxing month for me, August has made up for it! I have been busy and am beginning to wonder if I have over committed myself. I'm the secretary for the Awana club at our church. Right now, that is a busy job, but last year, after the initial weeks, my job was not that demanding. Plus last year I didn't really know what we needed to have on hand, so I was constantly having to order more materials. This year I had a better idea of what we needed (and what we didn't) and made a single large order before the club started up again. Also with the year starting back up, I needed to organize the student registry and arrange for a parent meeting.  I also made a student recruitment video and spoke in the chapel at our church's school.  The parent meeting will be next week, and the club started last week.  In between PEP started, where I'm teaching a 12 week class. So all these things are 3-4 days apart and I'm just dealing with "whatever is next" to keep from getting too crazy.

All that said! PEP started today.

A: Excited - mostly about her backpack.  C:  Apprehensive - mostly about his taekwondo class  N:  Pretty pleased to have Mommy all to herself!

The first day went well.  Annalise...she is a complicated kid.  When I picked her up I could tell she had a nice time, but she didn't say much.  Later I told her, "I'm glad you had a fun time" and she answered (with no significant emotion), "I had a SUPER fun time."  She made a paper brain hat and a 3-D bird.

Caleb - very much enjoyed the taekwondo class that he was so nervous about.  I am teaching his class's 3rd hour and I can already tell that I am going to enjoy that all those boys just spent an hour in taekwondo!  Last year I taught the 3rd hour after no physical activity.

The class I am teaching is called My America.  I have to do some classes about the election process, but mostly it just has to be about American things.  I'm doing the first 3 classes on Songs and Symbols.  Today was the flag and The Star Spangled Banner.  I found this great flag craft online and I reeeeeally like how the kids flags turned out. 

Before class I penciled in the corner square and made stripes with masking tape.  Today they used a white crayon to draw stars in the corner and then painted over the corner with watered down blue paint (alternately you could use watercolors).  The white stars just appear as you paint - the kids loved that and it looks nice too.  Then they could paint on the stripes between the tapes.  This one is actually Caleb's, he decided to just paint all over the tape too, but most of the kids didn't.

This is an example of how they look with the tape removed.  I brought them home to take off the tape because in my trials at home, the tape sometimes tore the paper.  I thought that if the kids did it, they would tear a lot.  If you remove the tape very slowly, it helps a lot.

Some of the kids could not draw stars, so I told them to make asterisks. 

We also read a book about the American flag, watch a video of someone singing the national anthem, tried to sing it ourselves, learned how to fold an American flag, and looked at pictures of old flags.  I have no idea how we fit all that in, but that was all I planned too!

Next week is the State of Liberty and My Country 'Tis of Thee.