Shelby Attends Orchestra Camp

School was out for the summer at the end of May, and Shelby started her break with orchestra camp the first week of June.  It may be the last time she touched the violin all summer, but I think she enjoyed it.  They had a small concert at the end of the week.  She is somewhere in the back of all those musicians.

Shelby's First Orchestra Concert

Shelby had her first Orchestra Concert to show family how much they have learned in about 3 months.  I must admit I was surprised by how much it actually sounded like music!

 Each musician picked a special someone to sit next to them.  The student played the song and then took a few minutes to teach the special someone and then they got a turn to play.  They did a good job too!  The songs started at the beginning with finger plucking and they worked their way up to the bow.

Shelby and Daddy - her special someone

 Daddy's Turn

 Nate's Dad and Martha drove up for the concert.  Papa Russell was a math teacher in his early working days.  He happened to sit next to some random girl doing her homework.  I think he enjoyed helping her just as much if not more than listening to the concert. :)

 teaching the bow

They all did great.  They have 2 more concerts.  March and May.  I can't wait to hear how much they improve.  

Fall Soccer

Behind.  Again.  Fall soccer wrapped up about a month ago.  Shelby continued her love/hate relationship with the sport.  If she put more effort into it, she could be really good.  Her coach told her that she has the skills, she just needs to use them.

Shelby & Emily

 she hates this picture because of her blowing hair

just proves that the wind blows all the time out there

 The Dragons

Here's to hoping now that the weather is better for spring soccer than it was this year!  Go Dragons!

Matthiessen State Park

 After studying land forms and creating their own islands, the Oakdale Fourth Graders had a field trip to Matthiessen State Park.  The were able to see some of these land forms for real.  I was a chaperon and let me tell you, I got a work out!!!  Holy climbing stairs and rocks.  Sideways stepping across a bridge because it was flooded.  And the whole time thinking..... how am I going to do this again in two years?!?

My group

Ketsia, Shelby, Jemeriah and La'Niyah

I could barely keep up

as you can see they moved a lot faster than I did

I eventually made it down there!

 entrance to a cave

 looking out the other end of the cave

 steps to climb after making it across the water on stepping stones

 more stepping stones

 there was a little bit of water in the water fall

 they had fun throwing big rocks into this pond

 the top/start of the water fall

A two hour bus ride.  Made our way down to the Lower Dells.  Headed back up to the Upper Dells.  Lunch.  Cause they weren't tired yet, run around some.  Back on bus.  Two hour ride home.  Moved slow but I didn't die.  Success!

Platypus Island

Shelby's first (and I'm hoping last) big project in 4th grade was to create your own island.  They studied land forms and then had to put what they learned into the island.  The main requirement of a list of many was to include at least 10 landforms.  Shelby chose her latest favorite animal the platypus as her island.  It was a lot of work but mostly because we did not have a bunch of uninterrupted time to work. Shelby has a lot of creative ideas on top of being a perfectionist.  She is something.

 She finished up at 11:15pm the night before the project was due.  She was able to smile.  It took a few days to get the house back in order.

She was even more excited when she earned all 60 points for an A+.  I've encouraged Morgan to start thinking about her island that we will be doing in 2 years!! :(  On a positive note, we learned a lot this time around so the next one should be just a little bit easier, right?!?

Student Council

Meet one of the members of the Oakdale Student Council.

Shelby decided she wanted to run for a position on the council that is made up of 4th and 5th graders.  In their individual classrooms, they had to give a little speech as to why their classmates should vote for them.  Then they voted.  2 boys and 2 girls are picked from each room.  The other night I noticed about twelve small sticky notes taped in a long line down her wall.  First draft of the speech.  Last night she typed it up.  Here it is:
My name is Shelby Metzger.  I think I am capable of joining the PTO Student Council because I'm smart, I like to make people feel good about themselves.  I'm confident and responsible, I get good grades, I'm trusted and mature.  I like to participate and getting in on things.  I will try my hardest to attend all meetings and I will work hard to do my best.  Thank you and please vote 4 me!
Shelby was top vote getter in her class and her friend Teagan was runner up.  She will fill in for Shelby if she can't be at a meeting, etc.  I kind of forgot about the voting today so didn't think about it when she came out of school with one of her BFF's.  Her friend was a little down and Shelby told her mom she was upset about not making it on Student Council.  A couple minutes later Shelby dropped her backpack and said she would be right back.  She took off running back to her classroom door.  Her teacher was still standing there.  Her friend and mom left to head home.  Shelby returns looking for her and I said she left.  She then takes off running across the bridge to the back street where people park.  She never did find her so she came back.  She said she asked her teacher if she could give her friend her spot on the council in her place.  Mrs. Brigham said they couldn't do that since it was a voted for position.  Shelby stewed about it the whole way home and had tears by the time we pulled in the garage.  She ran down the block and back to run it off I guess.  I was proud of her desire to make her friend happy in what turned out to be a small life lesson no child likes to learn.

How can it Be?? - 4th & 2nd Grades!!

Since I am once again behind in my posts, I am getting ahead of myself by posting about today's first day of school.  Some of the things I have to post about are from the end of LAST year's school activities and other summer fun stuff.  Oh well.  One of these days I'll get caught up.  Last night we went to Oakdale for the annual Back to School Night to take our supplies and meet our teachers.  Here are some photos highlighting the night:

Miss 4th Grader Shelby

 Crazy Little Nuts!

 Miss 2nd Grader - Morgan

 Morgan and her teacher Mrs. Richardson

 student teacher Ms. Wade

Shelby with Mrs. Brigham

 Shelby had a great 3rd grade year and we loved Ms. Boline.  But going into the year she was a little unhappy that none of her BFF's were in her class.  Well, this year she has 2 of the 3 of them.  She was so excited about starting this year with her friends.  Let's see how much trouble they can stay out of.  Good luck girls!

Triple Trouble

Shelby, Kaitlan, Teagan

here with Emily

she's the 4th BFF member

let's see if Mrs. Brigham is still smiling this big at the end of week with these 3 sitting by each other!

 student teacher Ms. Thompson

 First Day Smiles

 After school we took a few pictures with our neighbors Carson and Henry.  Carson is in 4th grade like Shelby and they have yet to be in the same classroom.  Henry is in 2nd grade with Morgan and they finally made it into the same classroom.  She is excited to have Henry and her BFF Kate for the 3rd time.

Here's to another great year!

Published!

A few weeks ago when we were back home for the family picnic, I received a text from Shelby's 3rd grade teacher that she was published in the local newspaper's section the Flying Horse.  At school they submit writings for the Flying Horse.  Here is what she had to say:

Keep writing dinosaur lover and who knows what else you might get published!

Seussical Jr.!

Last night the girls had their summer theatre performance of Seussical Jr.  It was quite a production of singing and dancing.  This was Shelby's third year in the program and Morgan's first experience. Shelby did ok with Morgan being a part of something she started, although when it all began she was not too excited.  Shelby continued her theme of "bad guy" roles when she was cast as one of the Wickersham Brothers monkeys.  Her first year she was a Glumpwart in Rapunzel and last year one of Ursula's eels in Little Mermaid Jr.  To be honest I am not a fan of Dr. Seuss at all (I know, I know. This is about as un-American as preferring boxed cake over my sister's made from scratch), but from what I gathered these monkeys are naughty little guys.  I found this from a Google Search:  The Wickersham Brothers are Sour Kangaroo's simian henchmen.  They help their boss in her fiendish plan to steal the clover and try to prove Horton wrong. They tie Horton up and when they find out the Whos are real, they turn against the Kangaroo.
Morgan's first role was the Baby Kangaroo belonging to Sour Kangaroo.  This is what Wikia had to say:  Sour Kangaroo, aka Jane Kangaroo is a busybody and creator of the jungle's laws who is skeptical about the existence of the Whos and Whoville on a dust speck.  
Even though in the movie the kangaroo's child is a boy, she made a pretty cute baby kangaroo!  She came out in the opening act before Shelby.

here with her momma

 When Shelby first came out, I had a really hard time finding her among the six "brothers".  Thankfully I knew what color shoes I bought her!  She was disappointed she couldn't keep the tail.

I had to take this picture when I saw her in true monkey character.  She has been practicing while irritating me to death by doing this to my head!  However, it all made sense after I saw this.

the 6 Wickersham Bros.

 miss Kangaroo

Shelby's friend Kaitlan was Mrs. Mayor.  Her hair was hilarious!

They had several guests who came to watch.  Nonny Moe, Nonny Mary, Papa Russell & Nonny Martha, Aunt Ashley & Erik, and friends Mrs. Jones with Emily and Jacob, the Brucker family, the McCrees and the Kennemans.  Overall it was a large crowd, maybe the biggest I've seen in three years.

 Shelby & Kaitlan with Emily

Great job to my monkey and kangaroo!