star student

Liesl's first grade class has a "star student" every week - everyone gets a turn, one student per week. The star student gets to pick where they want to sit in the classroom and have a special lunch with the teacher and a friend on one of the days. They make a poster and give a presentation about themselves, bring in two objects for a show-and-tell, pick a book to read to the class, and at the end of the week get a booklet made by their classmates full of compliments about them.

This was Liesl's week, and she was so excited about it. Here's her poster.

I am 7 years old; my favorite color is pink; my favorite animal is a dog; my favorite food is stromboli.
This is what I look like (on a bike!).
This is my family (Camille made an appearance).
My favorite place is school (because I get to learn new things and play with my friends and my teachers are nice).
When I grow up I want to be a dancer.
My favorite thing to do is play with my friends.
If I had one wish, I would wish to go to Hawaii.

For a book, she brought in Ella the Elegant Elephant, about an elephant who goes to a new school, gets picked on by the school bully, but then acts heroically to save the bully and is lauded and loved by all. She wears an amazing hat that was a present from her grandmother, and is her distinctive accoutrement.

For her special objects, she chose Bunny Foofoo, obviously, but then (to our delight) had difficulty choosing a second object that was personally meaningful and said something about her. She couldn't think of any toys or dolls or games or articles of clothing that were particularly important. In the end, she picked a volcanic rock that I brought to her from Mt. St. Helen's - it represented the outdoors, and adventures, and her mama, and because they are learning about rocks right now in school, her love of learning new things (this week she wants to become a geologist). Steve and I were pretty tickled.

For her special friend for lunch, she considered asking her friend Ryder, but then since Ryder had asked her already, she didn't want to have the same three-person lunch with the teacher. She then decided to ask for Nora, her bestie, because that would be sweet. But then she decided instead to ask Zara, a little girl in her class who has never been asked by anyone to be their special lunch friend. Liesl thought it might make her especially happy. It was definitely one of those moments when I feel humbled by one of my children - by her kindness and thoughtfulness, by her empathy - she makes me so proud.