Addi Goes to Summer School

At the end of June we received a surprise phone call from one of Addison's fourth-grade teachers. She wanted to invite Addison to be part of an exclusive summer program at the Westridge Girl's Academy. The program is sponsored by a few local, private schools and designed to target high-achieving girls in Pasadena public schools. Once a girl is invited to the program, she can return to the program, every year, all the way through high school. Normally, each school is only allowed to invite two girls entering into the fifth grade, and two future sixth-graders. Hamilton had already chosen girls. Fortunately for us, one week into the program, they still had four spots to fill. And, yeah! Addison was called.

The Summer Enrichment Program, or SEP, was held everyday from 8 to 3 at the Westridge Girls Academy. Addison had several classes every day, including math, science. language arts, PE and a journalism class. She came home everyday with something new to tell us about. One day, she interviewed students and teachers for the program's magazine. Another day, she told us that she extracted DNA from a strawberry. And the next day she dissected owl pellets. The girls also had a fun field trip to the Rose Bowl for swimming and hiking in the nearby Arroyo where they learned to identify the local trees by name. She also completed five book reports and read twice that number of books.

The last week of the program included an Etiquette Tea where the girls got to dress up and put on their best manners, and an Open House Night for parents. The next day the girls had a Science Day, where teams of girls participated in designing a safe way to drop an egg onto a target.

Today was the last day of the program and they finished with a bang! The girls had a carnival in the morning. The paraded around their favorite stuffed animals, and in the afternoon they had water play.

The kid is exhausted! Addison loved the program and was very sad to see it come to an end. She is looking forward to participating again next year.