a marvellous Monday

"Come, let us sing for joy to the LORD" Psalm 95:1

It's no secret that we were eagerly awaiting our first choir session this year. As we count the days of the year, we also count down the school days until 100 Day (76 more school days to go!) and we also started the count down to our first choir day. I also heard other students in the hallway sharing our opinion.

Choir day is here! Check out our fancy schmancy new risers! Oh I love them already! No more hauling chairs to the choir room with the water bottle balanced precariously upon the seat. No more fussing with rows and straight lines. No more complaining that they can't see our choir director!

Stretching out our bodies so we can fully stretch out the lungs.

I laughed when I saw this one. Despite these appearances, we do not sleepwalk into choir!

Choir hug!

Grade One's first official choir class. They look suitably impressed eh? (and following choir rule #1 which is...actually ask them if they know what it is!)

Oh yeah the hat. There is a reason for the hat, but I think that may come up in another post sometime. They love the hat though!

Awww, I just think it's so cute to look at them paying such rapt attention in class :)

Next week is our first wonderful Wednesday -- Choir and Library! Nice break for the middle of the week eh?

It's a Friday Afternoon

I must admit feeling a little ripped off that the nicest month of the summer has turned out to be September, but then again I do like looking at the pics of the kids playing in the beautiful sunshine.

These fellows have been tossing the ol' pigskin around most recesses. I love football, but I'm not as good as intercepting passes as I used to be.

Check out the powerful throw! We work on that in P.E. class you know :)

Enjoying recess...

Oh joy, joy! They're playing Little House on the Prairie! "Pa" sometimes had to be discouraged from hauling his scythe and his rifle around (ok sticks, but still!) I love that they're enjoying those books as much as I do.

I was first introduced to the game Gobblet! at a family Christmas party. It's like tic-tac-toe only you can block your opponent from winning by placing a larger piece over top of their game piece. It was fun and you had to use strategy and I thought what a perfect game for the classroom! I bought the Junior version last year which they're playing in the picture below.

But the game was popular and could be a little easy since you only had to get three in a row. This year I bought the regular version and now two games of Gobblet! are ususally in play on a Friday afternoon.

Popular eh?

While the kids are cleaning out their desks or finishing up work or singing their memory work to me, those who are finished all those things can chill out on a Friday afternoon with various "take it out only on a Friday" game. Here's my best garage sale purchase ever: K'nex.

This must have been after the Tower of Babel story :)

I have no idea what these guys are up to. But they grinned merrily for me, so up goes the picture!

Hiking

As part of our outdoor education at school, we prepared to go for a hike along the Bruce Trail. We had talked as a staff about doing things for physical fitness besides sports oriented activities, and a hike is definitely a great thing to do. We get to enjoy creation and get the heart pumping at the same time!

It's a trail that I'm very familiar with. It starts with a waterfall and then we walk for a ways beside the river before turning into the forest for a bit.

The waterfall was roaring again this day as it has all summer. The summer of rain certainly did make the water rush!

Off we go!

The trail begins with a few stairs down...

and some more stairs, and then a few more stairs...

...before we finished up walking alongside the river. It was a beautiful day, but I'm kind of wishing now we had waiting for the fall colours. Now that would have been beautiful to be walking in!

And a couple more stairs :)

Oh Jonah, owner of Animal Tracks of Ontario, care to identify the tracks we see here in the mud? (raccoon right?)

I'm glad the trail was this narrow, it kept us all in single file with no running even an option for the adventurous types!

Our halfway point was when we reached the river again. Many of the kids were all gung-ho about continuing on the other side of the bridge, but maybe we'll do that another day eh?

Heading back.

We had to stop a couple of times for rest/let-some-people-catch-up breaks. I loved seeing them all trekking with their walking sticks too!

And what went down must go up!

It really is a beautiful trail!

Phew! We did it!

With many thanks to the moms who drove and walked with us!