The week in review

Well, the flurry of the first week of school is over. It's a strange feeling, this semi-empty house during the day. Jonathan and I spent the week playing games and running errands. He is a great errand companion. Jonathan is enthusiastic about everything, even a trip to KMart. I needed to buy him a dishtub for school. First I checked Target, my favorite store, to no avail. I try to avoid WalMart at all costs, so we ended up at KMart, probably my second least favorite store. We did find a tub, and Jonathan carried it throughout the store. He was so excited - you would think I had bought him a fabulous toy. He also likes to talk to anyone and everyone, telling them all about school.

Today Jonathan and I went to eat lunch with Alexander. Well, Jonathan ate and I just observed. 10:45 AM is way to early for me to eat. It didn't bother Jonathan and Alexander, who gobbled down their pizza and PB&J, respectively. When Alexander's teacher saw me, she asked if he had issues getting his work done last year (he didn't). This really comes as no surprise to me, given his high degree of distractability at home. We'll give him a chore to do, like pick up the books in his room, and find him 20 minutes later, sitting there reading each book as he picks it up. It takes him twice as long to clean up as Benjamin. We even saw it tonight as we were playing a game. It would come to his turn and he'd be under the table, or talking to Jonathan, or playing with something else besides the game itself. So now we have something he needs to work on this year.

When I went though Benjamin's papers, I found a media permission slip. His teachers maintain a website devoted to their class. Check it out at http://www.maxclassonline.net/Site/Welcome.html It's neat, but I can't figure out how his teachers have time to keep up the site. When I was teaching, it was all I could do to get my lessons planned and papers graded. Of course, when I was teaching, there was no blogging yet. I didn't even have an email address. So I guess times have changed. I am excited to be able to keep up with his class. When the kids are younger, teachers encourage parent volunteers, but by the time they are in the upper elementary grades, they're not used as much. Now I can keep track of what they are doing without having to be in his class.