This is a picture of Molly by her first real homework assignment. Her job was to put together a family tree. Molly was initially excited about the project but got tired of it after a while, as expressed in this picture. Our sparse family tree provided plenty of extra space to decorate with random stickers, which Molly carefully arranged.
school
Art Blast
At the end of second grade, Claire brought home piles and piles of her art and other work from the year. It had been sitting around our house for weeks. Kit took some of her last week off to scan some of it. So here it is, a review of Claire’s second grade art.
Molly Writes
Molly has been dabbling with writing for a while, but she is taking it to a new level. The other day she asked for a sticky note and how to spell “ball”. Then she wrote “ball” on the notes and stuck it to the well above a beach ball. She said she wanted us all to remember there was a ball there.
She also wrote her name on a piece of paper, although I forget for what purpose. I think she is gearing up for pre-K in the fall.
Wrapping Up Second Grade
Claire finished second grade on Thursday. How did that happen? One minute, there was a month of school left, and the next minute it was over.
It was a good year for Claire. She loved her teacher, loved her school routine, loved riding the bus home, and loved her school friends. Second grade was a fun year, but with hints of growing up. I think of it as the beginning of “the later Ramona years”, where Ramona is maturing past the silly little kid she once was and moving into new challenges. (Molly is in the early Ramona years.)
Academically, Claire started the year still struggling a bit with basic reading and ended the year strong, tackling big chapter books. She learned to methodically attack challenging words and was coasting through works like “business” and “experiment” by the end of the year. She also conquered speed math (doing basic addition and subtraction quickly) and addition with 3, 4, and more digits. As a challenge, I would sometimes have her add up two really big numbers like 465,777 + 261,222, which she handled with ease. This is a long way from struggling with 9 + 7 just a few months before.
This progress was due to Claire’s hard work and her teacher’s strong dedication. Claire was invited to join two before- and after-school “clubs” lead by her tireless teacher, who had adopted a baby mid-year. Handwriting club was two days a week before school, and math club was one day a week after school. Claire loved handwriting club because it was “cozy” being in the quiet classroom before most of the kids had arrived. She loved math club because her friend Susie was also in the club, and Claire usually got to go to Susie’s house afterwards to do homework and play and hopefully get a Slurpee.
On her report cards, Claire’s teacher praised Claire’s work ethic as “working hard on her handwriting and spelling” and “becoming more confident with continual math practice.” She also focused on Claire’s story telling. “Claire is a lovely story teller. She continually wows me with her word choice and plot development. She is engaged in class discussions and makes fascinating connections.”
The main challenge this year was homework, which was about an hour of reading, spelling, and math. Claire seemed to really enjoy her in-school work but often struggled and railed against homework. Sometimes she would complain openly, but more often she would just procrastinate and lollygag as long as possible. I think by this time of day, Claire was tired and felt she had already done her honest day’s work and should be able to just unwind and relax. This may be Claire’s first real lesson in growing up — yes, you should be able to relax now, but sorry, you had stuff to do first. Welcome to the club. Homework had to be finished in the narrow time between the end of Claire’s school day and when we picked up Molly at 5:15, or else it got pushed to either immediately before or after dinner, both stressful times to squeeze in that extra burst of brain focus before calling it a night. Basically, 3:00 to 7:00 was a tough time of day for everyone, with homework, finishing up work, picking up Molly, making dinner, cleaning up dinner, starting baths all sort of at the same time.
The homework issue got better over the year, and eventually our afternoons were improved dramatically thanks to the new after-school nanny we hired towards the end of the year. More on that in another post.
Pre-School Report Card
Molly got a report card from her pre-school today. It is basically a checklist of core skills for a 3-4 year old. She did well overall, and this report is the latest indication that Molly has officially “pulled herself together”, as Kit and I like to say. On the math front, Molly can sort things, group things, count to 23, and identify all the basic shapes except for octagons. She got all check marks in fine motor for things like cutting with scissors, drawing, doing puzzles (her speciality), and even pouring water from a pitcher. Language was good too, with good skills in telling stories, asking questions, and generally using words. She is really thriving in her pre-school!
In fact, Molly only missed one area on the whole checklist. Her only negative feedback was sort of funny, actually. Molly did not get full marks for “Solves conflicts verbally and usually without violence or need of teacher.” We’ll give her a few more years on that.
Claire in Class
We don’t get to see a whole lot of Claire in school, aside from the occasional class holiday musical, etc. Here is a rare picture of Claire working on a poetry project in her second grade class.
Mr. Linden’s Library
Following is an original story that Claire write in her second grade class. Claire wrote two drafts by hand, then her teacher typed out the final story.
School Portraits
The girls are looking pretty stylish in their recent school portraits for second grade (Claire) and pre-pre-K (Molly).
Molly’s sassy pose is a big change from the crying toddler of a couple of years ago.
New Year’s Resolutions (Claire, 2014 edition)
Claire had to do resolutions for 2014 for a school assignment back in January. I have just scanned it now. Here is what she came up with.
Adding this retrospectively in April, 2014, I can say that Claire is doing very well on her resolutions. She has had several sleepovers, done some monkey bars, has continued to not be mean to Molly, has read way over 10 books, and is learning the back stroke at swimming. She she 8 months left to work on jumping rope, dribbling a basketball, and origami.
McG Kids 