'Cause we'll never be the way we were

The boys have been wrapping all sorts of activities up, the school year is winding down, and the memories are sweet these days....

apparently, Harry has inherited the green thumb - their cub scout group started these potatoes growing about 2 months ago....I kept holding out hopes that Jack's would start to flower, but so far no luck.

Homework is a lot more fun with two!

Jack's soccer team - this is his best year so far (despite the 1970's basketball-style shorts)

Amy Winehouse's Brother

We love you homework, oh yes we do

At the end of the first nine weeks, the homework machine is primed and working pretty well. Jack is much more excited about it than Harry, but Harry's teacher bumped him up to a harder group of word study words and he was thrilled today (we'll see how long it works, but I'm liking it so far!).

Harry's new word study

Jack has been in a loving-homework mood of late and actually let me take a couple of pix today. He has taken to giving me his opinion about which pix are best, but I still get to overrule him, since it's my blog ;-) I loved this one of him working on a sun-kissed fall afternoon.
His good friend Kai is transferring to a new school and gave his friends a cool collection of things at his goodbye party today, including Jack's favorite new 'stick pencil'

This was Jack's favorite picture of the afternoon "I'm saying YEAH, I love homework!"

And this was my favorite. Later in the day, he was talking about how much he dreams of going to NYC - what does he want to do most? Touch Lady Liberty's toes. How can you not want to make that dream come true??

The afternoon was a good one: Jack and Harry talking about how smart Harry is and actually getting along fairly well, all homework done, a little Curious George, sharing a sub and dreams at Subway, and soccer practice where Jack scored a couple of goals in their practice game before taking a pretty hard tumble. He's ok after a good talk with Daddy about how to work thru the pain. These are some good times!

Bye Bye Birdie

Say the word I'm thinking of

The boys have started 'word study' activities each week; they sort and categorize a series of words thruout the week and have tests on Fridays. They also have 'words of the week' - so far, 5 site words that also test on Fridays. It's kind of cool to have two different classes so that they have more exposure and see different ways to work with words.

Harry is working on consonant blends: sk, sm, sp. He found out that those are harder to find in story books - he went thru three on Wednesday nite before finding examples of all of them, but he did learn that sh and st are REALLY common in kids' books ;-)


He thinks he's ready for both test today, as well as his first reading test on The Mixed-Up Chameleon (and, no, I didn't find this in time for him to watch it, but think he'd dig that!).

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Jack's word study this week focused on long vs. short vowel sounds. His final word study activity last nite was sorting and gluing the pictured words.

His practice test was a big success because he only misspelled 'vowls' once and mixed up the date a bit....he did, however, remember to put his whole name and student number at the top along with the crazy date ;-)

He finished his practice test and was waiting for Harry, so he asked if he could turn the page over to write his sentence like in class...sure. Nice sentence(s), sweet boy! We love you, too! Thanx for the reminder about all the good things in life ~

Jack was a little enthusiastic about writing, and I dug out this old book (30+ years). I had this book as a kid but somehow lost it. A co-worker gave hers to me when I joked about toting it around as a kid. (Funny how I remember these things as I'm typing - thank you, blog.) Jack thinks he hit the jackpot and can't wait to 'read all those words - she is so smart to know 35,000 words!' I think 'she' is my friend, who wrote her name in the front - thanx, Doris, for setting another generation along the road to loving words :-)

The Beatles' The Word

Cause we all have a little more homework to do

Jack has been in an industrious mood of late. We've had a Halloween party most years that they can remember but opted out last year since we were planning the move. They are both thrilled with the possibility of partying this year, want to invite everyone they know, etc. Jack has been planning the contests we will have for months. Yesterday, he started making certificates :-)
So far: the scariest costumer, the best witch's scream, and the silliest costume

And the real classwork and homework have kicked in....I thought this one was funny because he has been a cleaning machine of late.

Here is our eldest, all proud of himself for doing his wordstudy and homework and a little extra that wasn't required (and, yes, he's using a Christmas pencil....and yes, he's been working on his list!)

Harry also jumped into his wordstudy homework, used an organizing trick that his teacher taught him in class and had fun writing his words of the week in his agenda.

A Little More Homework, from 13, The Musical

And it feels like the very first time

Jack brought home his 'first good citizen test' today - they are doing a round of assessments before diving into groups. He got 100%....
and it looks like he had a little extra time to draw some scenarios: the teacher giving a student two "Jimmys" (thumbs up to non-parrotheads) on the left, and one student is saying 'blahblahblah' while the teacher is telling the class that she has the best first grade class.

Nice way to start, little man!

Harry took his AR quiz this morning, only scoring 2/5 possible - not bad, considering it was a long 4th grade book and he was so excited, but I'm recommending that he work on some easier books until he gets better at taking the quizzes....hate to work that hard and not have it count - he can't re-take the quiz since it gives him the option of finding out the correct answers. We're still working on him remembering what he misses so he can learn from his mistakes ;-)

He was excited to get to write his homework assignment in his agenda. These cool books are based on Coach Wooden's strategies for success, and he's loved reading them but hasn't really 'used' the pages until today :-)

and he did....

There are 25, but I must have copied it down wrong ... he reminded me that he already got 100% and doesn't have to take the test anyway, and I reminded him that he needs to practice writing - it's gonna be a fun year ;-)

A couple of the activities he completed today - the drawing was done during library time, and the graphing was during math. So far, he seems to be enjoying it all!

Foreigner's Feels Like The First Time