Friday, May 15, 2009

Kayla's Big Achievment

I'm so proud of my 12 year old Kay, please indulge me and let me praise her how for hard she has worked this year. She started a new school this year in our public middle school transferring out of our local catholic parochial school. We wanted to keep her options open for high school and we figured if she were to go public we'd rather her make the move now verses then. She moved from a school where there were 56 students in the 6 grade to a school where there are 300 students in the 6th grade. The decision was ours and although she felt understandably nervous, she never complained.

The transition has been everything we hoped for and more. She's taking advantage of new opportunities that she has never had before (ie school play, newspaper, chorus etc), made lots of nice new friends, and is thriving academically. I'm so proud of her!!

Her language arts teacher had all the 6th grade students write an essay about prejudice and what it means to them sponsored by NCJW West Morris Section. My little Kay was one of 4 grand prize winners throughout our county. She is on top of the world about it. Last week she was invited to an awards ceremony for this, received her prizes and got to read her piece to a full auditorium of 350 people (I seriously would have not enjoyed that at that age) and did an amazing job!
above are the 4 grand prize winners for writing and 2 grand prize winners for art and below is Kayla reading her essay to the auditorium


The event had a guest speaker Stanlee Stahl was phenomenal! Her talk was about the Holocaust and the countless numbers of Christians and Muslims who sacrificed everything to shelter and rescue the Jews during this time. It was incredibly motivating and she had a way of speaking not only to the adults, all of my kids were listening to every word and taking it in. I emailed her later to tell her what a fantastic job I thought she did. It was a great night!!

Just got back from the library and picked up Anne Frank for Kayla (I was surprised she hadn't read this yet!) and a book called The Zookeeper's Wife, a true story about a Polish family who turned their zoo in Warsaw into a safe haven for Jews. That one is for me. I can't wait to read it! I'll let you know how it is :)

So congrats to my Kay, we are soooooooooooooooo proud of you! xo Mom and Dad

1 comment:

Ang said...

That is wonderful!! This is just the beginning! I want to check out the Zookeeper's wife- sounds very good.