The Beckman Blog

In October, we continued our family tradition of participating in the Reflections program.  Including the children’s tradition of being completely set on doing it yet putting it off until the day before the deadline.  In fact, Kathryn did hers *after* her deadline, as the Reflections chairperson decided to give an extra day for the younger grades to encourage more participation.  (The original primary school deadline was the 6th and the intermediate school deadline was the 7th.)  I am not a fan of this procrastination.

To be fair, Jonathan did one of his and Emma did two of hers during the summer.  So while it felt like it was all done last minute, there actually was some prior thought and work this time.  We’re making progress!  :)

I wish I could share the titles and artist statements but I forgot to get a copy of those before turning them in.  I’ll add in the ones I have now and try to update later with the information from the ones I don’t yet have back.

The theme was, “The would be a better place if….”

Jonathan submitted two pieces of art:

…if food rained from the sky.  This is the one he did over the summer. Notice the little hammock inside the doughnut hole? :)

Something about the importance of creative thought and inventions to better the world, showing a progression of people and mode of transportation. :D

Emma submitted three pieces of art:

… if we could drive on rainbows.

Recycling is good

“Recycling is good because it helps our ennironment so you can reuse things. it makes the world a better place becuse you can reuse.”

No Owies

“I wrote this because I think it would be good if nobody had owies like bloody noses.”

Bold, huh?  Bright color in contrast to the stark background.  This is the one she added the day before the Reflections deadline.  She’d had a random bloody nose during the after-school Kilometer Kids running club and it completely freaked her out.  She ended up spending nearly the entire club in the bathroom because of it.  My children all have a phobia of blood, which is frankly pretty funny given how laid back I tend to be about it (now, serious injuries are another story – but a normal bloody nose or scrape isn’t a big issue for me).

And Kathryn submitted a piece of art and a story:

Something about magic and rainbows.  I *think* it is titled “The Pretty Fairy,” just like her story, but I’m not completely sure.

The Pretty Fairy

I go to the store and I found a wand. I used the magic to build a home. I build a home because I had a family. The family was funny. The mom told me to clean up. Me go to the store. I buy something. I buyed some food.

Me and my mom got on a plane and we went to Utah. On the next day, it was Christmas. I got presents. One of the presents was a cat. The other was a dog. I gived food to them.

I thinked to use my wand. I used my wand. It was pretty mysterious. The wand did something dangerous to my family. And it killed them. I told my wand to be respect. And I used my wand again. My wand made my family again.

It was starting to be my birthday. Me and my friends went outside. We saw a rainbow. The rainbow was for all the goodness and the happy we did.

The end.

She dictated to me and I typed it for her (which is allowed until 2nd grade).  I did my best to type exactly what she said, but I struggled with hearing some of her past tenses.  Looking at it again, I think her “go”s were supposed to be “goed”s.

It was a bit hard not to react to some of that while typing.  :D

Each school held its own awards ceremony for the children.  Kathryn’s was on October 30th and both of her entries placed and will be moving on to the next competition level!

Her friend, Lida (sp?), was the other Kindergartener to place in visual arts. They didn’t announce which place, just that both placed and will be moving on to the next level. :)

Jonathan and Emma’s ceremony was on November 6th.  Jonathan received both first and second place in 5th grade visual arts and Emma received second place and two honorable mentions in 3rd grade visual arts.  :)

They did some group pictures for the yearbook.  Most of the ones I took at that time are blurry, but I think you can still get a feel for it:

Smiling

Told to do a crazy picture – check out Jonathan’s reaction!

And the crazy (but exceptionally blurry) picture. I think two other girls made faces, but most of them didn’t do much. Except my kids. Yep, we do crazy pretty well around here!

I don’t think we’ve had all three of them move on to the regional level before.  It’ll be interesting to see what comes of that.  :)