Dan and I received a letter in the mail yesterday from Olia's school.  It notified us that she had been chosen as a winner in a young author's writing competition.  She has been chosen as a classroom winner and her entry will be entered in the county writing competition sponsored by a local county reading council. I think she won as an ELL(English language learner) student author.  We are so excited and proud of her!

  Olia's friend Katelyn was at our house on Sunday playing with Olia.  I don't know how we got on the subject of lunches, but Katelyn told me that Olia throws away her sandwich at school lunch everyday. Olia was not thrilled that she told me.  I asked Olia is she did that and she said....well, you told me not to eat if I'm not hungry.  I have always told her that.  She eats a big breakfast, moring snack in the classroom and I guess she just isn't that hungry at lunchtime.  She is ravenous when she gets home from school.  She always wants lunch on the weekends so I am not sure why she isn't eating her sandwich at school.

   On Sun. we went to the library to get more books.  Olia reads aloud to me for twenty minutes everyday.  I have been choosing more non-fiction books for her to read so that she gains some background information that I think is missing from her Ukrainian education.  She did not know that caterpillars turned into butterflies.  She does seem to have a great deal of knowledge about the ocean and sea creatures.  I also am trying to find more books at her level on American history. Olia loves reading fiction but I can see that she is also interested in learning information.