School Days: PK4 Parade Prep

Remember last year around this time? When Riley, as a little PK3 student, got to go to his school Mardi Gras parade for the first time? Well, this year he IS the parade. The PK4 students are the ones that ride in “floats” around campus and throw beads and trinkets to the rest of the school body and their family and friends. Riley is quite excited.

We have been hard at work designing and bringing to life his “float,” built around our red wagon. As y’all saw on Tuesday, Kenny constructed a frame out of wood that fits around the wagon, providing a nice surface to decorate. Riley even helped paint! (Green, of course. We actually used some of the leftover paint from the original colors in the house. I didn’t think any of that stuff would ever come in handy, but I was wrong!)

 

The parade is the culmination of Global Awareness Week at SCR. The school studies a different country every year; Brazil was the chosen one for 2015. This couldn’t be more perfect for Riley, given that he was once obsessed with a certain movie named Rio (aka the bird movie).

We designed most of the float around some of the characters from the movie, putting Riley’s Blu and Jewel stuffed animals at the head and taping pictures of the characters to the sides. I also picked up some fake yellow carnations, added more color with Sharpies, and shoved the flowers under the birds. Cute, huh? Riley even has extra flowers to throw to the ladies on the route.

 

Kenny printed out Brazil’s flag for the very front, we attached colorful fringe to the bottom and braided strings of beads to the sides, and I painted a backboard depicting the famous Christ the Redeemer statue that presides over the city of Rio. It sits behind Riley’s seat in the wagon and looks pretty darn cool, if I do say so myself.

Then, as if we hadn’t done enough, Kenny made another suggestion of mine happen. Lights! It’s good being married to an engineer.

And voila! The finished product. Riley really loves his float and can’t wait to ride in it.

The parade rolls this afternoon at 2pm and then Riley is off all next week for Mardi Gras holidays. It sure is nice growing up in New Orleans.

Happy Mardi Gras, y’al!