Fairy Tale Party

Today was Brian's First Grade class party to celebrate the end of the school year and the completion of their unit on Fairy Tales. There are 7 girls and 5 boys in Brian's class. Most of the girls dressed up in their pretty fairy-style dresses for the occasion. Each child contributed 'fancy' foods to the party ... Brian brought *Ice Queen* ice cream bars for each child. The others brought things like *Peter Pan* pancakes and there was a *Cinderella* cake as well. Brian had an opportunity to read his fairy tale that he had written to me and show me his computer-drawn illustrations. The class also recently completed a unit on insects, so Brian showed me his insect diorama which he built inside of a shoebox using paint, paper and modeling clay. This is the most fun week of school, I think, and with just 2 1/2 days left of school the class is in full PARTY mode! Tomorrow the First Grade is heading out on an all-day field trip to **Terelj, about 90 minutes outside of Ulaanbaatar. Wednesday will be an all-day sports day (like field day, but since there's no grass here we can't really call it field day!). Then Thursday is a 1/2 day and then ... SUMMER. Ya--hoooo!

waiting excitedly for his *Ice Queen* ice cream bar

entire class photo



showing me his fairy tale chapter book/story ... all fairy tales start with 'Once upon a time' and end with 'happily ever after.' of course!



Brian's insect diorama ... that's a colorful butterfly made of clay behind a fluffy white cotton cloud (don't mind the redness on Brian's left eye ... he has *another* sty - his 4th in about 6 weeks - from the dirty playground)

** Side Note: Terelj fun fact (from Wikipedia): Many Westerners were introduced to Gorkhi-Terelj National Park when the CBS reality television program The Amazing Race visited the park in the second episode of its tenth season.