Time to Blossom

Penguin attended an all girls church-type camp called Time to Blossom last week.  It's for girls 11-18 years old and she attended Monday-Friday for 12 hours a day.  The girls are divided-up by age into smaller groups and then there's a fun female counselor over each group of about 8 girls.  Penguin invited one of her best friends from school to attend with her and the two of them had a blast together.

They had lots of outstanding speakers, crafts, a service project, talent show, performers, food, and other fun stuff that teenage girls like to do or want to learn about.  Penguin got together with some of the attendees before the actual camp started and worked on some musical numbers that she was able to perform during the week of camp.  She played a hymn in a violin quartet and sang songs (she had solo parts in both songs) with some of the girls.  She even found some Russian adoptees like herself - I think she can sniff them out.

I'm so thankful that Penguin could go spend a week of her summer being uplifted, growing friendships, and just doing something out-of-the-ordinary.  She's already begging to go back next summer and hoping that I'll let her do the over-night option.

Here is a video with highlights from her week:

Happy Adoption Day!

In honor of Penguin's adoption day ...

a Great adoption-related post. 

10 years & 2 days ago today, Hubby & I stood in a Russian court room as they threw any and every kind of question at us.  We even had to explain what a mortgage is ... apparently they don't exist in Russia??

Academic Night

Beginning in 4th grade, kids that get all A's on their report card get to participate in Academic Night.  I've attended a lot of Academic Night's in my day and I think by the time I got to high school, I quit attending the actual event and just picked up my award the next day at school because the actual event was so long & boring, but this year's program was great!  The whole thing lasted less than 30 minutes, which was WAY nice! The principal said a few words, one of the students gave a short speech, all the "Golden Scholars" were presented their award, and then we watched a little slideshow with photos of all the Golden Scholars.

Penguin with her ALP & homeroom teachers:

Penguin with a couple of her friends: 

Penguin with her classroom's student teacher:

Honors Recital Auditions

 

We found out late last night that my cute Penguin made it into the live & final round of auditions for the Honors Recital.  Yea!!  She's so excited & I'm so proud of her!!

We've never done something like this, but my understanding is that teachers can submit videos of their students ... so any instrument, small ensembles, singers, etc are all welcome to audition.   I still have no idea what the competition is like or what to expect, so we'll see what happens.

To view her audition videos, go to THIS post.

Audition Videos ... Done!

It's 11:44pm and I'm finally finishing up Penguin's audition videos for an honors recital.  This was a somewhat painful project.  I had to record her playing two pieces which we did on three different nights.  Recording is frustrating because we kept trying and trying for a perfect recording, which just ends up being frustrating for both of us.  I tried to keep recording sessions short because I found that her best recordings were usually the first few ... after that I think she gets tired ... I don't blame her!

After I recorded Penguin on a few occasions, I probably had about 50 videos to go through and I had to choose which video was best for each song.  I kept nodding off, getting up for breaks, etc but I think I found two winners ... well, I hope these videos make Penguin a winner. :)

We've never done something like this before & we have no idea what the competition is like, so I have no idea what to expect from the judges.  I think 3-4 judges review these videos and then some kids are invited for a live audition, so at this point, all we can do is wait ... and practice, practice, practice!  :)

So ... here is my Penguin after playing the harp for 6-months - probably about 6 months exactly.  I'm so proud of her and I can't wait to see where she's at after playing for another 6 months!! 

Rondo:

Russian Lullaby:

American Harp Association Spring Recital

 

Penguin has been learning to play the harp for the past {almost} 6 months.  Yesterday she played at the spring recital for the local American Harp Association.  She did an awesome job!!  I'm so proud of her & all her hard work.  This next month she'll be busy auditioning for an honors recital and hopefully passing off grades 1, 2, & 3 to an examiner.  For each grade she has required scales, arpeggios, and three pieces to perform, so she'll be polishing-up nine songs this month.  She'll be busy!!

Wax Museum - Eleanor Roosevelt

Penguin participates in ALP. Every year they do a wax museum & the kids have a lot of fun.  Penguin choose to be Eleanor Roosevelt, so she wrote a research paper, put together a costume, prepared a speech, & found props for her presentation.  One evening all the ALP kids did their wax museum presentation for friends & family.  It was rather enjoyable to go around the room, push buttons, and watch cute kids "come to life" as they told about someone they had learned about.

Penguin + Harp

We have a new, rising star at our house.  Penguin ... on the harp!  

In our part of the country, we have fall break ... a week off of school in October cause the weather is so nice here!  It's finally cool enough to go outside, but still quite warm.  We decided to take a road trip to UT for part of fall break to visit my grandparents for a few days.  While we were there, Penguin bugged my aunt for a couple harp lessons and now I have a harp sitting in my living room and harp lessons to attend.  Harp was not my choice, suggestion, or something I would've ever come up with, so this is all Penguin's doings & after 6 or 7 lessons, I'd say she's doing quite well!  We took some quick videos with my phone to send up to my aunt so she could see how Penguin in progressing with her new-found hobby.  Please excuse our out-of-tune harp ... tuning it is not high on my favorite things to do list. :)

The first two pieces are being prepared for the ABRSM Grade 1 exam in May & the last song is the one she performed at the Christmas recital a few weeks ago.

School Bells are Ringing

I have been homeschooling my oldest child for a few years now & we've gotten to a point where something needs to change.  As things currently stand, they aren't working.  We either need to come up with a new homeschooling plan, try cyber school again, or find a school for her to attend outside of the home.

Yesterday morning, "Penguin" (that's what I'll name my oldest daughter for now) & I looked at schools for 6 hours!  It was exhausting, but it needed to be done.  We found a couple of schools there were absolutely a big fat NO and a few schools that I'd like to research more & possibly visit again.

We drove over to Edu-Prize.  At first I didn't even want to consider this school because by the time I drive there & back & fight school-type traffic two times a day, I'm looking at about 2 hours out of my day just transporting Penguin to & from school.  It sounds like they could have some options that would work very nicely for Penguin, BUT they won't let her start before July ... it's a "year-round" school & July is when the new school year starts.

Another school that was unexpectedly very nice and only about 7 minutes from home is Imagine Charter school.  The school had a very warm, friendly atmosphere, but I need to talk to them more about how they are going to challenge Penguin in certain subjects.

American Leadership Academy is getting ready to build a whole new campus, but their current campus is a bit drab.  Because of their cut-off date for entering Kindergarten, Penguin would fall into 2nd grade at their school instead of 1st grade.  BUT they are wanting to do testing and possibly put her into 3rd grade, if we were to choose that school.  I just don't know how I feel about that.  As with everything there are pros & cons, but 3rd grade???  One thing that jumped out to me while visiting this school was that there seems to be a lot of really good kids attending school there.

San Tan Learning Center was also very nice and they have some aspects of a montessori school, but this school is very small and probably too small for me.

One school that we didn't look at that I've heard good things about is Bright Beginnings.

Anyone have any thoughts or opinions about any of these schools?  Anyone looked into private or montessori schools & have thoughts on those?  Please feel free to email me privately if that's better for you.