Kid School Update

I got news last week that our elementary school has hired a new 2nd grade teacher for James!! Huzzah!! It will take a couple weeks to transition, I hear. In the meantime, we're chugging along on his school work. He's delighted to have finished the section on double digit addition/subtraction (carrying and borrowing) and revels in the relative ease of measuring things with a centimeter ruler. He's reading better, too, but only because he's doing it every day again. We weren't very diligent about going to the library over the summer...erk.

Matthew gets daily practice at school with letters and sounds and sight words. He's noticing letters and words in the world around him. Just yesterday, he proudly proclaimed, "Z-O-O-P spells zoop!" He read it in a library book. Friday was his first trip to the library in a long time, and it was certainly his first library trip ever where he wanted his own bag for his own books and spent more time choosing books than playing. It helps that all the library toys have been removed (*sigh* Covid) but I think something has actually changed in him. He was adamant that the books he selected get put onto his bed (the only place in the house where people have to ask his permission to remove things) so no one else would read them or carry them away before he had a chance to look at them. We rediscovered the CD Audio Books section, too, where he picked out a whole pile of books he can read-along with the CD. 

We had virtual parent-teacher conferences last week, too. Robert's teacher wants to challenge him a little more. Robert thinks that means giving him MORE homework, but she assures us he'll be trading in busywork for more meaningful kinds of work. Kudos to her for trying to tailor each kid's educational experience in such a time! She says he's pretty funny in class. That comment made him sink into his chair and groan out loud. He really, really, really doesn't like to mix school and home. 

Alice's workload is high. She also spends a lot of time hiding from the noise and chaos that come from her three younger brothers. The last couple of weeks, we've experimented with leaving Robert and James home together without an adult. Bobby, Alice and I will go for a walk around the block (about 12 minutes) and return to find them just fine. I like those walks with Alice. She just opens up and shares everything. She's so excited about BYU right now. There was a regional Zoom meeting for kids interested in applying to BYU and I registered Alice. I can't imagine she was the ONLY 8th grader there, but maybe. She ate it up: housing, religion classes, clubs and groups, getting around campus, and the entire application process. One of these days we'll make a trip out there to see it in person. She's more excited at the prospect of visiting Provo than Hawaii. From what I can tell, there are 2 really big aspects of BYU that are grabbing her attention right now: 1) most students will be members of the Church of Jesus Christ. She cannot wrap her brain around that. 2) independence, freedom to come and go, and pretty much all things "adulting".