Jonah has improved in leaps and bounds since the beginning of the year. He is kind of a scatterbrained kid and has a hard time remembering instructions and following through, and he is one of the youngest and smallest in his class. At the start of the school year at his first Parent Teacher Conference, his teacher (who has a no nonsense attitude, which I think has been good for Jonah) told us that although he was a great kid, he had a lot of work to do and could use a lot of encouragement and could improve in plenty of areas. I was kind of offended at first until I took a step back and realized it was true, and that there was nothing wrong with that. His first report card was filled with S and S+'s (T is the worst, S is average and E is the best). I think he had 2 or 3 E's on that first report card. On his next one, there were even more E's and S+'s and less of just plain S's. And then on his last report card, he had improved so much, there were double the E's. I was so proud of him and all of his hard work and improvement. I was also proud of myself and all the work we had been doing at home. At his last parent teacher conference, his teacher told me that she was just amazed at his accomplishments and that she honestly didn't think he would turn into as great of a student as he had. She made sure to let me know that he was still a silly joker at times, but that he had started listening better and taking school more seriously. It really showed too, because he had gone from a kindergarten reading level at the beginning of the school year up to 2nd-3rd grade reading level in only 6 months.
Here's Jonah with his big school project. It was an animal project and they get to choose to study whatever animal they want. Well, if you know my kid at all, he is obsessed with all-things-yucky. He has been begging for a turtle, lizard, or snake (he lets me know that he's not picky, he'll take any one of those ;) for years. So, of course, he chose Gila Monsters to study. He read a book about them, wrote the report and chose (all by himself) to do a clay model in it's habitat. I bought the clay and set him to it. He had very little help and instruction from Andy and he came up with this:
I was amazed. Get this kid in some art classes!I'm so proud of Jonah and all that he has improved in and accomplished this year. Oh, and he got 100% on his report plus some extra credit. Way to go Jo-Jo :)
And then we have the Teacher's Pet.... oh, I mean, Laylah :) I don't know where this girl gets her love of learning because I think I was more like Jonah back in my elementary school days. She will honestly cry if she has to miss a day of school because she is sick or something. She has a plethora of E's smothering her report card with only 2 or 3 S+'s. Her behavior portion is always perfect and her teacher has had nothing but good things to say about her. Her Parent Teacher Conferences always last about 2 minutes because her teacher tells me she is great and wonderful and shows me how well she's doing (she went from a second grade reading level at the beginning of the year and she is now at a fifth grade level) and then we have nothing else to talk about! She is a great student and I hope she stays like this always. Her big project this year was on a famous American of her choosing and she chose Helen Keller. She wrote the 2 page report herself (I typed it for her) and made her visual aid all by herself by finding pictures online, printing them, cutting them out and decorating the posterboard. She got 100% and extra credit as well.
I am definitely a proud Mama and so happy my kids enjoy school and love to learn. Way to go you two little scholars!
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