It's Life......Everybody Poops: Western Day

Every year the schools here in Texas hold annual Western Day celebrations in order to teach our children to celebrate their Western culture. Usually these days mark the beginning of the rodeo season. On Friday April 1, 2011 Alyssa's school as well as the entire MISD held their annual Western Day celebrations.

(Alyssa's ready for Western Day)

Kindergarten - 3rd Grade were scheduled to preform in the gym beginning at 8:30am. I have to say that while each grade level performed the same dances that they do each year there were a few surprises added in and it is always exciting to watch as your child performs their newly learned dances and reminices about the dances they've done in previous years.

(The class waiting for the program to begin)

One of our first surprises/ new additions to this year's performances was the school orchestra kicking off the celebration by performing their rendition of 'Cotton Eyed Joe' on their fiddles. Following the orchestra's performance the kindergarteners did their Western Day skit where one of the teachers reads a story and the kids are divided up into groups which stand up and act out motions or sounds to specific words. This is always so cute because they are divided up into groups such as horses, indians, cowboys, guns, bows and arrows, wagon train, etc.

Following the Kindergarteners is the first dance for the first graders. This is where Alyssa performed this year. I'm really not sure what these dances are actually called but it's just so cute and the kids really look like they have fun doing it.

After first grade was finished it was time for the second graders to get up and perform their first number. Being that Alyssa's class is made up of 8 first graders and 7 second graders I decided to snap some photos of her teacher and the second graders doing their line dance.

(Our Intern Teacher Mrs. Adams dancing with one of the 2nd graders)

(Omar and Madelyne turning each other)

(Caitlyn & another 2nd grader spinning)

(Miss Smith turning her 2nd grade partner about)

(Savannah and her teacher partner)

So I'm sure that by now you can figure out how the celebration was scheduled to happen. Each grade taking turns in doing their dances until all of them had completed the two dances they'd prepared. With 3rd grade finished with their first line dance it was time again for the first graders to get up and shake a leg again. Although I'm not quite sure you'd call this shaking a leg, more like swing your partner, but again the kids were having so much fun.

Following the first graders, the second graders had their chance to perform their second dance which was a circle dance. Here each group had two circles, and inner and an outer. The inner circle would stand still while the outer circle would rotate around them, some to a stop, swing their partners, then begin rotating again.

After second grade, the third graders performed their last dance and then we were surprised with another performance. This time it was the fifth graders coming in to perform for us their sword dance. While I do think that it was totally irrelevant to the whole Western Day theme it was still a pretty cool dance that captivated the attention of the younger children. After the fifth grade performance the kindergarteners closed out the show with their version of the 'chicken dance'. Here even the principal and assistant principal join in on the fun and at the end all of the kids fell onto the floor pretending to be exhausted. It was so cute and of course there weren't very many people in the audience who could resist dancing along with them.

After the program was finished in the gym Cayden and I did accompany Alyssa's class back to their classroom to take a few photos of the kids together and ended up staying a while longer to help out with a few of their Western Day crafts before finally heading home.