School Updates!

So I decided this afternoon that my mother probably had reason to maim me when I was in elementary school and I'm not sure I could have blamed her. I remember the many times I either deliberately or accidentally forgot to make sure that she got to see the school picture order forms and we missed out. As Alicia got off the bus and announced proudly that her school pictures came back today I was so excited I could have burst at the seems. I'm totally bias but I thought that they turned out really well.

Our first quarter of the year is down. We've all learned quite a bit a long the way. I for one have learned that somehow even with only one munchkin to chase around during the day it feels like I get less accomplished. I've also amazed myself by memorizing the names as well as random facts about her school friends that I get to hear - who makes funny faces, who likes to draw, who is a good snapper, who got sent to the thinking chair, who is allergic to milk, who played with her on the playground, etc. etc.

With what I've seen at home and what we learned in our first parent/teacher conference we've discovered that Alicia has learned to spell her last name, memorized her phone number, for the most part knows her address, can figure out the numbers up to 100 (mostly), is learning reading words, knows the difference between spiders and insects, has watched a caterpillar turn into a butterfly, used a smartboard, has detailed artwork projects, is a great singer (and good at memorizing all the new songs... and enjoys practicing them... a lot...), she has a significant portion of the school that thinks she's absolutely adorable - her teacher says that she's silently nicknamed her Cinderella because of her tiny feet and definitive princessness. I think that's interesting - we can't walk into the school or out of the school with waves and hugs and people that definitely know who she is by name. I can't even count the number of people that have told me how adorable or cute she is. I'm still not sure if this is a curse or a blessing but it's definitely been how things have worked with her since the day she was born (or at least a week later when she got to come to church for the first time).

She's also earned a reward for "best works" in reading. Teachers have a certain number of kids that they can send to the Principle's office with an assignment that they've done well, they get to show it to him and put it up on the wall to showcase and then there's an awards assembly. For Kindergarten they do about half the class every two months. At the same assembly she got an award for being able to be a good school citizen and knowing and following all the rules (Mark and I laughed quite a bit about all of her good behavior that was praised in this award and on her report card... she must behave so well at school that she gets home and has to let all her craziness out that's built up through the day!)

All in all things are going well, hopefully soon we'll actually start to find a good schedule that will help us run things a bit more smoothly.