Last Day of School!

Today is Phoebe's last official day of third grade. Tomorrow is Moving Up Day, where she will go through the arch to become an upcoming fourth grader! Phoebe has mixed emotions about the last day of school. She is glad to be moving on, but sad that school has to end at all. This is one kid who would vote for year-round school in a heart beat! But next week is Transition Camp. We had stopped doing those, but this year, the older kids, which Phoebe is now part of, are doing a Serving Learning Camp, and she wanted to do it. Then "regular" camp starts the next week.

We finished Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World right before we left for DC, and it was sad. Phoebe and I both got weepy when Dewey met his end. But I told her that was OK. She, teasingly I think, said she wanted a Dewey birthday cake this year, but I am planning to do my best to make that happen. It will be a surprise for her though!

We are now about a half dozen chapters into Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Our hard copy got loaned out, so we've been reading a library copy on the Kindle. It has actually worked out because she can get instant definitions of words she doesn't know by pressing on the word right in the text, and I think she has asked about more words than she normally would have.

Phoebe and her best friend, Mercedes, are planning a Harry Potter-themed entry in Troy's RiverFest Sidewalk Chalk Art Competition this Saturday. They practiced on the sidewalk outside our house on Monday afternoon, so we'll see how it goes. At least it is not supposed to rain! Will take pictures!

On her own, Phoebe finished Canterwood Crest: Chasing Blue and then read The Sisters Grimm, one of her "assigned" Summer Reading books. The sisters are fairy tale detectives descended from the Brothers Grimm. Their stories are actually case files. Anyway, she loved it and is eager to read the second one.  This was one of her first introductions to fairy tales, so we talked about some of the root stories, when they were written, and who they were written for. She's developed a pretty good sense of analysis and critical thinking, so we'll bring in some of the Disney movies now as well.

Now she is reading Trading Faces, written by her author friends Julia DeVillers (who also wrote the Liberty Porter books) and Jennifer Roy. She's not up on all the slang, but she's enjoying it all the same.