Rachel has been doing cross country this quarter, practicing after school in 100+ degree heat. I am impressed every time I see all the red, sweaty faces smiling.
She had foot pain that she went to physical therapy for since the end of the last school year, and into the beginning of this year. She was tough and built up the muscles enough that her feet no longer point out to almost 9:00 and 3:00 when her knees point forward, but are more at 11 and 1:00 now, a lot closer to normal (and if she would do more of her PT exercises they might straighten out even more). She ran through it all, and made some great friendships.
Saturday she went to cheer on her teammates that had made it to the championships, so was there when they won first place as a team.
(The awards ceremony was during Spirit Week on Dress like your favorite TV character day--Rachel dressed like Candace on Phineas and Ferb.)
Ryan and Megan have been participating in soccer club this quarter. It got a late start, probably to try and wait until the hottest of summer was past, so they only got in a few practices, then at the end of the quarter they had the tournament where they play two different games in the evening. It works great for beginner soccer players--practice right after school instead of the evening, and no Saturdays full of games. Just one time and done.
Megan was very happy with the experience and the 3 practices and 2 games were plenty. She's not interested in next quarter. Ryan, however is a monster on the field and is very aggressive and loved it and is looking forward to playing again next quarter.
Their first game they killed the other team, something like 12-1 (they don't keep score officially, but the kids sure know how many they've scored). The second team was a lot more aggressive, so they were better matched but our kids still won 5-2 or something like that.
All the running is great for Ryan who is a bundle of energy. He just started mileage club after school another day, too, so he'll run for an hour straight one day, go to karate that night, then have soccer the next day. It's so good for him. He loves anything that gets him moving and sweating.
So there's a little bragging about our amazing kids. It really is such a blessing to have kids that love to do what's right and are good students and little braniacs. We get frustrated sometimes with their occasional lack of common sense or self control or ability to pick up after themselves, but overall we won the kid lottery.
Saturday she went to cheer on her teammates that had made it to the championships, so was there when they won first place as a team.
It was fun to see all their hard work pay off as they had their chance to celebrate together. Then last night Rachel's friend Eliza hosted a Late Night (like a sleepover, but without the sleeping part, getting picked up at 11:30pm) with Adrianne and Alana to celebrate the end of cross country. All their healthy eating and exercise was over, so they pigged out on junk food.
Parent-teacher conferences were a few weeks ago and it was like going from one list of compliments to another.
Megan is a great kindergartner. She knows all her letters and sounds and sight words and is doing a good job at sounding out words. She's good at counting and a plays nicely with others and likes to help out and follow directions. Megan loves her homework and is excited to do it every day.
Ryan is doing great with his reading, already hitting the goal for the end of the year reading speed, and writing just as well. He is thriving in advanced math, loving the chance to learn multiplication. His problem there is he is so excited that he knows the answer he can't hold it in and blurts it out, robbing the other kids of the chance to try for themselves. But they've got a plan in place and he's doing a lot better about waiting until he's called on to answer. In his regular class his teacher says he's great and motivated and thinks everything is a race. Which isn't as much of a problem for him as it sometimes is for kids who rush and get things wrong because he still gets the answers right when he is rushing. His main problem is his handwriting gets super messy when he gets too fast, so they're working on him slowing down so they can read what his amazing brain is coming up with. He is doing so much better with his homework this year (not fighting about doing it), and it is a breath of fresh air to have him willing to just sit down and get it done (faster than anyone else, when he can manage it, since he's all about racing, even on homework).
Annie is a super helpful kid and does great staying on task and getting her work done. She is doing great in advanced math and ELP, which is the Extended Learning Program the district has for gifted students. Annie is excited to be participating in chorus and math club this year, but when given an opportunity to try out for Odyssey of the Mind, wisely declined even though she thought it would be fun. She didn't want to over schedule herself and have an after school activity every day. She's smart to keep some free time scheduled in. Annie does her homework without any reminders and is super responsible.
Rachel apparently can be quiet and withdrawn. I've never seen that side of her, but at her parent-teacher conferences, and when meeting another teacher at the open house a month or two ago, two different teachers commented on how quiet and serious she was. Though at the PTC the comment was that she was like that for the first month or so, and now she seems to be finding her groove and laughing and joking more. I guess adjusting to Middle School and a million new kids and new teachers and a new way of doing things could inspire anyone to sit back and observe before jumping in to the fray. But she's in the fray now. And she's killing it. She earned a 4.0 GPA and got the Principal's Award at the 1st quarter awards assembly, as well as the PRIDE award for having come prepared with supplies and homework to every single class every single day of the quarter. I'm real proud of her. I hardly ever see her do her homework because she gets it done at school. She figured out quickly that staying until 5:30pm for cross country practice left little time for her precious pastime of reading after dinner and chores and homework, so she stepped up her game and got her homework done faster so she can have time to read.
Parent-teacher conferences were a few weeks ago and it was like going from one list of compliments to another.
Ryan and Megan have been participating in soccer club this quarter. It got a late start, probably to try and wait until the hottest of summer was past, so they only got in a few practices, then at the end of the quarter they had the tournament where they play two different games in the evening. It works great for beginner soccer players--practice right after school instead of the evening, and no Saturdays full of games. Just one time and done.
All the running is great for Ryan who is a bundle of energy. He just started mileage club after school another day, too, so he'll run for an hour straight one day, go to karate that night, then have soccer the next day. It's so good for him. He loves anything that gets him moving and sweating.
So there's a little bragging about our amazing kids. It really is such a blessing to have kids that love to do what's right and are good students and little braniacs. We get frustrated sometimes with their occasional lack of common sense or self control or ability to pick up after themselves, but overall we won the kid lottery.
No comments:
Post a Comment