Annie Turns Five: Annie's Last Montessori "Walk Around the Sun"

A beautiful tradition in a Montessori classroom, the "Walk around the Sun" is the special birthday celebration for the child on his/her special day. Using the birthday as a teaching moment, the child walks around the "sun" (a special candle) the number of times corresponding to the number of years since their birth. Meanwhile, mom and dad share stories and pictures about the child. With Miss Tina taking the pictures and Miss Shana explaining the earth's journey, this day was bittersweet for Mamma, .... our last "Walk Around the Sun" at Mountain Sun Community School, a special Montessori experience.

Leia's Very First Essay

The Question: Write a paragraph about the Mississippi River. Describe where the Mississippi River flows. Then tell why the river is so important.

Leia's A+ Answer: The Mississippi River flows south for more than 2000 miles and is yousd ["used"] as a majir ["major"] shipping rout. The Mississippi river flows into the golf ["Gulf"] of Mexico.

Another Day of Beautiful Mountain Drives & Beautiful ANNIE

An Annie Moment: Leaf Men by the River, After School

On these few days left of Annie to myself after Montessori School half-days, Mamma wants to make the most of it! This year, we will spend our afternoons after school doing all sorts of things: playgrounds, reading books together (like Matilda and Pippi), swinging on the swings, ... and on the warmest days, lunch and play at our very special river spot! The latter is what happened today. A picnic at our river spot and a good read of the book called "Leaf Man" inspired Annie to make her own leaf men, ... I captured each with a click of the camera. And we returned by one of the highlights of Annie's life: Annie standing and enjoying the breezes and mountain music from the sunroof! (Not an easy picture to get, by the way.)

Face Painting Results of the Immaculata Fall Festival

Tea Party in Leia's Room, Everyone!

2011 Fair Highlight: Riding a Mechanical Bull !

2011 Fair Highlight: Riding a Camel !

2011 Fair Highlight: Winning Recycled Art Projects!

Mountain State Fair 2011

The irony of this year at the fair was that the girls' very favorite activity was this "Snake Adventures" peep-show. (It's one of those things that you pay a dollar and get to walk around a trailer with strategically placed windows/habitats.) They LOVED it, ... and wanted to go in TWICE! Other fun all pictured below, ... they got to meet a real lama, eat soft serve ice cream (of course), see the pig racing (finally, not sure why we hadn't done that before), saw the "bunny show" (which I'm convinced Annie thought was a bunch of highly animated real bunnies doing fun things. It wasn't.), entered the petting zoo, RODE A CAMEL!, did a virtual deer hunt (Annie got one!), pretended to pilot a real helicopter, saw baby piggies, visited their recycled art projects (Leia won 2nd place (and won $5 & Annie won the highest she could which was a dollar prize for being a "Participant."), saw the big veggies, touched the winning pumpkin, went to the circus and saw doggies going down a slide AGAIN! (we have a grand memory of Leia laughing at sheepdogs going down a slide a LONG time ag0), ate a bucket-o-fries (daddy's highlight), won overpriced stuffed animals at the water-shoot game, RODE THE MECHANICAL BULL, saw craftsmen at work, rode lots of rides, ate candy apples, saw Mountain Dan carve an eagle, posed on "Big Green Tractors," and rode the skyway many times!