Finished On Friday: The 5th Grade Class Fundraiser Quilt

5th Grade Class Raffle Quilt is Finished!  51" x 59"

After quilting under pressure in every spare moment over the last month, I finally finished hand stitching the binding last night and was able to bring the 5th grade class fundraiser quilt to school this morning.  In case you missed my earlier posts about this project, I'll give you a brief recap: Four weeks ago, the PTO informed all class parents that they wanted us to create some kind of an original artwork with our students that could be auctioned off at our annual Night of the Arts performance as a PTO fundraiser.  Oh, and we didn't actually get to spend a meaningful amount of time with the students to do this, either -- I think the suggestion was to "work with a few students at a time during lunch or recess."  Since I am a crazy person and also a very poor judge of how long things actually take, I thought for sure we could whip up a class quilt in three weeks if I "kept it simple." 

I met with the school art teacher and discovered that our students had already made these fantastic abstract nature paintings earlier in the school year, so I borrowed the paintings, scanned them, and printed them onto specially treated 8 1/2" x 11" fabric sheets in my inkjet printer.  Then I added batik "frames" around each one, the borders, and free motion quilting that was originally supposed to be very basic but ended up taking over a week to complete.

Anyway, I'm glad it's done and off my plate now so I can focus on other things again.

In other news, Lars got braces this week:

Braces for Lars!

Isn't he a cutie?  Apparently he was one of three seventh graders at his school who all got braces put on this week.  He's very excited about them and has been much more meticulous about brushing since he got the braces put on. 

We have the boys' violin and piano recitals tomorrow afternoon, and it's our turn to teach Sunday school so it will be another busy weekend.  Happy Mother's Day to all of you mothers and grandmothers out there!

I'm linking up with TGIFF -- Thank God It's Finished Friday, because that's EXACTLY how I'm feeling about handing that quilt over to the PTO!

Lars and Anders Come Up Winners at the Science Fair!

Lars at Far Left Standing, Anders Second from Left in Front Row

The Science Fair is a BIG DEAL at our school.  The kids in grades 4-8 begin these projects early in September, coming up with their topics, conducting background research and writing their research papers, coming up with their hyptheses, methods, and materials.  Then the experimental phase takes up the entire month of November, and in December they are analyzing their data, writing up their results and conclusions and their abstracts, neatening up their notebooks and putting it all together into one big, impressive-looking science fair paper.  Last weekend was a flurry of construction paper, rubber cement, Elmer's glue and other craft supplies as they designed and assembled their display boards for the school science fair.  A LOT of work went into both boys' projects, but the competition is pretty fierce at a charter school for gifted students.  We were just glad the projects were finished and turned in on time, and hoped they would earn respectable grades -- so we were delighted and proud when BOTH boys' work was recognized with awards at the science fair on Tuesday evening.  Way to go, Lars and Anders!

Anders took 5th place in the Elementary School division for his project "Does Water Affect Aerodynamics of Paper Airplanes?" 



Anders with his Display Board

Lars was recognized with the Mrs. Roberson Award in the 6th Grade division for his project, "The Effect of Piano versus Symphonic Music on Bean Plants."  He says that decorating the display board was his favorite part of the science fair project.  Child after my own heart...  :-)

Lars with his Display Board

Both boys are now eligible to represent our school at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte Regional Science and Engineering Fair next month.  Anders is not sure he wants to participate (because he's suspicious that additional work will be involved!) but either way, they have done well.

Rewards will be selected at the LEGO store this weekend...