Missing Post 2- The School Year Ends

June 18th

• Elise (5th) learned a lot about dealing with other strong personalities. Her writing has continued to be phenomenal and she enjoyed all the power point presentations they did in school. After getting her lowest grade in spelling, she has finally decided it is worth the effort and ended up with the highest grade possible! I give Jared kudos for working with 5th graders all the time (especially the girls). One year just about did me in!
• Ryan (4th) learned a lot about being accountable for his own work. After several talking with his teacher, they agreed to let him go to the 5th grade for math and increased his reading level to closer to his actual level (although they never quite got him in the right group).
• Ethan (1st) ended the school year as the top student in his class. He is reading all the time (he prefers nonfiction and magazines, but throws in some regular books for fun). He is great at math and can already do a lot of his multiplication and money facts.
• Kirsti (Kindergarten) is really starting to get the whole reading thing. She can read by herself during scripture study (with a few helps if more than 3 syllables). She is also a great writer. We have been doing some writing at home and her stories are awesome! She is also getting really good at addition and subtraction.

The pictures are of each child with their teacher. There is also Ethan dressed as an ant for the 1st grade play and Elise dressed up for 5th grade graduation in front of the school.

This has been an interesting year for us. Moving two months into the school year threw us off our groove and I'm not sure we ever fully recovered. We didn't want to do anything drastic because we knew we were leaving as soon as our house sold (which it still hasn't done). Living in limbo is NOT fun. The school was an inner city school. We did that in PA and absolutely loved it, so we weren't too worried. But this school had some rough elements in it and not a lot of programs for above grade level kids. Anyway, Kirsti and Ethan had a great year and Elise and Ryan learned a lot about dealing with hard circumstances. Not a bad lesson to learn while still in elementary school. The bright spot was that they all had wonderful teachers. I am always thankful for those who teach my children~ they get bonus points if I feel like they also love them!