Last Day of School

Last Tuesday was the last day of school!!! Hooray!

I went to pick the goobers up so we could head over to Sandy's Poppers for ice cream. We do not even have to discuss it with the other two families that go with us anymore. It is tradition and they are always there.

Alex was saying goodbye to his best bud, Nate and said he wished he could come with us to ice cream too. I told him to find his mom and we could ask but he said that he walks home so we walked with him and asked his mom if he could come along. She agreed and Alex was so happy to have a boy along for the ride for once.

You have already heard about Alyssa's year. She did not have a very good teacher. In fact, I don't think she has had much luck with teachers since 1st grade but she coasted through again. I am excited to have her in an environment that will push her a little bit more though.

Alex also had a great year! Alex has been blessed to have good teachers all three years but he made tremendous progress this year. He was so frustrated going in to the year because reading was still such a struggle and the school district wouldn't help us. They kept saying it would click eventually but he wouldn't even see the letters right sometimes and it was getting discouraging. They also said to wait until he takes the WKCE (state standardized tests) in 3rd grade and if he didn't do well they would intervene. Why would you sit and wait for a child to fail? Doesn't seem very proactive to me. This year his teacher helped build his confidence by showing him how good he is in Math and Science and Geography. He was in a 2nd/3rd combo class and was doing the 3rd grade Math all year. Once he realized he was a good student his confidence increased and his reading took off. His teacher worked with him on his speech as well since the speech therapists at the school have blown me off year after year after year. At the start of the year the teacher told me Alex needed to improve 6 levels in reading to get to grade level. I was crushed because we had worked so hard and it just wasn't happening, but this was his year because he came up 10 levels in reading and he got 100% on every spelling test all year. He even got a handful of E's on his report card which was cool because in the lower grades they usually only go as high as an S. You have to be significantly ahead of the curve to get an E. Some were academic E's (lots in Geography, maps, directions, because he is a genius at figuring out directions) and he also always got an E all year for showing respect to authority, which I should tell his TKD teacher, because respect is a big deal in martial arts.

I think I have now fulfilled my quota of mommy bragging. Here are some pictures of our last day!!!

Alyssa was required to wear her Class of 2013 shirt .


 
Walking over to the lake after ice cream.
 
Here's how my pic of Al and his buddy came out. Thank you Chloe!
 
That wraps up the 2012-13 school year. We still aren't sure where we will land next year. I have called all the charter schools to see if we have moved up the waiting lists.  We have not at two of them but at one we have and they even told me we were very well positioned at 4, 7 and 9. Alex and Chloe are also 1 and 4 at another school so they are telling me it looks promising as well so we may still have some decisions ahead? Alyssa says she wants to try e-school even if we get in somewhere so we will probably just do that either way. If the other two have to stay at the neighborhood school I am okay with that. In fact, the only reason I want to move them is because of the family system they are doing and because of class sizes. As neighborhood schools go, ours is just as good as the others around here. The charter schools are just better. Plus, if I can get them in a K-8 now then when they get to middle school e-school will just be one option instead of the only option. The good news is that even our regular school is changing hours next year. We always went from 7:30-2:30 until this year when we switched to 8:40-3:45. The kids got home at 4:00 and we leave at 5ish most nights for lessons. Next year they switch to 8-3 which is awesome. Not the super early schedule but early enough that the after school dash shouldn't be quite so hectic.

For the rest of our first week of summer the kids did not want to do much. It was not warm enough for the lake and the only place they actually wanted to go was to the library and you know that makes me happy. I think I may just turn all 3 into bookworms after all.

I usually read to Chloe but even she takes advantage of quiet reading time before bed.
 
 Alex is reading Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing on my Kindle and as usual, the Flat Stanley books and Diary of a Wimpy Kid books from the library.
 
This one reads in bed
 
 And she reads cookbooks
 
And she reads all the time!


It was a pretty laid back start to summer. We are hoping higher temps and less rain are ahead so we can get to the lake and Six Flags soon. And would you believe that even with our slow start I still managed to get behind here so I will be back to show you our weekend adventures soon.