Reading Bowl 2015

This past weekend was Hannah's last Reading Bowl competition. As of now, she says she doesn't want to continue it in high school. She likes being able to read whatever she wants, even though most of the books she's read for the reading bowl have been extremely good ones! I can totally understand, but it does make me a little sad. It's been a wonderful program.

The parade of schools with our beautiful Tapp banner!

The whole team. 8 of our team members are 8th graders this year, so next year's team will be practically brand new.

Here are the 4 students who have been on the team for all 3 years of middle school. We were trying to recreate a picture from 6th grade.

This is the photo of them from 6th grade. They were all so little!

 





Another School Year Starts

School starts earlier & earlier each year! James started his junior year of high school this morning. 

 

 

 

 

And Hannah started her 8th grade year. 

For fun, here are a couple of pictures from 2003. James' first day of kindergarten.

And Hannah's first day of Mother's Morning Out.

Helen Ruffin Reading Bowl 2014

Last weekend, Hannah's Reading Bowl team participated in their big competition. The team did a great job! Our team size doubled this year. Last year we had about 7 kids on the team, but as the competition date arrived, we lost a few and ended up with 5 students, which was the minimum. This year we had as many as 14 or 15 students during the year, but by the time the competition rolled around, we were down to 11. Of course, we could only have a maximum of 10 students, so we had to use a point system this year. Students earned points for each book they read and each set of practice questions that they wrote as well as for each practice they attended.


Here is this year's team with our beautiful banner.

Hannah and a friend waiting for the round to begin.

My beautiful daughter.

Let's get this round started!

 

 

The teams waiting for the award ceremony. 

Hanging out.

The team with their participation trophy. They didn't place in the event, but they scored 100 points higher than last year. That's 10 questions!

Reading Bowl

Hannah joined the Tapp Helen Ruffin Reading Bowl team this year. This was the second year for the team. James was on it last year & enjoyed it. Here's last year's post about the event. I was excited that Hannah wanted to participate this year. I even stepped up and helped out with it. 

The list of books came out in March of last year. Hannah started reading a few of the titles last spring and over the summer. The books are all from the Georgia Children's Book Awards. By the time the Reading Bowl competition had arrived in January, Hannah had read all 20 books. She "really really really" liked all but one - the one she didn't care for was a graphic novel geared toward boys. Many of the books were not ones that she would have chosen to read on her own. I read about 8 of them. One of our favorites was the Grim Legacy by Polly Shulman. I would love to see a movie version of it!

If you look at last year's post, you will notice that we had a new banner this year. Our friend Eric (Tyler's Dad) designed it and then Chris & I paid for it. We had the best looking banner at the event!

Here's the team. Not only did we have the best looking banner, but we had the nicest shirts, too. The students all brought in a black or orange polo shirt and then we took them to my embroidery contact and she put a logo on them. The polos are part of the school uniform, so they all had them already. Most of the other teams had team t-shirts, but our polos looked nicer! And they can wear them to school as part of the uniform after the event!

The team played 6 rounds with 10 questions per round. Our team did a great job! Here's Hannah taking a Coke break in between rounds.

Four out of the five team members were 6th graders. Their 6th grade science teacher came to watch them. They were so thrilled to see him out of regular school hours!

We didn't place, but the team did show improvement from last year. Here are some of the team members with the banner & participation trophy.

The new list of books should come out in March. We can't wait to start on next year's books.

School Pictures

This year I received a portrait CD/digital copies of the kids' school pictures, so here are their 2012 pics.


James - 9th grade
He has gotten so tan from marching band!

Hannah - 6th grade
We paid extra for retouching on Hannah's pictures because she had bug bites all over her face from a Girl Scout camping trip a few days before picture day! She had at least 5 mosquito bites on her face - definitely worth it for the retouching.

Hannah is a Student of PRIDE

This year at Hannah's middle school, they started the "Student of Pride" recognition. This is part of the school's character education and students are recognized quarterly for outstanding behavior.

Two 6th graders were chosen at the end of the first week of school for showing outstanding Leadership, one boy and one girl. That girl was Hannah!

Last week, the first quarter PRIDE students were honored at a special breakfast with the mayor of Powder Springs.

Here is Hannah with Mayor Pat Vaughn.

Hannah shaking hands with principal Dr. Walker.

Mayor Vaughn spoke to the students about character.

Here is a group photo of the first quarter PRIDE students with the mayor and principal.

We are very proud of Hannah, but not at all surprised!

Middle School Lockers

One of the things that Hannah has been most looking forward to about middle school was getting a locker. The school didn't issue lockers for the first 2-3 weeks of school. The wait was difficult for Hannah, but a few weeks ago she finally got her locker. She is a pro when it comes to opening it. Today she installed some extra shelves in her locker before school when I was there doing PTSA stuff, so I took a picture of her with her locker.

Back to School

It's back to school time at the Vesper house and this year both kids start new schools. James is starting his freshman year and Hannah begins middle school.

James posed for one picture this morning. That's all I could get from him. And Chris is in the background, too!

Hannah was more than happy to pose for a picture. She was super excited about having to wear uniforms this year. We'll see how long that lasts! I am very glad that the school added navy this year!

She insisted on posing with Snickers, too. I was able to get Kay-C in the background.

In Powder Springs, the elementary schools start first. So for the first time in 9 years I didn't have to get anyone out the door before 7 am. It was very nice to sleep in a bit longer! I think I'm going to like that!

Here's to a great 2012-13 school year!

5th Grade Awards Day & 5th Grade Walk

Today was Hannah's last day of 5th grade. We went up to the school for the awards day and the 5th grade walk.


Here's Hannah with two of her friends before the awards ceremony started.

 Here's Hannah with her President's Award for Educational Excellence.

Hannah holding her class award for "most creative".

She also received an award for perfect attendance. 

Then after the awards ceremony came the 5th grade walk. The 5th graders walked down all the halls to say goodbye to the former teachers. Hannah had a dozen roses to hand out to her old teachers as she saw them.

Hannah with her kindergarten parapro, Mrs. Waymon.

Her kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Hooks.

1st grade teacher, Mrs. Alred

2nd grade teacher, Ms. Hahn

3rd grade teacher, Mrs. Ribeiro

4th grade teacher, Mrs. Gilbert

5th grade teacher, Mrs. Collins

Art teacher, Mrs. Glover

 
5th Grade Science teacher, Ms. Brazell

 Target teacher, Mrs. Hamilton and Speech teacher, Mrs. Gordon

The walk was pretty emotional. I teared up quite a bit and Hannah was bawling after a while. It's hard to believe that we are finished with elementary school. As of this afternoon, we have a middle schooler and a high schooler. To be honest, I'm really not old enough to have kids that old! :)

8th Grade Awards Day

Today was the 8th grade awards day at James' school. We had received a letter saying that James was going to receive an award, but we weren't told what award he would be getting. We were completely surprised (and so was James for that matter), that he received 3 awards.

Here is James with his awards.

Mom & Dad with James.

This was award was presented by the media specialist and a surprise to me. I am so happy that James has been reading this year!

We were expecting the Perfect Attendance Award.

His third award was for Business Education. I am so proud of this one because this is the career pathway that he has chosen for high school. James wants to be a video game designer.

It was an emotional morning. My eyes teared up on several occasions. He has one more day of school and then my baby boy will be in high school!