elementary school spirit week

Last week was "Spirit Week" at the kids' school. Basically each day was a different fun day. Ana was really in to it this year.

Day #1 was mismatch day. That was interesting. Mostly because I don't really care what my kids wear to school as long as it is clean and not raggity, so they kind of think that everything matches. Jack finally decided to wear bright red warmups with a nice striped sweater, but I am not quite sure he knew why they didn't match. He did get a big kick over the fact that he wore mismatched socks. It took a while to figure Ana's outfit out though because she kept asking "Are you sure?" when I told her that a bright red skirt didn't really match with a coral and purple shirt.

Day #2 was "favorite sports team." Ana insisted that I make her a Broncos t-shirt (she decided on her own that they are her favorite sports team).  I just so happened to have a bunch of plain white t-shirts to I traced the bronco onto the back. I am actually quite proud of the result.

Ana was a little disappointed to find out that not all of her classmates shares her love of the Broncos. In fact, when she got into the car after school she said, "Everyone said the Broncos stink." At which time I told her, "Welcome to fandom." But I didn't say it quite like that. I told her about how a lot of people like the Patriots around here and the Broncos beat the Patriots. I also said that Gramps likes the Cowboys and sometimes I tell him that they stink. She laughed at that and I told her it was just part of liking sports.  Also, that afternoon I chopped off her hair so I didn't have to deal anymore with crazy tangles like the one in that picture.

Day #3 was interesting. It was "crazy hair day."  Ana wanted really while hair, but after discovering that we have absolutely no hair products in our house, she decided to go with lots of braids. (And to wear her broncos shirt again. I guess she got over the trauma).

Jack on the other hand was super conflicted. First he wanted crazy hair, then he insisted that he was absolutely not going to school that day. Most of the morning was a struggle for him that included him breaking down into hysterics over crazy hair day. It seems that he didn't want to do it, but he also didn't want to be the only one without crazy hair and he just didn't know what to expect when he got to school. So I ended up walking him to class and showing him that most of the boys in the class didn't have crazy hair and then he felt better. That kid isn't the most flexible.

Day #4 was "favorite number day." Jack decided his favorite number was 23 (because that was Michael Jordan's number) and so once again I pulled out the stack of plain white t's and wrote a big 23 on it. I didn't take a picture but I loved what Jack did to it. He decided he needed to write different ways to describe the number 23. This included writing "twenty-three" along the bottom, writing "20+3 is 23" to the side of the big 23 and then drawing 23 dots, 23 tally marks and 23 squares on his shirt. I thought it was awesome.

The last day the kindergartners wore blue, and the 2nd graders wore red so that was easy.

It was actually fun, despite a few meltdowns and last minute throwing together of outfits. It was interesting to see what they wanted to do with each day. They are so different from each other and each day brings some new thing that they throw at me. And I guess they did go to school with a bit more "spirit."