I know I'm a little behind on things, but bear with me. I'm doing two posts this week - the other one will come as soon as I get the weekend photos done up right.
For starters, though, I wanted to tell you all about Boy's 4th grade year. His last day of school was Friday, May 30th, so he brought home the entire contents of his desk (about 20 pounds of stuff in his backpack!) and his report card. The report card is the most exciting thing, but hang tight....
I know I posted his 3rd quarter grades, and I think maybe 2nd quarter too, but I'll give you another run-down since I have them all in front of me. He has officially been placed in 5th grade next year! His age (one of the youngest in his class) and maturity have always made me wonder if I started him too early - he turned 5 just days before entering Kindergarten - but every year, after the Winter Break, his grades and attitude turn around 180 degrees, and I again feel confident that I did the right thing. I also didn't want a boy who'd turn 18 just before his Senior year of high school, and who might want to ditch school because he'd be an adult. So, without further ado, here's what happened this year......
2nd quarter:
Math - 84/B
Science - 84/B
Science Quest (labwork) - 89/B
Reading - 86/B
Lang. Arts (writing) - 78/C
Social Studies - 76/C
Art - 90/B
Music - 77/C
P.E. - 95/A
3rd quarter:
Math - 67/D {several missing assignments}
Science - 76/C
Science Quest - 98/A
Reading - 71/D {several missing assignments}
Lang. Arts - 80/C
Spelling - 92/A
Art - 84/B
Music - 85/B
P.E. - 95/A
4th quarter:
Math - 84/B
Science - 86/B
Science Quest - 92/A
Reading - 92/A
Lang. Arts - 85/B
Spelling - 99/A
Social Studies - 80/C
Art - 94/A
Music - 90/B
P.E. - 95/A
Did you see the big jump in grades there?!? We are so very proud of him! More importantly, he is proud of himself! At the end of 3rd quarter, we'd had a long talk about school and the importance of doing your best work all the time. Before the 3rd quarter report card came home, we found out that Boy had been hiding assignments in his closet here, and therefore made more work for himself. That, and the report card, prompted me to watch more carefully and really dig into him about what they'd done at school each day - plus, his school now can publish each students grades and coursework online, so he knew I was checking up on him and his classwork/homework. Now, sometime during the last few months, he has also gone through a growth spurt - physically (he's almost up to my nose!), mentally, and emotionally - so that could have had a lot to do with the improvement too. I now feel confident that he's ready for 5th grade, although I'll need to work with him over the summer so he doesn't forget anything. You know, the old "if you don't use it, you lose it". I'm thankful for some friends who homeschool, that I have a list of resources and websites that make it easy for me to find some work to do each weekday. His school also sent a list of reading material for incoming 5th graders, so we'll be hitting the library a couple times per month. I'd like to try and teach him how to write a book report so that it will come more easily once they *have* to be done in school. Let's see if I remember those days..... LOL.
So, did I mention that we're extremely proud of the improvement? He really is an awesome kid, and sometimes things like this just come up seemingly out of nowhere, and it reminds me that I've done my job right. As a reward to him for such great effort and improvement, we bought him a one-month subscription to XBox Live. Relatives can email me if you want to add him as a friend - he's set up with full parental controls and we have to approve all friends, he's not allowed voice or text chat while playing online, and there is a list of games he's allowed to play. On the flipside of this, he also has to play Brain Challenge and Buku Sudoku once daily. I think I'm gong to have him do 3 or 5 Sudoku puzzles, then take the Brain Test, and after that he's allowed "free play" for an hour or so. He's having his "free play" at this moment so we'll be doing the learning games later. I want to play a game too, ya know. :-)
Now - the other post for today. Last weekend Mom had a party for my turning 31, and I'm finally getting all the pictures edited and put together in a slideshow. Come back later, I hope to have them all up by tonight!
~Proud Mama, Amphitrite
EDIT: I came back near 11 p.m. to add links and fix spelling on this one. I really wrote it in a hurry earlier!
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