Jack & 1st Grade

Today I thought I'd give a little update on how Jack is doing in 1st grade.  His report cards and behavior grades continue to be excellent and we are really proud of how he is doing.  And as usual, I crack up at the stuff he brings home in his backpack.  For example...

 Here's a worksheet that described his Thanksgiving - Jack actually got sick on Turkey Day (more on that in a later post) and threw up twice.  So as you can see, things he did were: throw up in the middle of the night - hence the black crayon all over the page - and eat a small bite of turkey at dinner.  At least he was a trooper.  And I'm intrigued at the green light fixture that apparently exists in our kitchen now...

 His favorite subjects are math and science - sigh - and back in October (I'm way behind on blogging) he got his first real project.  Creating a habitat!  He had to choose an animal that he likes and make a shoebox habitat for it along with a 2 page report about the animal and how it lives.  He immediately chose the Great White Shark (no surprise there) and we got to work researching a making his report.  For the habitat, he glued blue and brown construction paper in, we hot glued a $1 shark toy from the bargain bin at Kroger, and I helped him add Fruity Pebbles coral for effect.  We read through two books my mom got him about sharks and began to build his report.  He was most intrigued about sharks being cold-blooded and having up to 30,000 teeth in a lifetime.  I was just grateful he didn't choose something impossible to make a shoebox for - like a box jellyfish.  I was super proud of him for making this and slightly terrified that this is only the start of elementary school projects that no doubt get more elaborate and complex as the years go by.

 At the end of October, I took a personal day so I could help chaperone Jack's field trip to Marble Springs!  What is Marble Springs you ask?  It is the home of John Sevier - TN first governor!  And as a history teacher, I had absolutely no clue about him whatsoever!  But on the plus side, I got to ride on a school bus with this cutie and got to soak up some one on one time with my eldest :)

 Jack and his class - I really love his teacher Mrs. Ashley.  She is very calm, down to earth, matter of fact.  Perfect for when teaching 1st grade.  And handling all the energetic and at times dramatic episodes that hit with that age.

 At one point they listened to "John Sevier" himself tell his life story.  My favorite part is when John Sevier talked about when he died and the kids looked confused.  One little girl looked back at her mom absolutely terrified.  Leave it to my wiseacre son to call out, "You're not him - you're just an actor!"  I have to hand it to the "actor," he never broke character.

 They had fun playing games, learning how to spin linen, and making butter.

They even got to make a fire...sort of.  Really all they did was go over to a woodpile and carry wood for the demonstration but what's a field trip without a little child labor, huh?  Overall though it was pretty darn cool and I'm really glad I got to hang out with Jack and his classmates.

 Speaking of classmates, I may have mentioned this but I volunteered to teach Jack's religion class on Wednesday nights.  Here is a random photo Jack took with my phone while I was helping Anderson with something.  Not gonna lie, 1st graders are not my forte and it's daunting trying to communicate concepts like the Trinity and Everlasting life to them without getting too confusing.  It also requires that I provide a craft to keep their attention and it would appear that I was born without the craft gene.  Thankfully, I have lots of help with Lizzi and two other mom volunteers and we manage to survive this hour each week.

 In other school news, I am enjoying my own classes this year at FHS.  I have only one prep - which sounds awesome I realize - and 135 kids in AP Combined.  I love the planning aspect but not the grading.  I also love the kids though.  My first block participated in the annual Love Kitchen Can Drive and collected enough cans to go down and build a structure in the commons.  what did they choose?  Hamilton of course!  I really do love high schoolers :)

 Back to Jack - Here are his goals for 1st grade.  Play with his friends, play tag, and learn math.  No history?  Really Jack??

Jack's class photo this year.  A little deer in the headlights but still pretty darn precious :)

Lastly, at the end of the month, Andy and I went in for a teacher conference to find out about Jack's progress.  He's doing great apparently and really only needs to work on slowing down his writing so his handwriting improves a little.  Otherwise we are thrilled with this report.  She said he is very respectful in class and a very god worker.  Still sensitive and hates to get things wrong but he's getting less and less defeated about this as the weeks go on.  We are working on him not taking critiques quite so personally and focusing on correcting mistakes, not feeling like a failure over them.  Mrs. Ashley praised Jack socially and said he works well with all his classmates and gets along with everyone beautifully.  She also said he has been complaining of headaches a bit and has been coming home the last few weeks with one every once in a while.  We think this is due to allergies so we are having him take Zyrtec now in the mornings to fix this.  If they persist though, I'll need to take him back to the eye doctor.

So far Jack is doing great!  He is still adjusting to the workload - he has now switched over to the 'prefers home to school" attitude that most kids get.  Last year he loved school, this year he realizes it's work.  I was actually shocked when his teacher told me that the curriculum goal for 1st grade was to get them to write a paragraph with a topic sentence by the end of the year.  What on earth?  Sh*t just got real around here.  Needless to say though, Jack is still enjoying it and growing by leaps and bounds.  We are so proud of how well he is doing :)