Jazzy Bear

If you remember, I have not yet posted Jasmine's end of summer journal entry. That's because I hadn't typed it in. But now I have, and here it is. Jasmine did hers all on her own including revising and writing the final copy so if parts are a little rough, that's because it is entirely her work.

Highlights of Summer

By

Jasmine Cassel

     This summer was a blast, but the three biggest highlights of the summer were Cozumel, Mexico, St Louis and Indiana.

      One of the places we stopped on our cruise was Cozumel, Mexico. Cozumel is a beautiful place. The water is two different shades of blue, In Cozumel, Mom and I went to the different stores. My mom bought three different colors of the same shirt. Next we went into a bigger store where we looked at chess sets. (She doesn't talk about the excursion we went on!)

     Another highlight of summer was St Louis, Missouri. St Louis is called the "Gateway to the West." In St Louis we went up to the top of the arch, which is 630 feet. The view from the arch was incredible. You could see the Cardinal stadium.

     The last highlight of summer was Elkhart, Indiana. In Indiana we went to Mrs. Juanita's in-laws' lake. At the lake I went on the raft that's anchored in the sand. Then we went in a pontoon boat. We picked up Mrs. Megan and a couple of her friends. We drove around for a while then we dropped them back off. Then we drove out to the very middle of the lake and jumped off the boat.

     This summer was a blast but these three things were the best and hopefully we'll get to do something similar next summer.

Jasmine is off to a good start in seventh grade, but it is going to be a challenging year. She had open house Tuesday evening. While the kids went to the cafeteria for a movie, the parents followed the child's schedule. We went to each classroom for ten minutes and had five minutes in between. That might have worked if #1. we had gotten out when the bell rang at the end of ten minutes #2. we knew where the classes were at #3. people hadn't been stopped in each doorway writing their child's name, their name, their phone number and e-mail address in each classroom. That took ten minutes right there! I was tardy to five out of sixth classes at open house! 

Each teacher talked briefly about what would be covered in class and any upcoming projects. I've already talked with a couple of teachers about e-mailing me info for any projects because Jasmine does not tell me about them.

I said to the math teacher, "You realize that Jasmine is suppose to be in the resource room working on sixth grade math but she's in your room doing seventh grade math. You realize she's skipped an entire year of math and math is very difficult for her? By the look on his face, no, he did not know that. Good thing we have an IEP meeting next week.

We've already had one instant where Jasmine told us at 9:45 at night that there was a big project due the next day. First I sent her to bed and told her to deal with it because she'd known for over a week about it. We had no supplies. It was a poetry project and I do NOT write poetry for good reason.  

But then I thought, Oh well. Let's just go for it. Jessica was home too and could help. I told Jasmine to get back up and we'd give it a go. The poem had to be called I am an American and talk about who she is as an American and the privileges and rights she has.

Well, that didn't really happen, but we did include America. I just started tossing out phrases and rhyming words to see what we could put together. We only worried about rhyming, not meter or beat or anything like that. It was after 10:00 by time we started and we'd all been up since 5 a.m.

This took us a while and some of the rhymes got a little rude. We tried to work in "I'm an American, bold and true, I'd like one night with no homework to do" and a few things like that, but we didn't really put them in. The finished product had to sound like Jasmine, of course. Most of our kid's projects turn into group projects here at home, but the kids still learn from them. And they learn that families work together.

 Here is Jasmine's final poem: (we know it stinks, but at least she didn't get a zero!)

I am an American

I'm an American proud and free,

I can be who I want to be.

My journey of a thousand steps has just begun,

Who knows where I'll go before it's done.

I'm an American in a country sublime,

Living my life one day at a time.

I have a dream, where will it take me?

Maybe in the sky, land or sea.

I'm an American, southern by birth,

My size, age or color can't determine my worth.

My value comes from God alone,

He guides my steps as I have grown.

I'm an American with privileges for me,

Two brothers who fight to keep us free,

So I'll cherish my freedom each and every day

And proudly say, "God bless my U.S.A."

Then we had to do a page to go along with it that had five different things on it. The problem was, we didn't really know what those five things were supposed to be. Something that went with the poem and was a combination of clip art, photos, drawings etc. We also didn't know if this was supposed to be on the page with the poem, on the back of it, a separate page or what. We had no time to make anything fancy. We found a clip art of a flag, used photos of Jeff and Adam since they are military, used a photo of Jasmine and something else that I can't remember. In all the confusion of doing this project and finishing at midnight, I never took even one photo of us doing it!

 I saw the book of them that was supposed to be on display at open house but there was only time for two people out of all the parents to look at it! I quickly glanced through to see what we were supposed to do. Well, we held our own. But many of them were on fancy paper done scrapbook style with raised cut outs etc. There were a couple with just pencil drawings. Those must have been the other kids who didn't tell their parents about it!

Today was the first band booster meeting. And the chance to look for used uniform parts.

Band booster president helping Jasmine.

Everything she has on--pants, shirt, bow tie, cummerbund and shoes was $30!!! That was great. However, we added one used blue band shirt for $5, a new band jacket (none in her size used) for $79, and 4 spirit shirts for $40! (one spirit shirt required for her and 3 for the rest of us). So $254 total. It could have been worse. The $30 for all of the uniform was great! The pants are baggy but the waist can be pulled in tight enough, and the length is perfect.

She has grown up on us!