thesellers.net

It’s the day after Labor Day, which means it’s the first day of school! It’s a big day for our house, as Molly is now in middle school!!! We can no longer pretend that this isn’t happening. I guess we really had to stop pretending last week at 6th grade orientation.

Middle school means our mornings are now earlier, as middle school starts an hour earlier than elementary, and also requires a bus ride instead of walking around the block. So, there is no picture of her with her sister, as Leah is still asleep.

There were of course pictures with kids on the block.

And then waiting at the bus stop. We have so many kids around us that her bus stop is ridiculous. I counted 35 kids at the stop. It’s the first stop, and fills more than half the bus.

Then it was time to wake up Leah. She’s very excited about this start of 3rd grade.

One of the main reasons she is excited is that Madison is finally in her class.

We got a picture with some of the elementary kids on the block.

And of course with the wildcat.

And then she was off to class. Not only is Madison in her class, but lots of her other friends are too. And not only that, her teacher is Mr. Chen who Molly had and Leah has wanted ever since.

When Leah got home, she said it was the “best first day ever”!

After what seemed like a very long school year (mostly due to snow days slowly chipping away at spring and summer break), the last day of school finally arrived on June 19. Molly and Leah were happy about this.

Oh wait, that’s not the right picture. Here you go.

Molly’s final picture with the sign out front of elementary school.

Molly was called on again to play in an ensemble at school. This time, it was to play Pomp and Circumstance (and some other songs) at the 5th Grade Promotion Ceremony.

Molly walked across the stage and shook hands with the principal, signifying the completion of her elementary school journey. She’s ready for middle school.

The 5th graders prepared all year for a major event - Simulated Congressional Hearing. They learned about government, and then invited community leaders to serve as congressional committees. The kids formed expert panels to testify in front of the congressional committees. Parents came to observe. I volunteered as a photographer (and Jen helped with the food). There were a lot of people there.

Molly and the rest of the 5th grade chorus sang Hats Off to America, including some custom made patriotic hats.

Here's the committee Molly testified in front of.

Molly's expert panel is ready to testify. They testified on the subject of why the American colonies went to war against the British.

After their initial testimony, the committees asked the kids questions to probe further into their subject.

The girls' school had a Volunteer Appreciation Breakfast to all the parents who helped out during the year. Molly was picked as part of a select ensemble to play for us.

This year, the elementary school went all out for field day. They made it Ninja Warrior themed, and we love Ninja Warrior. We even went to a Ninja gym back in February to work on our ninja skills.

Jen and I both worked Field Day as we have in previous years. It was a lot of fun. I don’t have a lot of pictures, but here’s one of Leah running the obstacle course.

Leah was a narrator and villager in Beauty and the Beast at school. Jen did a great job making her awesome costume.

Here are a few pictures. You can see more at Flickr.

And here’s the whole show.

Lastly, here’s Leah and her cheering section (not including the man behind the camera).

We went to the Evening of Excellence at the girls school to see all the stuff they’ve been working on. This included an enrichment fair with lots of fun projects.

We got to see the geocity that Molly, Grace, and Tatum had been working on. It’s a model of Hogwarts built with geometric shapes.

Leah and I created the Sellers Scratcher - a working electric back scratcher, which was a big hit at the enrichment fair. I only had to fix it once (with the super glue I brought along just in case).

Molly’s scale project (where the kids use a grid to scale up a drawing) was of everyone’s favorite droid - R2-D2.

All the second grade bottle buddies were on display. Serena was awesome.

Our roller coaster engineering project was also on display alongside the ride from the other team at our school. Molly and Grace gave a great demonstration of it.

Each 5th grader created a book report with illustrated cover. Molly did hers on the first Magnus Chase book.

We had so much stuff to bring home, our car was full.

The girls and Jen did a great job on their teacher appreciation poster for our fantastic media specialist (library teacher). For those unfamiliar, this is a reference to the fantastic book Dragons Love Tacos, including a wonderful dragon drawn by Molly.

Molly performed as part of the Advanced Orchestra at elementary school for her final time. The concert was lovely, and now she's off to play in the middle school orchestra in the Fall (after a couple of orchestra camps this summer).

Molly was a bit more humble this time when they recognized the students who’d been selected for GT orchestra groups.

The day after Molly's orchestra concert was her chorus concert. She will not be doing chorus in middle school, so this is her last chorus concert at least for a while (though she'll still be singing at church).