52 Week project Week 38 - School

"Ryan Mengel, 6 years old, on the way to school for the first day of First Grade"

 

Ryan started FIRST GRADE on September 6th in Ms. Latos' class and so far, he is loving school.  Ms. Latos is new to the school but she is very nice and Ryan loves her.   Over the summer, some of the class moms got together and compiled a list of who was in each class - I was happy that there were some familiar names on the list although Ryan was a little disappointed that his "best friends" were all in other classes.   Well, the first day of school, he was really happy when he realized that a lot of boys he knew from the park were in his class.  Last year, most of Ryan's friends were girls and this year, it is the opposite.  I am so glad that Ryan has made a lot of new friends but has still stayed very good friends with some kindergarten buddies.

When we got to Ryan's classroom, Ms. Latos greeted us at the door and all the kids were told to find their table - Ryan quickly found the "Planet" table and sat down, picked out a book to read and could not wait to get rid of me!

A few weeks in to school, Ryan has started having homework.    Each week, he has gotten some math work sheets to complete ("How many of each?" is the current subject - simple math problems using addition and subtraction) and he has reading homework every night for which he needs to keep a reading log like last year.   Similar to last year, Ryan has gym, art and music every week but this year, Creative Movement/Spanish (still trying to figure that one out) and Science have also been added to the schedule.   Ryan told me that his favorite things about school are Choice time, Science and Chess!!  Ryan also declared that this year, he wants to get school lunch every Friday "because Friday is pizza day and I really want to have that even though I need to wait on line for 30 minutes".

I am confident that this is going to be a great year for Ryan!  I think he has already improved so much since the beginning of the year in reading and recognizing his sight words, and his handwriting is getting better day by day.  Some days, Ryan fights us on doing his homework so we decided to give him an incentive - We told Ryan that every time he gets a TERRIFIC on his homework (options are terrific, good work, and you can do better), we would give him a $1 for his wallet. (homework gets graded all at once, once a week).  Well, the trick worked and Ryan can't wait to find out how he did on his homework each Monday.   So far, he has gotten all terriffics!!!

I am so proud of you Ryan xoxoxxoxo Keep up the good work!!