Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Day 18 (bathrooms not done yet and it is the last day of school!)

No bathroom action.  Nothing until Friday which will be Day 20.

Today was the last day of school for my boys.  Bittersweet.  Jax finished his first year of high school.  Just 3 more years and then he is off to college. I am trying not to think about that too much.  I think because I lived at home while I went to college (and after!) that I find it really hard to imagine that he will be gone then and may never be back to live here.  :'(

Dex really enjoyed 7th grade in middle school this year and he met a lot of new friends.  It was a great year for him to go directly into the middle grade of middle school with the school district's changes from jr. high to middle school.  One more year and then he too will be in high school.

Report cards for those two will be coming in the mail soon.

Cars, oh what can I say about him.  Finished grade 4 and I would love to say with flying colours but I cannot. His grades were more than fair - he actually did quite well in a few subjects.  Below standard in geometry and measurements in math but the test for that was when we were away at his hockey tournament in Richmond BC so he did miss two full day so instruction and review.  I hope that is all it was.  The biggest ding on his report card were under the life skills section.  He got "approaching standard" in almost all of them.  This was the teacher's comments on his report card this term:

I have truly enjoyed sharing this year with Cars.  I love his ability to find humor in life, and the joy he carries with him each day.  He continues to work on the fine line between humor and disrespect, and appropriate vs not appropriate behavior at school.  Cars is very bright, yet likes to do the minimum required.  This can tend to give him too much time to fill with socializing which distracts others during work time.  In his writing Cars learned the pattern for expository almost too well, and repeat the exact phrase from the sentence before when he supports his reason, detail and fact.  Reading remained somewhat inconsistent for Cars.  He never found a book that really excited him, and I hope he can find that soon,  He worked hard in math on the new concepts we learned.  He was successful for the most party though did struggle with units of measurement and area and perimeter.  He was a good leader in his Oregon Trail Sim group, and during this time really made an effort to move away from distractions and focus on his work.  he did an amazing job on this Pacific Northwest Native American carving research and PowerPoint presentation.  He was proud of what he did, and completely focused on learning as much as possible about his topic.  This focus and effort will be helpful to embrace in all learning.  It would be wise this summer to practice writing (especially expository), go on IXL (our online math program) and practice math concepts, and continue to read and discuss books for a great start to 5th grade next year.

*sigh*

I did email the teacher after reading the report card and told her that it was disappointing to see all of those 2s in his life skills and that hopefully maturity will come quickly for him.  She was quick to respond to me that he is "so delightful and smart" and that he just struggles with thinking before he acts and speaks sometimes.  And that he does respond well to her "teacher eye" and redirection.

While my other two kids also struggled with the inappropriate humor (more so when rather than actual inappropriate humor) but not to this extent.  Let's hope that 5th grade brings some changes for him.  And to be fair, with an August birthday he is the second youngest in his class.  But maybe by this age it should have sorted itself all out. 

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