Summer

Walking to school with friend Laney

Summer has been LOVING school!  One of my favorite parts of the day is after school when we sit and finish her lunch (she doesn't get it all eaten in the time allotted!) and I get to hear ALL about her day!  I am very thankful she likes to talk :).  I have also been loving each time I get to be involved in her class at school.  My favorite was when I got to help their class make applesauce, and I got to watch her teacher in action.  Mrs. Davis is AWESOME!  I am seriously so amazed by anyone out there who can keep so many kindergartners on task and learning in such a fun way!  I also love getting to know her classmates when I come eat lunch with Summer on Thursdays.  I am also so stoked that I get to help some of her classmates with math on Thursdays (seriously perfect huh?!? :) )  A huge thanks to my mom for watching the younger two on Thursdays so I can be a part of Summer's kindergarten class :). 

One fun bit of news from this week was that Summer got to be on the daily announcements!  The kids at Southview (thanks to a grant applied for and received by our awesome principal) have a leadership focus this year as they work through a version of the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, for kids called The Leader in Me.  Each week they learn about one of the principles from that book.  This week they learned about the Win-Win principle, which talks about finding a solution to a problem where everybody "wins".  Summer, all on her own, thought up an example, wrote it out (only requesting help on spelling the word "friend"), and told her principal what she made as she was locking up her bike before school (the principal often waits outside before school to welcome students, and Summer is pretty outgoing ;). 

Summer's Win-Win example

 Her principal then asked her to come read her example on the announcements that morning, and then posted a picture on the Southview facebook page!  Pretty fun.

I have been very proud of Summer as she navigates the road of standing up for herself in a kind way.  We are continuing to work on how to guide her leadership qualities to be a leader in love, as opposed to being bossy, and I see her positively growing in this area as well.  I love her heart for truly wanting to do the right thing.  She has such a tender heart.  Another area I have seen her grow in lately is how she writes her name in lowercase letters.  She is getting much better at her "u" and "m"

Summer's two favorite areas of the kindergarten classroom are the reading corner and the art table (big surprise!), and will usually pick one of those two areas during her free time.  At the art table this week there were steps on how to draw the pigeon from "Don't let the pigeon drive the bus!"  I thought she did a pretty good job drawing it...

Besides school, Summer has also been enjoying AWANA Sparks.  I have been LOVING being Summer's Sparks leader and getting to spend each Wednesday evening with her in a special way.  I love to see Summer's friendly personality shine as she has brought two friends to Sparks the past two weeks and has already invited another kindergartner to Sparks for next week!  These are a few pictures I took on her first AWANA night after she earned her Sparks vest...

She has done an amazing job of loving on her brother when she gets home from school and we are all excited for her first day OFF of school tomorrow for teacher workshops.  I am so pumped to have her home all day tomorrow!  Wahooo!  :)