James the Great

James has been involved in all sorts of things this year.  He's completed many projects at school and loved playing basketball this winter.  All of the projects have been great ones, and he is learning not to leave them until the very last minute because all people involved get stressed and not-so-happy.

In James's third grade class, his teacher has special requirements for the kids to earn bachelor's, master's and doctorate degrees.  The above is a picture of earning his master's degree, complete with cap and sash.

One of the requirements for his master's degree was to complete a report on an animal of his choice.  He already did a report on monkeys (his current favorite animal), so he chose to do a report on Opossum.  He had to make some sort of representation of his animal, so the night before it was due, we put together a stuffed opossum, with pipe cleaner in the tail to help it hang from his arm.  Many 3rd graders were in awe of this.

James's class studied Native Americans during the third term and were required to make a dwelling of one of four Native American tribes.  James was assigned the Inuit Americans (eskimos), so he made an igloo.  Did you know that the selection for sugar cubes is quite slim?  We finally found some (perhaps they were 10 years old and kept around just for 3rd graders to make igloos) and the making of the igloo went like this:  One for the igloo, one for me.  One for the igloo, one for me. D.J. joined in for this particular craft.

The whole third grade performed a Native American program with stick dances, hoop dances, drums, feathers and such.  They did a great job explaining Native American life.

This is James's cheesy stage face.

This is James when he's not posing for the camera.  I have to say that he's got pretty good rhythm and timing for dancing and singing.

For Dr. Seuss week, James's school had the kids do something every day of the week.  Crazy hair day, crazy clothes day, mustache Monday.  The picture above is "come as your favorite book character day." I didn't have a costume for his favorite book character (some kind of magical animal), but I have a variety of other choices.  He chose Waldo. He loved it so much he wore it until time for bed.

James really liked basketball this year and was such a good sport he said he didn't mind losing every single game.  Which they did.  Though the post season is causing him to rethink basketball.  He was an aggressive player and I had parents come up to me after the game to tell me that James is fun to watch. He definitely gave it 100%!