School Days

We seem to have fallen into our school routine now.  

Tyler is out the door by 6:40 and has football practice or a game after school every day.  So far, his grades are great and I hope he continues to do well.

Collin and Reagan have enjoyed walking to school.  Sometimes they take the bus for fun, but this week we have walked every day.  It is ridiculous that we even have a bus for our neighborhood; it takes us less than ten minutes to walk to school!

For some reason, Kate always grabs Collin's hand and holds on to his finger the entire way to school.  He has to pull his finger away when we get there.  It really is sweet.  Notice the marker in her other hand, it keeps her quiet.

Last night was Back to School Night for Collin and Reagan.  We are very happy with their teachers and expect they will both have a great year.  

This self portrait was waiting for us on Reagan's desk.  

Reagan's teacher, Mrs. Machado, has a detective theme in the class and the kids can earn "detective dollars" for good behavior.  They use the dollars to shop from the prize box.  

Collin's teacher, Mrs. Ashton, uses plastic links for her behavior system.  When a child earns ten links, he or she gets one ticket toward a prize.  They keep the links in their pencil boxes.  Also, each child has three links (one red, one yellow, and one green) attached to his or her chair.  If the child has all three links, he is "on green" (good behavior), but if he "goes on yellow", he has to remove the green link and so on.  The teacher said the act of removing the links really works for stopping bad behavior.  I have no idea why I am writing about the behavior stuff because Collin and Reagan have both been on green every single day of school since Kindergarten.  I just thought it was interesting, I guess.  

I still find myself surprised that Collin is in third grade.  Gone are the days of cute self portraits waiting in the classroom, he's a big kid now.  We did get to write a note for his bucket though.  His teacher is using the bucket system, just like his second grade teacher did last year.  The idea is to write positive notes for classmates to fill their buckets instead of negative things that may dip from their buckets.  The idea comes from the book, Have You Filled A Bucket, Today?  

We borrowed the book from the library last year and I think the concept is great.  We still have a note from one of his classmates last year; it says:  

Speaking of being a great mathematician, last week Collin had his first Spectrum Math class.  He is one of eight third graders in the math enrichment program and he loves it.  Also, thanks to my friend Natalie, we have been thoroughly enjoying Bedtime Math.  Every night after dinner, we check out the latest math problem on the website.  I love that each problem has different levels so that Collin and Reagan can each answer a related question, and Collin LOVES the bonus questions.

I am looking forward to the school year.  Collin and Reagan seem very happy with their teachers and classmates, and Tom and I were impressed with everything we saw and heard last night.