School Fun

It seems like I've barely taken any pictures this month, but our routine has mostly been school, homework, play, repeat.  And watch football on the weekends.  Not that there is anything wrong with that.  It's actually nice to be well into the routine and watching everyone learn and thrive at school.

The kids got surprise visitors at lunch last week and they were so excited!  It's a shock to me to watch Alex walk in as a student and leave with his class, after two years of him being my little sidekick when we visited Ben at lunch.  He asks me every day to come eat with him.  If I say no (which I usually do), now he asks if Grammy and Grumpy can come instead.

It's handy that second grade lunch follows kindergarten, so we hung out and waited for our next little guy.  Now when Ben walks in, it's a shock to see how tall he's grown!  Especially after seeing hundreds of 5-year olds.

At home, Alex doesn't have official homework but the kid can't get enough of some of his school activities.  His current favorite is "write around the room", where you walk around with a clipboard and write down any words you see.  He combines it with his sight word flash cards by sticking them all over the house, then writing them down.

His "job" isn't finished until he's taped his work up in his closet.  These sheets are growing daily!  Alex also loves to get on iStation and starfall on my computer and has even passed up video games for these reading websites.  Is this my child?  I LOVE seeing him so excited to learn!

 

Alex is also starting to write phonetically and I'm back in the deciphering phase.  I got a good laugh out of this worksheet when I finally figured out what he'd written.  (click to enlarge)  Tllig = tattling  Wepdog = reporting (when you say it in Alex's voice, it makes perfect sense)

And Alex had to talk me through these drawings so I wrote the translation next to them to remember what he wrote.  What he didn't tell me was who was tattling about his brother standing on him...but I have a very good guess.

I've been doing some projects of my own while the kids are at school.  My sweet neighbor taught me how to sew pajama pants and Ben was thrilled to pick out is own fabric and get some custom pants.  It was a lot of fun so I definitely want to do more.  Next time I'll remember to add a few more inches to Mr. Long Legs here.  These will be capris by spring.  I've also been painting a bedroom a week, which is fun to me and really satisfying.

We've enjoyed watching football on the weekend and it's another exciting season to be Aggies!  (and fun to be a blue parakeet in this house, apparently)

School Days

So far our school year is off to a great start.  The kids are enjoying their classes, making friends, and already survived the first virus to pass through the house (fortunately on Labor day so we didn't miss any school!).

Alex has adjusted to kindergarten very easily.  The first day he said, "My teacher isn't as good as we thought.  She didn't have much fun stuff for us to do today."  The second day he said, "We did paperwork!!  It's getting better!"  And the third day as he was getting on the bus after school, Alex turned and yelled to his teacher, "It's going to be a great year!"  Now every day he comes home excited to tell me what he's learned and happy to read me the books he colored or show me his new sight words.  I love seeing how happy he is to be at school and how much he's loving to learn.  I hope it continues!  His only complaints so far - recess is too crowded (with something like 225 kids, I'm sure it is!) and dismissal is too long.

Ben has been really happy in his class as well.  He has some buddies from previous years to talk about minecraft and has found a few new cute girls that make him blush.  His reading has suddenly improved a lot and he's much more excited to do it.  I've also seen a lot of improvement (or effort) in his handwriting so we're off to a great start in second grade.  Let's hope we stay on that track!

At home, the kids have been playing and enjoying free time after school.  Alex has complained that school really interferes with his minecraft time, so we had to discuss our priorities a bit.  We're still in the thick of summer but they've enjoyed racing their remote controlled Jeeps in the evenings when it cools down a little.

 

We were all excited to kick off the college football season last weekend with our friends the Hesters and loved how they rigged up an outdoor TV so we could swim and cheer on the Aggies at the same time.

Ben decided he was ready to go snorkeling and he loved going around the neighborhood pool