Olympic History

This week I started teaching my class about how to read nonfiction books. I used a printable book that is on a medium level for them that was about Olympic Legends. The book talked about 5 legendary athletes. We had a big discussion about the Olympics in my class, here's the shocker...none of them knew they started today!

Anyway, they were all very interested in it and I was able to find clips on You Tube to show them about the Olympians we read about. We even talked about the Jamaican bobsled team (Cool Runnings....that's next on our Netflix list now!)

It was very fun to talk about it with them and to see how amazed and excited they were about it, hopefully they'll watch a little of it too. I've now gotten more into the Olympic spirit myself and have been reading up more on Beijing on the official Olympic site. I love the mascots and what their names mean:



Like the Five Olympic Rings from which they draw their color and inspiration, Fuwa will serve as the Official Mascots of Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, carrying a message of friendship and peace -- and good wishes from China -- to children all over the world.

Designed to express the playful qualities of five little children who form an intimate circle of friends, Fuwa also embody the natural characteristics of four of China's most popular animals -- the Fish, the Panda, the Tibetan Antelope, the Swallow -- and the Olympic Flame.

Each of Fuwa has a rhyming two-syllable name -- a traditional way of expressing affection for children in China. Beibei is the Fish, Jingjing is the Panda, Huanhuan is the Olympic Flame, Yingying is the Tibetan Antelope and Nini is the Swallow.

When you put their names together -- Bei Jing Huan Ying Ni -- they say "Welcome to Beijing," offering a warm invitation that reflects the mission of Fuwa as young ambassadors for the Olympic Games.

Last, but not least, I'll leave you with one of my favorite Olympic moments:(Apparently I'm retarded all of a sudden and can't figure out how to link a youtube video, the blogger link is missing. Oh well, if you want, the link is below.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsQcwHc1Jfw

Update

The carpet finally dried out, we shampooed them, and I thought all was well. We came home tonight and Kenyan says it still smells. I can't smell anything, stuffy nose, apparently my students are getting me sick already. :) Hopefully we don't get any mold! We'll keep our fingers crossed. . . .although maybe it would give us an excuse to start house hunting sooner than planned. :) I wouldn't mind that!

Airing Out

So after we had the West Jordan monsoon come through the other day Kenyan and I were left with wet carpet. We were blessed in that it wasn't anything more, but we both came home from work yesterday and it smelled!

So our life has been pushed to one side of our house so we can get the front room aired out and this morning I had to move the bedroom furniture to pull up the carpet. Apparently it was a little more wet than we thought! I've got the fans going, the door open and the scentsy candle is on!

PaRtYiN oLd SkOoL sTyLe

We had a birthday party for Kenyan last night. I sent out Transformer birthday invitations (per Kenyan's request). We had Transformer streamers, a Transformer table cloth, plates, cups and napkins. And we even had Transformer party masks and tattoos. (Thank you Party America!)

We had a lot of fun. I'll try to sum this up quick, but we played the cork game, water game, balloon game and candy bar game. Here's a brief overview:

Cork game: Everyone has a cork tied to a string and places it in the middle. Whoevers turn it is rolls the dice. When they roll doubles they slam down a pan lid and try to catch the corks in the middle. If you get caught you owe that a person a piece of your candy.

Water game: One person sits on a chair holding a cup on their head and a mirror in the other hand. Their partner stands behind them, blindfolded, with a cup full of water. The person sitting gives their partner instructions to get all the water into the cup on their head.

Balloon game: Everyone ties a balloon around their ankle and tries to pop everyone elses. (Don't worry that I popped my own balloon! Whoops!)

Candybar Game: Wrap up several different candy bars. And when I say wrap I mean wrap several times...using newspaper. Decide on what the "magic number" on the dice is. The first person starts rolling until they get to the magic number. When they get the magic number they start unwrapping one of the candy bars....here's the kicker, they have to put on a pair of heavy duty gloves before they begin unwrapping. In this case, we used Kenyan's snowboarding gloves.

We also played "Heavy heavy hangover thy pour head...." with Kenyan's birthday presents. :) Marci and Jeff got him a Chuck Norris t-shirt and The Office t-shirt-love both of them! Thanks guys! Thanks to Josh & Crystal we can now settle any marital disputes using our extra guitar for Guitar Hero! (I'm going to kick Kenyan's butt!) And a little extra spending money from Paul & Tara and Kenyan's dad & stepmom.

Sorry to bore you with all the details! Here's the pics:


Marci playing "Heavy, heavy hangover..."


"Chuck Norris doesn't leave messages, he leaves warnings!"


Dunder Mifflin


Battle's on!


Paul and Mason....need I say more?


Mason...I wish I could claim him as my own!


Transformers, more than meets the eye.
(Crystal, Josh, Kenyan, me, Paul, Tara, Jeff, Marci, and Mason)


The newest Autobots....you better watch out!

Happy Birthday Kenyan!

We started Kenyan's 28th birthday off with his favorites....donuts and Disney's Robin Hood. (That is a hard movie to find!) We're going to end today with one of Kenyan's favorite dinners-Hawaiian Haystacks. (If you have never had these, you are missing out!) But the best of his birthday is coming this weekend...with an old-fashion birthday party, we've sent out invitations and everything!
Lucky for Kenyan he gets today off.....but only because he's already working 50 hours this week and he has to study for midterms!
Happy Birthday Babe! I love you!

The many uses of duct tape

So I was just reading an article about some students from Jordan High who created their prom attire entirely out of duct tape. Did you know there are 20 colors of duct tape? Their outfits are incredible! Check out this website to see all of the entries: http://www.stuckatprom.com/contests/prom/default.asp
Who knew there was such a thing?

Writing Paragraphs

I thought my students new how to write complete sentences by the end of the year....WRONG! So we've been working on using complete sentences in a complete paragraphs. Most of them had to try this a few times until they got the idea of a paragraph. Anyways, I assigned them a topic for one of their paragraphs: "I enjoyed being in third grade." They had to add 4-5 more sentences explaining why they enjoyed being in third grade. One of my favorite sentences one of my students wrote said, "I liked math because it gave me a math brain." Wahoo!! My job is done!