School Related Post

Second Grade – it is certainly different than first grade. The conversations are deeper and more complex, assigned seats at lunch, more advance study and more peer pressure. We have a conference with Ally’s teachers later today and Becky and I are looking forward to hearing their impressions of Ally and understanding how she is doing in school from them. We think she is doing well. Hope they do too.

After gymnastics one day (at 5:00pm) Ally says to me “mommy, there is something I was to tell you. Some of my friends have a case they keep their pencils in at their desks.” Oh I said and asked if that was ok with the teacher and what friends had them. She told me and I said oh. Then she says “mommy, I was wondering if we could go shopping and I could get one.” I asked if she wanted to go then. YES – well Ally does not like to shop – for anything usually – so this meant it was a pretty big deal to her. So we headed over to Target and found a floral pencil case (very Ally) and I let her pick out some fun pencils from the dollar bin – one set was Halloween glitter colors and on sale for 13 cents! 

As you can tell in the picture above she was very pleased and super excited. She ran in the house to show mama, and then immediately loaded up the case. She faithfully keeps it in her backpack, and brings it to school everyday. She was happy to report that several more of her classmates have pencil cases too.

I was pretty happy to be able to fulfill her request. Recognizing social cues and wanting to be like others, but with your own style is an important thing to learn and adjust to. I’m sure as the years go by I wont be able to provide her with everything she asks for, but a pencil case – that we can do.

I’m the class room parent again this year, which means I organize a potluck breakfast for families a few times a year before school. Ally’s friend Maya helped us set up before hand, and so I snapped a picture of them before it got too crowded. Then – on the right was what I called “Miss Pat’s Posse” Miss Pat runs the before school program that Ally goes to every morning, and she is the Assistant Teacher in the 2nd grade English class. I thought it was so cute that this group of girls was sitting with Miss Pat, they would even save her seat if she got up for coffee or some food.  Of course, some of the girls, hammed it up for the party. Camila (in blue), Jaylinne, Alma B, Miss Pat, Ally, Maya, Olive (in orange in front) and Ellie(gray shirt very front). It was a fun event.

If you ask Ally what her favorite class at school is she will tell you gym. But if you ask her what her favorite subject is – she will say Math. I went grocery shopping Sunday morning and came home to the poster above. Becky said it was all Ally’s idea – she wanted to make a poster showing “How to add big numbers” Becky reports she only helped Ally with spelling – the layout and subject and examples and basically all of it was all Ally.

Then, on Veteran’s Day they played “Math Teacher”. I find it incredibly ironic that Becky is forced to play pretend Math Teacher on her day off from school. She is a Math Teacher in real life! Very very funny.