Writing Celebration!

This week at Ally's school was the long awaited Writing Celebration. It was AWESOME. I was so thrilled to finally see one of the book's Ally was working on at school. The set up was such that the parents were able to meet with several students and hear each student read their book to us one on one. It was really neat to see 5 and 6 year olds writing actual books. Some of Ally's class mates' books were in Spanish! One trend several of us noted was that most of the boys tended to write about Star Wars or Cars or trains or tornadoes but the girls books were about vacation or school or an actual experience. This was not the rule, but the trend.

Ally and I at the start of the event.

Each student had a spot and parents rotated around the room to listen to different stories.

Here is Ally's book:

I took pictures of each page - so I could share it with Becky (and the blog). The book had to stay at school and the teacher said we would get them to take home at the end of the year.

Ally and Willow

I was playing in the pool with Willow.

Remember Willow is one of Ally's friends from school who she takes swimming lessons with.

It was time to swim.

I love the picture on the page above. Ally and her friend Stella (who was blond hair and in the swim class too) are on the side of the pool and Willow is in the water. Willow is tall and can stand in the pool. So the picture itself is a very accurate dipiction of what swimming class looks like.
I was catching rings with Willow

I was on my noodle
I was getting out of the pool

After the book reading we all watched a video of the students working on their books over the past few weeks, and had some special snacks. Then centers were open and the kids could paint or color. Ally has been really into painting lately.

It was a very special experience to share in this with Ally and her classmates.

Ally was so proud of her book.

One of her most proud achievements is that the day before the event the class rehearsed reading their stories with their reading buddies in 5th grade. (Once a week a 5th grade class comes and works with the students on reading and writing skills - its a highlight of Ally's week.) So the reading buddies came and the class practiced reading their stories and Ally told me "the reading buddies could read my story...they knew what the words were without me telling them...isn't that great?..." As you can see from the book - this level of writing is about the concept and trying not about the technical correctness. Ally's teacher calls it "kindergarten right". Ally was so proud that even is her book was kindergarten right it is still understandable by other people without her having to tell them every word.

Now the not so special part of the day was after the celebration on our way home. Ally was not feeling well, said her head hurt and she was tired. So I carried her on my shoulders. About 2 blocks from our house Ally suddenly cried out "I'm going to throw up" (yes while she was sitting on my shoulders)

I immediately grabbed her, pulled her over my head and held her in front of me trying to put her on her feet as she puked!

Yes puked on the sidewalk, but not on me and not on herself! A couple of heaves and her stomach was empty. She looked up at me and I got out her water bottle, gave her a sip and told her to wash her mouth and spit it out - she did that a couple of times. Then I grabbed my water bottle and poured it over the throw-up to wash off the sidewalk.

Then I picked her up, and finished walking home.

Becky pulled up in car when we were about 10 feet from our house.

I told her what happened, sent her back out with more water to wash off the sidewalk, while I held and snuggled with Ally.

She fell asleep snuggled in to me for two hours that afternoon.

When she woke up she felt better.

I need to say that was an experience we both could have done without!