Bread Baking, Hmmm

We have a new kid in town.  It is lovely venue, half kitchenware gift shop, half a long bar that sits eighteen where you have a cooking class or a dining experience with a chef.

Rae invited me to a Bread Baking, Wine and Cheese class for my birthday.  It is really a classy place, though a bread baking class was more than a little deceiving.  The baker brought a tub of bread dough and we shaped it and she baked it. She didn't even give the recipe, though honestly, it doesn't compare to what Rae and I already know how to make.  We enjoyed checking it out, and the lovely lady who sat with us, and hanging out for the evening, but we where quite under impressed with what we got for the price.  Oh well, now we know.
Birthdays abound this month and Missy Bugg and Buttercup celebrated being eleven and nine, oh my.
A rather depressing meeting after school today. Found out that the writing portion of the state assessment goes online for my kids this year.  How in the world do you show how you make pictures to work out math problems online?  How are they supposed to get a narrative or essay hunt and pecked? Ugh.
I came home to three little learners who I feel no need to assess.  They  are loving Gramerly's birthday present.

We spend the evening picking bouquets, playing with the chickie girls and discovering where the best bugs and mud puppies are hidden.  

 School has just been incredibly busy.  I orchestrated a service project and refugee simulation with Migrant and Refugee Relief Services last Tuesday for our 5th through 7th grade.  We donated three full car loads of school supplies.
As part of the simulation our kids had to go to school to learn a new language. The teacher here is a recent refugee from Cuba.

 The Captain volunteered to come and order them through the obstacle course.

The forms to register were in a foreign language. Some kids were held up due to sickness.  Food and water ran low and some families were jailed.  After all their work, only one family of nine made it through.
 
I had purchase and borrowed lots of stories about refugees that we passed around.  I did a smaller version of this simulation  with the 2nd through 4th grade.  I wanted this service project to be a little more than just picking up a pack of pencils at  the store.  I believe we were successful in bringing a bit of the refugee situation home to them.
Between the three week camping interact I did just before this and tutoring four mornings a week, I'm just tired, that's all.
This week is conferences and then a break and I am so very ready.