Used School Supplies Anyone?

Now that school has been out for a week, I find myself cleaning and sorting all the "treasures" that the kids have brought back from their desks.  I place usable things in a large rubbermaid tub (along with former usable things from past years) to be gotten out when we are in need of them.  Which is.... never.

The kids are not necessarily "colorers."  They never really have been that interested in sitting down for a stretch of time with markers and a picture to fill in.  Those workbooky things - sure, they love those - but you can do a whole workbook or word search with about two pencil sharpenings.

And pencils - holy crap do we have a lot of pencils.  Pencils are the new candy when it comes to birthday treats, holiday give-aways, or good behavior prizes.  They could stop manufacturing pencils TODAY, and we'd still have enough for a lifetime.

We also have tons of glue.  Allison got out 5 bottles of glue yesterday to use as pretend "ingredients" in her cooking.  I just found 4 more in their backpacks from this year.  Glue sticks, on the other hand, we can always use more of.  The kids prefer glue sticks to glue bottles in approximately the same ratio that dentists recommend using toothpaste.

But what bugs me most about unpacking the end-of-year used supplies is the waste.  Jacob had two notebooks that were about 90% unused (I set aside for doodling this summer).  He has 4 folders in perfectly good shape, save the permanent marker that has been used to designate the owner, classroom, teacher, and subject (thus making it difficult to justify their reuse next year).  Allison's crayons, calculator, and one marker set came back home in October because they were "too distracting" for her in her desk.  So, she didn't need them?  If she didn't need them, why were they on the page-long list of school supplies typed in 6 point font that we received at the beginning of the year?

I get that it's easier for kids to bring everything at the beginning and then it's "done."  But the growing pile of useable stuff that returns each year leads me to believe that I send way more than they need.  What if markers one year were donated to the class the next year?  Could we maybe buy one three-subject notebook rather than three single subject notebooks?  And please, loosen your stranglehold on the Ticonderoga pencils.  I know - they probably ARE the best, but I have this backlog of lonely Happy Halloween pencils that are just waiting to be used! 

9 going on 3

During the writing of the below blog post - the following events were occurring downstairs:

A girl was dousing her hair and her doll's hair in detangler spray, "refilling" the windex bottle with Cascade dishwasher cleaner (like Jet-Dry; same color), proceeding to wash the back door glass with "Windex/Cascade", and doodling/smudging hearts all over the neighbor's Get Well card.  I think I made it calmly through the first 4 - but released an exasperated "Allison!" by the time I got to #5.  Mainly because it involves having to get/make a new card.

This much "getting into" at home is a little unusual and hopefully due to the new summer schedule changes and perhaps the need for a little more sleep.  Or, she's honestly trying to be more proactive in getting stuff done (hey - I'll wash the windows!) but still needs some work in the judgement area (cascade not equal to windex).  See all that smeary stuff? - not the correct look.

A boy turns 7

 Jacob turned 7! It's been what - a week?  Yeah, can't really remember what we did that day - but it was busy.  Jacob truly lucked out because it was school field trip day - when all the classes leave and let the kindergarteners "run" the school.  Jacob's field trip - Chuck-E-Cheese and the park.  Well, now he can't complain that he's never been to Chuck-E-Cheese on his birthday!

After school he went to play at his friend's house, then we picked him up to go out to dinner at the new-ish pizza buffet in town.  It's name is Salt-N-Grease.... oh wait, no, it's SteviB's.  They have an arcade, and I actually had some left-over tokens and a coupon - so rock on!

We got home LATE and then Jacob insisted on decorating his own cake with chocolate chips and M&M's.  Here it is:

I'll take guesses now and post an answer key later.  By the time we had cake, both kids were in their pj's and it was after 9pm.  For pjs for Jacob - that means underwear.  So, I finally get a good cake-picture and he's half naked.  Figures.  I'll let Jacob introduce you to the newest member of the Douglas family and Jacob's birthday present on the kids blog next week (hint - his name is Quickie; mom and dad could not persuade them to choose another name, 'Fastie' was already taken by the caterpillar).  He's really looking forward to making his rockets this summer and will be saving his birthday money for an ipad - or a trampoline - whichever is cheaper.  Since he saves about $80 a year, I think by the time he can afford an ipad, I'll be OK with him having one.  PS - no one tell him what a Kindle Fire is, ok?

Last Day of School

 Last Friday was the last day of school.  It's hard to believe that the kids are now 4th and 2nd graders.  Yikes!!  Report cards came home too.  I always find it slightly difficult to interpret the x,check,dot,plus system.  Both kids are either proficient or commendable on most things.  We never learned why Jacob needs to improve "following classroom rules" in art.  (Jacob: I do, most of the time).  Allison was given an art award for her "creativity, and outgoing personality" (or something similar to that). 

MAP test results came home too (which is the district-wide testing).  Allison's scores rebounded from her poor winter performance (bad test day?) back to 50th percentile in both math and reading.  She's plugging along where she's supposed to be, but honestly I question a test where kids can go from 60th to 20th to 50th percentiles over the course of a year.  Jacob scored very high in math and high average in reading.  I'm hoping that he'll score high enough in 2nd grade to qualify for the 'TAG' programming because I think that's the only way to get a more challenging math program for him. 

Jacob refused to take a solo picture - but was willing to pose with Keaton, Sam, and Lucas for Keaton's mom (so I snapped a quick one too).

Let it be

Sometimes you have to celebrate the less-exciting aspects of raising kids.  For example, I was esctatic when the kids got old enough to vomit in the toilet.  Who knew this would bring so much joy?  "You feel ill?  Are you going to throw up?  Ok - go time!"

I've gotten equally excited about their ability to fasten their own seat belts and read their own restaurant menus.  This week, I've been excited about not having to wake Allison up to go to the bathroom at 10:30pm.  She has been pretty slow with the toilet business.  I can't remember exactly, but I think it was between 4-5 when she was potty trained, and then at night it was still a problem.  We went from pull-ups to a mid-night wake-up perhaps in first grade.  And that's been the story of the past two years.  It works - 95% of the time. 

But then I noticed that she really didn't have to go that much when we were waking her up, and then one night we were exhausted and just skipped it.  And there was no problem.  So, we did it again.  It's been a week now, and I'm cautiously optimistic.  As with anything - I expect some backsliding at some point - and I wouldn't be lining up sleep-overs quite yet.  But it's nice. 

I know that there are things I think will 'never' happen (like being dry all night or riding a 2-wheeled bike.)  But Allison does things in her own time, and while I "know" this, I don't always KNOW this.  Life will periodically bring me subtile reminders.

Sweet Pictures

 Cute pictures of Allison - one with a dragonfly which kept her company during one of Jacob's batting practices, and the other warming up after running through the sprinkler yesterday

Also, Allison rocked her Japan presentation.  She scored excellent in all categories, including an excellent + in organization.  Comments: "Allison's system of presentation worked perfectly for her.  Excellent idea for  project.  Well rehearsed.  Allison was very poised during her presentation."

A new link

There is a new link to the right, and it goes to Allison and Jacob's Summer Blog.  I thought an appropriate title might be "My Mom is Making Us Blog This Summer," but then decided the humor might be lost on the kids.  There are actually not any posts yet - since it's not summer and the kids are still blissfully unaware that this is part of Mom's master plan to make summer "educational" too.

The original plan had been for this to be Allison's project.  One of her therapy goals has been developing "story-telling" skills.  These range from being able to tell us a story about what happened earlier in the day with sufficient detail to being able to infer meaning from the stories of others.  She's made lots of progress in this area.  In kindergarten and first grade, she couldn't even seem to keep the activities of her day straight to tell us about them later.  As in - we often had no idea what would happen at school.  "Did you do music today or gym?"  "I dunno."  It's not that she was clueless at the time things were happening - but the filing, sorting, and retrieving parts of her brain needed more.....development(?).  Those things have gotten better with practice and maturity, and we've graduated now to improving the narrative - filling in details and generally taking the parts of the stories and creating a whole "followable" thing.  Also, reading comprehension is replacing simply reading as the skill focus in school.  What happens next, what were they feeling, what is the theme here?  While Allison does fine with the reading words aspects - she still struggles with themes and tone and all that other softer stuff.

So I thought that writing about her days in the summer and posting pictures from her camera would be a great way to work on those skills.  But then, we also learned that Jacob has a fear of writing.  See post on his suspension from school.  So why not add him to the mix!  Misery loves company - or something like that.  My goal for him is to learn to take the copious thoughts that seem to ramble around in that noggin of his and put them in print.  (Today: "Mom, would you like it if all the concrete was squishy instead of hard?")  He has SO MANY ideas, but seems reluctant to write about any of them.

I think it might be fun.  My idea of fun may clearly diverge from their idea of fun.  But check back for postings soon, and please comment if you read their page.  Part of the fun for them will be that someone is actually reading it.