Thursday, August 21, 2014

3 days down

After Lily's initial reaction to school on Monday I was a tad concerned. Lily has never been a big fan of the annals of learning, she finds it a waste of time. She is a smart kid and needs a challenge and even though she has been in the gifted class since second grade there still hasn't been much of a challenge.

From her very first day she has always been sent home with notes, letting me know how she doesn't stop talking. It took a few months before I even clicked that she wasn't talking to be disruptive but due to boredom. The older she got the less she chattered. phew. Last year the new principal at the school really amped things up for her and she LOVED school for the first time ever. Once you enter middle school you can move into honors and that was where she was but she needed to skip some grades. At the end of the school year, when they were planning electives this for year, Lily knew she was limited because she was going to be skipping grades again. (thank you Dr. P)

But Monday left her feeling blah all over again but Monday was just one day out of 180 and I knew it was to soon to tell. On Tuesday I picked them both up at 3pm and as much as I wanted to know immediately how things went I allowed her some time to start talking. She is once again a happy camper. She loves Geometry, and Physical Science. Her Odyssey of the Mind class, is the one that had her feeling blue of Monday, is now OK, but just OK compared to last year. Last year it was very small, this year it has grown, she misses the intimate group. Civics is terrible. The class itself is fine but there are 19 students and 15 of those are boys and boys are loud. That statement made me laugh. I asked if they were disruptive and she said no, just loud, everything they do is loud. Theatre is still a no go. I cannot believe my drama queen doesn't like drama. Language arts is ok. This is amazing as she was put off of any writing classes in 3rd grade by a teacher who I would rather soon forget. She loves the Language Arts teacher and this will make a world of difference and might just turn things around. This particular teacher, if you follow me on Facebook, is the Mother of Lily's classmate Mark. Mark and Lily have been classmates since pre-k.

I love that she has so many teachers who have kids in the school. Middle school can be tough but here she has teacher/parents always looking out for her. If/when she decides to do something stupid she won't just have to answer to a teacher but to the parent of one of her friends. Hah, kiddo I had some ulterior motives when I kept you in this school.

I think 7th grade will be a happy place for her again. I've filled out many forms and signed my name stating that I do understand that if my kid blows up the school in Science because she didn't follow the classroom rules and or chemical reaction rules I WILL be held accountable and they will not. Hah. And other forms stating that if she loses her electronic notebook or breaks it or vandalises it we will be asked to replace it at a cost of blah blah dollars. Somewhere in the stack were the usual homework, grade, coursework forms but they weren't nearly as exciting.

As always she is friends with the nerdy kids. I like this, nerdy is good. She balances out the nerdy with her athletic prowess on the pool deck. She is happiest when she is in her upper grade classes and when she really has to think.

As for Rosie, second grade still rocks. I saw her teacher yesterday at pick up and let her know that she made the first day of school so exciting that Rosie couldn't wait to go back for day 2. Rosie has received her first project assignment and had finished it already. She had to cover her composition notebook with various photos, articles, poems etc that describe her. It had to follow a rubric for each cover. Her cover is filled with photos of: swimming, Nannie, Grandpa, mad Uncle Andy, Crazy Auntie Sally, Uncle Colin, Uncle Jon, Lily, China, adoption, and Pete the Cat which is her favourite book. I did help her laminate it last night but that was all the help she got. She can't wait to turn it in.

The child is even reading a lot more willingly.

Her only complaint, one girl at her table screams in her ear all the time.

This child has come a long way from the times when I had to sit outside the classroom so that she could check I hadn't left her even though she had, in her grubby little hands, the keys to the car the whole entire time she was at her desk.
(one day when she is bigger, much much bigger, I will tell her how I had the spare set and would drive home and come back and be on the the bench at times arranged previously by her teacher and I. To begin with I had to stay on the bench the whole time but as her confidence grew I drove home) But not yet, she isn't ready yet. If she knows I tricked her then she might still think I will do it again and I cannot afford to go backwards, especially now with the life changes she is handling And if you are reading this and think you should tell her, I ask that you don't.  For now we will continue to forge forward and build her confidence.

So things are shaping up well for the school year. Only 177 more days to go before summer vacation but who is counting. Oh I am, that would me.

3 comments:

  1. full marks Dawnski.
    col.xx

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  2. Happy news! So glad they are both happy at school, that really helps!

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  3. Believe it or not they figure these things out so when you eventually tell them they are all "Oh I knew that!". So happy things are going swimmingly....pun intended!

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