Reading Roundup Rodeo

The biggest defining thing about kindergarten (at least academically if not overall) has been learning to read. As a parent its been so rewarding to see the "light turn on" for Owen and reading start to happen. It didn't come without work - we're still making it through the 60 "readers" he is supposed to get through this year (reading each one three times with a parent by his side). We got a little extra motivation during the gammar school's 3-week "Reading Round-Up" read-a-thon. Each kindergartener's goal was to read 75 minutes each week (parents kept a log that got turned in and tallied for the class). That was easy to hit because it could include doing their readers as well as being read to. (It was funny to hear the older kids in our carpool recount all their reading round-ups - they remember them! They had fun stories about so-and-so trying to break a record and that's why they have caps now...) Anyways, the round-up culminated with the Reading Roundup Rodeo. I was the helper for Owen's class as we went through all the stations. His teacher was home ill but the sub was super sweet and I was so impressed with her!

The petting zoo - holding chicks.

The two kiddos in his class that I have gotten to know the best - D is in our carpool (isn't she the cutest little hipster cowgirl you've ever seen?) and H is Owen's best buddy at school - and it was his birthday!

Getting ready for the tug-o-war!

They knocked Mr. Gilliam (Regents Resident Farmer) to the ground!

Against another class - that rope went back and forth across the line so many times it really was a case of everybody wins.

Egg-in-spoon and barrel racing (not together)

Boys on a wall

And what's a rodeo without a cow paddy and rubber chicken toss???

And what's any party without an inflatable slide?

The class cowboys and cowgirls

My cowboy

*Oh, at the beginning of Reading Roundup Owen came home and started telling me all about it (not knowing I had read a handout on it) and explained that if they read 500million12 minutes Mr. Acton (head of grammar school) would have to sit on the roof for a whole day. But as he told me, his voice indicated he had a question. Come to find out he couldn't figure out why having the principal sit on the roof was an incentive. It left him wondering if they actually didn't want him to read - so Mr. Acton wouldn't have to be on the roof. ??? (We talked through it and he sort of got it. Then we got to school on Friday and Mr. A was indeed on the roof - coffee in hand, throwing candy at kids, yelling congratulations for meeting their grade and school-wide reading goals. Owen understood.)