B.E.A.R. week (Be Excited About Reading)

a.k.a. no TV/computer/DS/iPad/iPhone week.

The most dreaded week of the year.

And it all culminates with the most dreaded day of the year for moms.

Book Character Dress-Up Day.

Here’s the goal: spend the week reading (or doing one of the other 101 things on the “list” the administration sends home) INSTEAD of doing anything electronic. Unless it’s the mom or dad who have to do work on the computer. Or an older brother/sister who have to do homework on the computer or watch the news for an assignment. Every single day the parents must turn in a little teeny tiny slip of paper with their signature that states that their child had no screen time the day before. At the end of the week, every child who turned into a slip of paper every day receives an award…which in the past has been ice cream, so that’s what my kids were all expecting…and then it wasn’t ice cream this year…so everyone was sorely disappointed…and really, the parents should get the reward for remembering to sign the teeny tiny slip of paper and send it back to school every day…I think I will have a bowl of ice cream now…

Anyway, after spending the entire week (the last week of January/first week of Feb.) focusing on reading, both during school and at home, all the K-4 students and staff are invited to dress up like a character from their favorite book and then there’s a big parade where every class walks past every other class. It’s really quite cute…especially when teachers and students really get into it. But it’s pretty much a pain for moms. I shopped ALL. OVER. for orange tiger striped pants so that Becca could be Judy Moody. Amazingly, I found GREEN tiger striped pants. Close enough. We borrowed tutus, bought feather boas, drew on t-shirts, practiced hair-dos and ended up with a beautiful Gigi, God’s Little Princess:

 

and Judy Moody:

Judy Moody with a little “Becca” thrown in, of course…

They have fun with their friends at school…

Here’s one of my co-workers, dressed as a mountain climber, with her daughter who visited the classroom that day, dressed as Tim Tebow.

I didn’t actually work on the day of the Book Character Parade, so wearing Bethany’s Thing 3 shirt from Halloween was good enough for me. Ha ha! Here’s me with my Kindergarten class & co-workers:

All in all, it was a fun week…and I’m really glad it’s over for another year.