Being Vincent...

If I haven't mentioned it before, Alex's new teacher is amazing!  She cares so much for her students and really pushes them to succeed.  She also really challenges her students and holds them to a high standard.  She does lots of neat projects with the kids and the Wax Museum is a program that she does each year with her first graders.    

In fact, the first thing that Alex did when starting at his new school, is choose a character for the Wax Museum.  He actually chose his character before he even started attending there on the day that we went for a tour and to meet his teacher.  She didn't want him to be behind, so he looked through a bunch of books that she had available and Alex decided that he would be... Vincent van Gogh!!  Alex already knew quite a bit about this artist, since he often reads through our History of Art book and has seen his paintings at the art museum, and his Auntie Bonnie loves van Gogh too, but we started reading more about him and learning more about his paintings!

For the Wax Museum, Alex wrote a speech that he would perform each time his "button" was pushed.  When he wasn't performing he would stand in a "frozen" position, and stay in that position until the next person pushed the button and he came alive again.  He had a lot of work to do before the day of the Wax Museum, he had to memorize his speech, find a costume, practice his frozen position, and create a project about his chosen person.  Whew.... it's a good thing they started working on it in November!!

January 17th finally came along as the big day for the Wax Museum!  And, even though Alex woke up super tired and sick, he got up and made it to school for the big day!  Both sets of Grandparents, the Coyers, and of course Mom and Dad, came to school for the much anticipated day!  When we walked in, we saw.....

 

Vincent van Gogh!!!!  

And boy we were proud.  Even though he didn't feel well and there were a few issues with his mustache, he was awesome!!  He stood still when he was supposed to (and for a kid that doesn't often stay still, this was amazing!) and when his button was pushed he flawlessly recited his speech.  We couldn't have been prouder of our amazing kid!

Each of the kids probably said their speech 40 or 50 times during the 45 minutes of the Wax Museum, and they all did awesome. Joe and I walked around and saw Neil Armstrong, Abe Lincoln, Betsy Ross, Jackie Robinson, Beatrix Potter (complete with a British accent!!), Cleopatra, and so many more!  Alex's class (every last kid) rocked this event.  I am so very proud.

 

When it was all over, we couldn't believe that these kids are just first graders.  At Alex's old school, the fourth graders did this type of a program.  I heard someone ask his teacher how she got first graders to do this and take it so seriously.  She simply responded, "When you expect great things of children, they do great things."  I am so grateful that she is Alex's teacher.

 It's been fun for us as a family to prepare with Alex for being Vincent van Gogh.  As part of his project, he painted a picture like van Gogh's Starry Night using a cool stencil kit that Joe found.

We also got to see one of van Gogh's paintings in person, during a recent visit to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts!  I just love that Alex is interested in and appreciates art!!

 We are so proud of Alex and so thrilled that he was able to have a great experience at school like the Wax Museum!