Third Grade

Just one more day to go due to having to make up for a snow day, but basically school is over. Elizabeth is nervous about fourth grade, just as she was going into third grade. She does not recognize her abilities and how well she performs. She came home Wednesday with a medal for the number of AR points she had accumulated over the year, a certificate for outstanding attendance, and 2 certificates for excellence in reading -- one from the State Superintendent and one from the School District. The truth is she has done outstanding in ALL her classes and had straight A's in all classes all year -- actually A+'s if they graded that way! I think back to where she started from and it still amazes me how quickly and easily she has gotten to this point. If only she could see it too! She told me that they did her ELL testing a few weeks ago and I look forward to getting those results early next school year. Even though she is not receiving ELL tutoring, she is still considered to be in the ELL program and is retested yearly to monitor her progress. The last time she was tested it still showed she lagged behind in full comprehension of English but that she was progressing. This is consistent with her day to day functioning in language. Her accent is gone and to listen to her you would never guess she has not spoken English since "birth", but once you talk to her for a while you can notice the lag in comprehension, especially when the concept is new to her.
I am anxious to see how she does in fourth grade as it is such a transition year and the year that each of the other kids showed the most difficulty with. Moore Schools are also very progressive and start the kids transitioning to different teachers for different subjects in 4th grade which adds to the challenges.
School starts back August 13th -- earlier and earlier every year!

Latest Update

I went to Elizabeth's parent teacher conference last Thursday afternoon. Elizabeth is doing very well in 3rd grade. She has straight A's! She is learning cursive handwriting and her handwriting is beautiful. She still gets discouraged and feels she is not doing as well as she is and neither her teacher or I am sure how to get her to see that it isn't so.
The only "negative" is that Elizabeth likes to be a mother hen and is more worried about what others are doing instead of what she is supposed to be doing.

The Talker

It has been a while since I updated Elizabeth's blog. Elizabeth is getting behavior marks in school for talking too much. She reminds me a lot of Stephen. She is not hyperactive, but she is smart and likes to help the other kids around her. The problem is she winds up not doing her own work. Taking privileges away at home for the behavior marks is not working so I have asked her teacher to move her to sit by herself so she can't talk. I am hoping this will only be a short lived intervention to get her attention and help her to understand that there is a time to talk and a time to do her work!
I am trying to decide what to do with Elizabeth's hair. I have been letting it grow out but it is SO thick that it is hard to manage. She wanted it in a ponytail last weekend and I could hardly get my hand around the ponytail! Any ideas are welcome,

New Year

It is a new year and although it is already a couple of weeks into the year we started out by clearing out the old and no longer played with toys in Elizabeth's closet. We have 4 garbage bags of toys to go to Goodwill plus several toys that are too big to fit in bags. The closet is now organized and hopefully will stay that way for a while.