Last Day of School

Today was the last day of school. Yay! I am post-call, so I'm sleep-deprived, but it was worth it to be able to be here when the kids got home. This is a picture of Eric carrying his now huge backpack home from the bus. He brought home all of his workbooks and school supplies left from this year. He made some comment about his back "breaking" from the weight of his backpack, but when I offered to carry his backpack for him, he didn't want me to take it. I guess he just wanted to complain...or show that he could carry it himself.

When I showed him this picture, he told me, "You can probably send that to Anthony." I usually like to keep Anthony informed about what his younger siblings are up to. Anthony texted back, "What a goof :)".

For the record, Eric wasn't actually walking bent forward like that. He just did it so he could show how big his backpack was. It was so full that he didn't have room for his pencil case, which he carried instead.

Eric showed me this sheet of paper that they filled out in school. On the collar, it says "summer", which he says is his favorite season. On one sleeve it says "non-fiction and fiction", which are his favorite types of books. I think those two cover pretty much all books. :) On the other sleeve, he drew grapes and a blueberry, which are his favorite fruits. On the bottom, he wrote "jumping, swimming, and running", which are his favorite activities. I'm glad he didn't write "playing on the iPad", but that may be because he figured he isn't "active" when he plays on the iPad. The big number "6" is his favorite number. I had him write the other items around the shirt, like his name and "June 2015". He also put "favorite stuff" on there without my prompting him, but it makes the rest of the shirt more self-explanatory. As he was describing his "favorite stuff", he also explained that he colored the shirt in with two of his favorite colors. At the bottom right, he wrote "1. gold 2. orange 3.blue" for his favorite colors. I love that this piece of paper sums up what he is all about at this time.

He also brought his report card home. His grades were all 95-97, with all "E's" for "excellent". Interestingly, there were two other letters on his report card that stood for two standard messages. One was "A" for "Achievement is Outstanding". The other one was "X" for "Controlling Talking" which Natalie said she also got when she was his age. He also said that he was at a level "R" for reading, which is a fourth grade level. He's a smart kid like his siblings.

Natalie didn't say too much about her day. They made ice cream today, but she said it was a little salty because they must have gotten some of the salt they used to make the ice cream in the final product. She was apparently back to her old self this morning. Since last weekend she has complained of a headache and feeling dizzy. She even missed school on Tuesday because of it. We're not sure what is up with that, but today she must have been completely better, because she was talkative and silly this morning. Patrick texted me this morning saying that she told him, "Shooting somebody with a banana is totally legit!" Yes, that is what life can be like at our house. She even went to the neighborhood swim practice tonight, for the first time in a month. Her back was doing okay this week, but the headache thing kept her from swimming.

Eric wanted to wait to go out for ice cream until Natalie got home, so when she got home, we went to Brindles Awesome Ice Creams. Natalie told me that she wouldn't have come with us if we were going to Baskin-Robbins. Am I raising ice cream snobs, or what? We took a brief trip to Half-Price Books after ice cream. I had promised Eric that I would get the "Dinosaurology" book for him when school ended "if he was good", so I gave him that today, after buying it on Amazon a couple of weeks ago. I felt like I should also get Natalie a book too, and she picked one out after being in the store for a few seconds. She also got two monkey toys that I will have to describe in a different post.

Alex had early dismissal days yesterday and today. He only had one final exam this week, so he has been bored at school. He hung out with friends after school today. Patrick took him to Thin Air, a local trampoline park. Alex got a ride home and got home at about 7:30pm. He'll have some friends (we don't yet know how many) over tonight.

Also, Mindfest was earlier this week. Patrick and I volunteer for that every year, and it was originally started by the GT (Gifted and Talented) teacher that used to be at the kids' elementary school until she retired last year. The kids are broken down into small groups of 3-5, and they rotate through different stations where they get to do logic puzzles, brainstorming, and other activities designed to make them use their brain. This is a picture of Eric doing the tangram puzzles that I had at my station.

I had the first graders at one point, and they were supposed to name things that came in "pairs". Most of the answers involved body parts, like "eyes" and "ears". Occasionally, a kid would think of something more out of the box, like "nunchucks". One kid exclaimed, "Buy One Get One Free!" I'm still chuckling over that answer.