Operation Angel

Wednesday, September 7, 2005

Friends:

The kids are excited about building a library. I have shelves organized with books according to reading level. Thank you and MAJOR BIG HUGS to everyone who contributed to their library with books, activity and coloring books, tapes, CDs, and DVDs. They are blessed. They have also received clothes, toys, craft kits, and homemade instruments! You should see their faces light up when we open the mail!

We are a little late on sending out our thank you notes but we've been working on getting our life together. We will be working on thank yous this weekend.

The kids are in school and we attended open house. Their school believes in fitness and the arts! Woohoo! They have music and art as well as PE. They also open every morning with 15 minutes of school-wide exercise via morning announcements.

My kindergartener's teacher believes in the power of story. Every day, she transcribes a story from a student made up from their imagination. In addition, she enforces emergent literacy with read alouds from great books, creative dramatics, phonics, and required home reading every day. Each day, parents are asked to read with their children and write the title of the book in a log. It's so exciting!

Soleil, my 15 year old, gushed about her English class. Required summer reading was The Picture of Dorian Gray and they are studying Greek mythology as background for the book. She told me the story of Narcissus and Echo; and Adonis, Persephone, and Aprodite. She says, "I can't wait to go to class tomorrow! I've never been so excited about English!" She also told me that Zeus was a "pimp" ("That's what my teacher said!") because he made Persephone and Aphrodite share Adonis - each goddess shared him for half a year each. She had me cracking up.

I am so happy that there is a semblance of "normalcy" in the house. Of course, I have never experienced so much chaos and drama in the morning. Getting five kids ready for school is quite a Herculean feat!

Thank you so much for being angels in the children's lives. Everyone who has contributed a gift to our family will receive an angel necklace made by kids and me. We dubbed our project "Operation Angel" because you have been angels in our lives. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts!

Warmly,

Dianne