Open House

I just went to his Open House last night. His teachers have nothing to say bad about him. He's able to joke around with them. Except for his Math teacher. She's all about just teaching ONLY. Isaak saw her name in Scrabble letters on her desk. He pointed to it and said, "That would be invalid. It's not a word." She said, "Stop. Ok I have to see another parent now." I was thinking, Geez lady lighten up! He calls his homeroom teacher, "Mama Stone" because she has a Family Tree up of all her homeroom students. She calls them things like, "Son Isaak". It's a joke, but fun. He's happy to play along.

His favorite teacher is his Piano teacher. I so wish he could continue Piano lessons! Maybe he will. His teacher is from Ecuador. Not that it matters where he's from. He has a slight accent. When Isaak first got him, he's like, "I can't always understand him!" He must understand him now. Isaak lit up when he went into the room, and the teacher had an energy about him. Isaak said that he tells stories. He bought a horse for his wife. When he was training it, he jerked on the horse, and shouldn't of done that. He treats his students much like training a horse. Gentle and firm.

He writes his own music, and has the kids play along. When Isaak was playing his teacher came up to me and said, "I really think Isaak is a joy. He loves music, and I can tell." I wanted to hug him.

Isaak seemed ok at school, when he was showing me around.

He actually seemed to enjoy showing me around his school.

Ice for Anxiety

Isaak still has anxiety issues. I have yet to find a Therapist. The one the Pediatrician gave us has daytime hours. There's no way I'm taking Isaak out of school to see someone. That's like adding stress to stress.

I do plan on sending Boys Town a long message about Isaak this weekend. They have people that will give feedback, for free. It's a non profit. Doesn't hurt to get more opinions.

If you missed it he started crying during homework time last year, which was a bad year for Isaak. This year he likes his teachers, but starting middle school is hard! It doesn't help that Mica hardly has homework, and Isaak always does. I remember myself being socially unable to talk to all these groups of people that already seemed to know each other. I was like a deer in headlights. Moving to each class, but unable to talk.

As soon as we got in the car, after his school's Open House happened, anxiety happened as well. He said some kids call him annoying. I never know where some of this comes from. Maybe he's annoying. He's charming, funny, and sometimes shy too. We all can be annoying. No matter what I said, it didn't seem to make a difference. He knew he had homework to do, and two tests the next day. It was already dark out, so he was feeling the pressure. I never understand why teachers give kids homework on days when there's an Open House at school. It is what it is.

Travis was telling him to calm down when we got home. No one calms down when they are told to. I've been guilty of telling him the same thing. Isaak called Travis, "A Jerk" many times. I tried to apply techniques I got from a video on anxiety.

I got out an icepack, and applied it to Isaak's face. Soon after he kept applying to his own face.

I didn't think the icepack trick would work. In my mind I thought it was rubbish. It worked amazingly well. 

I said, "Isaak I'm not going to do your homework, but I am going to sit her with you. I can read things to you, if that helps you process things better." I found out that he did the Science reading, and answered the questions. He only answered what he could remember, and didn't think to go back to the reading for other answers. He finished his homework with minimal tears. When he was done I said, "You might want to check with Dad on this one. He's better with Science than I am. Before you do that please apologize about calling him a jerk. He's not really a jerk." It took some coaxing, but he did apologize. 

I think that was a winner of a night. Even with a break down. 

Middle School

If you remember last week I mentioned that we had a middle school open house for Mica last Tuesday night. We took 2 of our nephews with us because my sister was still at the hospital with my nephew Emerson.

That whole night went fine. To get into middle schools in the district we had to fill out paperwork with our top three choices. 

Of course Mica wants to go to the school that's in the most dangerous part of town. It's the best school in our opinion. When we walked into that school last year they had a hydroponic system going to grow plants, it's the only middle school in the metro that has their own planetarium, and they had all these tools set out under a sink. What were they teaching? Plumbing of course. 

The open house he went to recently is a school closer to our home. It's his 2nd choice. No bells and whistles, but it is close. They do have a pool and weight room that they never showed us. 

His last choice is a magnet school that gets money from Warren Buffet's foundation. Their focus is on journalism and broadcasting. Those aren't really Mica's areas of interest, nor are they taken seriously now a days, but the school is nice because of the funds they get. It's always filled, so I doubt he'll go to that one. 

More on middle schools later. It's a lottery system, so we'll see what he gets into soon enough.

Isaak and my nephew Edison are in the photo below. Edison was keeping us entertained that night! These two thought they were ready to go to middle school. 

I never knew picking out a middle school was going to be such a pain. 

• They actually start at different grade levels in the district: Some in 5th, some in 6th, and some in 7th grade. 

• They each have their focus. I'm kind of neutral with that. They are in middle school. How specific do they really need to get? 

• The better schools seem to be in crappier parts of town. That sucks! 

• There are so many options! I grew up in a different district. We had 1 option.

• You have to live in a certain area (zone) to qualify for bussing. The bussing isn't rated super high here, so Mica's getting a cell phone for his birthday. 

What age does middle school start where you live?

WW: Open House {Linky}

A few weeks ago my kids had their Open House at school. It was pretty busy. They both showed us around their classrooms, we looked at their course books, their lockers, and some work they've accomplished so far.

Isaak's Arabian Elephant

Mica's Maple Leaf Pattern

We weren't thinking they looked like Oak Leaves Either.

 

Open House

Before our crazy busy weekend of driving and going to a wedding we had an Open House at the boy's school.

The PTA always has bake sales at events like that. Boy do I feel like a failure. Oh I baked Cherry Chocolate Chip Cookies. I even packaged them in 3 to a bag like they said. I labeled what they were, and that they didn't have any nuts. I put the cookies in the deep freezer, and forgot about them. You can find the recipe here.

Poof - Out of Sight - Out of Mind

I remembered on our way up to school. Then Daddy told me, "They had to have them by 4 today." In the deep freezer they will stay.

I felt extra bad because the boys didn't participate in the fundraiser to. Oh well. We donated money to the PTA board.

We started out in Isaak's classroom 

Isaak is a con artist/actor. He's been pretending with me that he can't read. Well his teacher says he's been reading just fine for her. In fact he's a star student for her. The little punk a monk has gotten green - good dots since the beginning of the school year.

He plays shy in the classroom. When I asked him about being shy he said, "I'm just there to do my job Mom."

All good reports from that kid.

The kids did David images.

If you aren't familiar with David he's a character in a book that gets told, "No!" a lot. David is full of energy, and doesn't mean to be bad, but comes off as being bad. Then in the end of the book David does something good, and his mom tells him she loves him. 

Source

I'm assuming the kids had to do their own version of themselves as David with something they get in trouble for. 

Isaak's said, "Hands and feet to yourself - Isaak"

This is something he hears a lot.

We went into Mica's classroom next

Mica's been taking an hour on homework some nights. It's supposed to take 20 minutes. We're lucky our kids aren't in a lot of activities. I'd like to keep it that way. I don't want them to be so busy that school work comes 2nd place. 

Mica's way above the scale in reading, science, geography, and social studies. He just struggles in math. They just started Common Core, so new concepts are being introduced to him. I'm not anti common core. Isaak's done really well with it. It's just new to Mica. He'll get it with time.

His teacher says that Mica does well in the classroom. Almost all the kids are struggling with math. Part of the problem I think in any institution is placing a new system in there; in the middle of them learning. 

I guess even the school I teach at is guilty of that. Web is taught in Dreamweaver. Then students have to learn how to hand code.  All of that is not my choosing.

Mica showed Isaak and I where everything is at, while Daddy discussed with the teacher getting extra math sheets to help Mica more with math. 

Here's Mica's Georgia O'Keefe flower:

Their art teacher talks about someone in art history, and they have to mimic the style. I've had conversations with her in the past. I like their art teacher a lot. 

Isaak was jealous of the flower. He wanted to make a flower. When I said we could do one at home it didn't cheer him up. He wanted to do one at school.

In the technology/library classroom that everyone in the school goes to Mica had a special piece hung up:

 
It's the best photo I could get with the lighting, and how high up it was hung.

It was a pretty good open house.

Open House

Mica had an open house for hi school on Thursday night. Talk about rush, rush. Drive 2 1/2 hours to go to a funeral, drive 2 1/2 hours to come home, eat dinner and go to an open house.

Isaak's expression just about summed up how we all felt:

The stinker made a mess with his food and markers. Isaak fell asleep 10 minutes before getting back into town (figures).

It was so important to go to Mica's open house though. I loved walking in his room and seeing this:

It was a classroom full of paper bag kids. Mica even tried to duplicate his Warrior Poet shirt he had on that day. The words and shield were on the bag. He even remembered the ears! Usually we have to remind him to put ears on his people.

There was also multiple Curious Georges on the board to:

It says: "I would take curious George around the world. We would go to Antarctica. Curious George and I would also go to North Pole." He left out "the" North Pole. I never know if Curious should be capital or not? It's not his name, but it's a show. This is why I could never home school.

They also created characters out of shapes:

It says: "My snowman is a funny, nice and pretty snowman. his name is hero and he stands in the snow." We did tell Mica that "His" and "Hero" should be capital. I also told him that I loved the snowman's outfit! Daddy said, "I think I should wait to tell him what yellow snow means."

Mica has really good handwriting. I love his little details in things!

Open House

We had an open house at Mica's school this evening. I felt kind of sorry for Mica's teacher. She has a head cold. She had to be there all day, then all evening. She was a trooper. She greeted us very cheerful.

I know what it's like being a teacher. I have to stay late for certain events even at college level.

Mica was super excited to show us around! Just listening to him show us things made me realize that he's learned new things already.

• He rattled off the seasons and months in correct order. He's heard both these things before, but would mess up the order every time before. 
• He's starting to be able to count by 5's. Then he counts normally higher.
• He now knows the difference between his coins. 
• Starting to be able to tell time.
• Learning how to use a computer. I've never let him just play with my laptop.

He told me that his teacher lets them use the point stick as long as they used it for pointing. Mica pointed at all kinds of things. He loves to play with Kenects, which we don't have any at home.

Mica also introduced us to all kinds of people and the class bird, which Isaak thought was, "Cute!"

Mica's wanted to wear this sweater for two days. I told him to put it in his locker for when he gets cold at school. He's warn it home both days. Daddy asked Mica why he likes his sweater so much? Mica said, "Because I look like a Daddy when I wear it." He's so funny!