Laura Ingalls Wilder

Hi--

Here's a quick note on one of Kara's 5th grade activities last week. They had been working on biography reports of important people in the history of our nation and world. These included scientists, artists, mathmaticians, authors, explorers...anyone from Elenor Roosevelt to Amelia Erheart to Benjamin Franklin to Isaac Newton.

Kara did a biography report on the author from the 1800's, Laura Ingalls Wilder. The kids were also supposed to dress the part.

Unbeknownst to me at the time, Kara enlisted the help of her Grammie D and asked her to make her a pioneer dress. After she got off the phone, she told me what she had done. I choked. "Kara," I stammered, "this is not an hour's worth of work, or one afternoon. You have asked your Grammie D to spend hours and days on this project. Sewing is not easy."

She thought for a moment. "I'll wear it for Halloween, too!"

So, here is Kara in her wonderful dress, and some of Kara's friends, too. It was a really neat morning, where parents got to wander around and ask questions of all these famous people. The kids had to memorize stories and be able to explain their character's contributions to society.

It was a pretty impressive morning. And the dress was nice icing on the cake! :)

Knoxville Report (Destination Imagination)

Hola!

It is a beautiful spring day: sunny, bright, with flowers everywhere. Just heavenly.

Kara and I made it back from Tennessee! A grand experience, to be sure. I was so impressed with the whole University of Tennessee--it's a beautiful campus, with wonderful facilities.

Knoxville hosted the World's Fair back in the 80's, so they have huge Expo and Conference Centers. An olympic-sized pool with the tall, tall diving platforms to have diving competitions.

The kids did such a good job--I think I told you before, that there were 6 different challenges, and each challenge was split into Elementary, Middle School, and High School/University competitions.

For Kara's challenge, at the Elementary level, there were 68 teams. So, against 68 teams, her team came in NINTH PLACE! Yippee! Pretty cool to make it to Global Finals at ALL, and then to get in the Top Ten against that many.

Besides the competition, there were activities galore, at the Expo Center, swimming & diving boards at the Aquatic Center, 3M was a sponsor so they did a Duct Tape Costume Ball, and Nasa was there with their space displays and radio-controlled moon cars.

We stayed in the dorms and ate cafeteria food. There was a lot of Pin Trading going on: each state/country came with their own sets of pins, and there were areas to spread them all out and trade with everybody else who wanted to trade.

The kids had a wonderful time, and would do it again in a heartbeat. Me, I'm not so good with huge crowds so I was "done" about halfway through! I think I heard there were 13,000 people there. They had shuttle buses which were pretty crowded and standing-room-only most of the time. Lots of walking. I told Frank I needed to go to the first half, and HE needed to go to the 2nd half! It was a great experience for the kids.

I took a bunch of pictures, of course! If you click on this Shutterfly album website, click "View Album," then "Play Slide Show," then in the upper right corner it says "options." You can make it faster, so you're not sitting there too long...a photo per second will make it 2 1/2 minutes or therabouts.

I better boogie--Have a great week! Kari