Waking up A

It happened for the first time this morning. I had to wake up A. Normally he wakes up on his own, generally between 6:15-6:30. This morning, I had to wake him at 7 - still in plenty of time to get ready before the bus at 7:45. It's pretty good to go 1/4 of the school year though.

Speaking of 1/4 of the way through the year, it was progress report time this week. Both kids did well. A managed all A's, without too much difficulty (and the one class that was giving him trouble was mostly with remembering homework issues). M managed A's and B's, with more A's than B's. He's been putting in a lot of work, but not necessarily to the best effect (forgetting some assignments, not keeping up with studying his Spanish, etc), but overall he's doing well. We're proud of both of them!

M's in to Magnet!

M got the official notification today. He got into the Magnet high school for Science and Technology. M is happy, we are happy, all is good. M actually heard unofficially last night, as D had heard from one of the teachers on the selection committee, but today was the official letter.

M and his friends have been tearing up facebook, as various people waited for the mail truck. M says that almost all of his friends who applied have gotten in. I had to remind him, that it is really just almost everyone who has reported, got in (only one person posted that they had not gotten in). I'm sure that he will hear more tomorrow and especially on Monday at school. For now, though, they are all happy to have gotten in. As I told M several years ago, most of his friends applied to Magnet and will likely be there next year. And I'm sure he will make more friends from the kids from other middle schools.

Initial popcorn goal met

A started selling his Scout popcorn last Sunday and now, 1 week later, he has met his initial goal of $600.  Way to go A!  My unofficial tally is $675.  That is enough to get him:

1.  dues paid for this year

2. clock radio with iPod dock

3. pie in the face or dunking (they haven't decided which yet) a leader

Now, A says his next goal is a total of $1500, which would net him an extra $50 gift card, over and above whatever other prizes he chooses.  He is very interested in the getting the prizes, but less so in going out and selling the popcorn.  Or rather, he isn't interested in getting off the computer and heading out - once he is out there, he will stick with it and do fine for a reasonable period of time.  A says he wants me to "remind" him periodically about popcorn, so I will, but I'm not going to push.  After all, the more he sells, the more I have to help him deliver.

M's first meet this year

We had another swim meet last night, our 3rd for the year, but the first one for M as he missed the 2 last week due to Boy Scout camp. And, of course, he missed practice too, so I wasn't sure how he would do.

Well, he did great! He took seconds off his times in all 3 individual events he was in, at least 8 seconds off his butterfly, 6 off his freestyle and 2-3 off his breast stroke. WOW! I guess all that growing taller did some good for his swimming. He did look (and say he felt) tired on the second lap of his swims so his endurance evidently was hit by not practicing. And not being helped this week by missing practice again. Yes, this week both kids have robotics camp in the morning. They are enjoying it (and its FREE through the school system) so I think it is worth while, but I do wish they weren't missing the practices.

The only decent photo I got of M all night:

I kept trying to get a picture of him swimming, but I kept getting shots with his head under water. I'll try again at our next meet...

Duke TIP recognition

Back before M went off to camp last week, he finally had his recognition ceremony for doing well on the SAT (through the Duke TIP program).  M was invited to the ceremony at Duke, but it was too far and at a bad time to go, so we decided that we would just do the state recognition ceremony.  GA had 4 separate ceremonies - I don't know how many kids were invited to each, but at the one we attended there were roughly 100 7th graders.  They seated them all alphabetically and called them up to shake hands with the president of the university (where the ceremony was held).

Then they separately called up the 4 students who had received national honors (90th % among high school students, 99th % among 7th graders).  M got a medal individually bestowed on him.

The boy on the left had actually received his medal at the Duke ceremony, so didn't get another here, but did get recognized again.  One of the 4 kids whose names were called wasn't there (and I don't remember if it sounded male or female), but the other 3 were boys.  M seemed surprised when I commented that the other 2 had probably scored at the national level in math.  Why, he asked.  Well, among other things, both other boys were "foreign", one Indian sub-continent and the other Asian.  Now, for all I know they and maybe their parents were born in the US, but it is equally likely that they or their parents may not have spoken English as their first language.  Plus, the whole "boys are better at math" idea.  Not that I believe that, but I will say that book publishers clearly think that girls are more interested in reading - based on the number of girl oriented vs boy oriented books available, especially for younger readers (and most especially for ahead of grade level young elementary readers).  Anyway, I don't know where I was going with that other than that was my guess and M was surprised.  

I tend to think that the idea that more young girls are interested in sitting down with a book than young boys are is (unfortunately) true.  Much more so than that boys are better at math.  And in point of fact, there are WAY more girls than boys in M's advanced math class (including M there were 3 boys in a class of about 20).  I think some of this has to do with more boys opting out of the class - it will be harder/more work and I don't want to.  M certainly said that, but we insisted he take the class.  And he did fine, although he did earn his first "B" due to poor organization habits mostly.  Not studying for most of the tests didn't help either, I'm sure...

A's Awards Day

A had his awards day yesterday. When he got dressed I saw that he had on a t-shirt and shorts. I told him, no, he needed to wear a shirt with a collar. Well, he decided on his own that he needed to wear his "suit", aka blazer and slacks. He was definitely the best dressed boy in the class!

As usual for the elementary school, A got a boatload of awards -

6 Flags reading program

Book It completion

meeting AR goals

having the highest reading comprehension percentage on AR tests

meeting CCC goals (individualized computer instruction)

highest gain in reading CCC

perfect attendance 4th quarter

Principal's List (all A's), 4th quarter and all year

Here are A and a class mate who did the best on AR points.  She had the highest points, A had the best percentage (and the 2nd highest number of points).  Interestingly, I was helping at the 5th grade awards today and both these 4th graders got more AR points than ANY of the 5th graders!

A's whole class.  They've all just gotten certificates for meeting their CCC goals.

M's Awards Day

M had his awards day last week. He got 3 awards - for all A's (either semester), for scoring in the top 5 in some math test - the top 60 kids in each grade take the test, then the top 5 are honored. M says he tied with one other student. Then M got an award for scoring well on the Duke TIP SAT - he was singled out as he was the only one in the school (or county) to reach national recognition status. I think there were 5 other students to get state recognition status.

Here's M all dressed up:

The school was very specific - they wanted the kids dressed up, "as appropriate for church, a wedding, or a funeral" (no t-shirts, tennis shoes, jeans, etc). M wasn't necessarily happy at our insistence on the jacket and tie, but he looked really good! And we're very proud of him.

Arrow of Light

Saturday night was our Blue and Gold banquet for Cub Scouts.  We do this every year, but this was a special one.  A received his Arrow of Light - as a Webelos I (most Scouts don't earn this until they are Webelos II).  Here they are lighting the candles for Scouting values.  It was a very nice ceremony (especially considering that last year they didn't have any real ceremony to it).

Here are A and 2 of his buddies who also earned the Arrow of Light as 1st year Webelos, showing off their certificates and "arrows".

A is very proud of himself and so are we!  Now he says his goal is to earn all 21 pins as a Webelos.  10 down and 11 to go....  several of the Webelos II earned them all this year.

650!

OK, so I'm going to brag a bit, but it's my blog and I can brag if I want!

We just got back M's SAT scores (from the Duke 7th grade talent search program).  He got a 650 in Critical Reading!  Wow!!  That's at the 90th % for high school jr/sr and at the 99% for 7th grade students.  All that reading pays off.

His other scores were also good, but not quite as remarkable.  He scored 490 on math and 470 on writing (I think his grammar is better than this, but his essay scored really low).  He had told us after the test that the reading was easy, the math hard, and his essay was bad.  Evidently he was fairly correct.

We're quite proud of M.  As D said, some of his students would kill for M's reading score.  On the old 1600 scale (that us old fogey parents took the SAT under), he got a 1140.  Combined scale of all 3 this adds up to 1610.

Webelos badge

A got his Webelos badge at the last pack meeting.  Here are the 3 boys (and parents) getting awarded their badges.  I think that they all earned the badges before Christmas, but the December pack meeting was a skating party and they weren't awarding rank advancements then.

Here's A with his new Webelos badge sewn on:

He has his compass too, and only needs one more activity pin before he earns his first compass point.

M walks 20K

M's school had a walk-a-thon today to raise money for the school and for Toys for Tots.  M is all excited about it because there are cash prizes if you raise enough money.  He's hoping to raise $200.  We're proud and somewhat amazed that M walked all 20K today.  That is 14, 1-mile laps around the school.  He was a bit tired when we picked him up, but otherwise doing ok.  I guess all that walking we did on vacation this summer got him used to it.

Meanwhile, while M was walking, D and I (with A dragged along for the ride) went off hunting for a new fridge.  Our fridge developed a bad leak a few weeks ago, making us worry that we were going to be imminently replacing it.  It turns out it was just the line to the ice maker, so we shut that off and no more leaks, but in the meantime the door handle has gotten progressively wigglier - and not in a way that seems easily fixable.  So we decided it was best to be proactive and get a new fridge now, rather than panicking at the last moment when we have to pry open the fridge.  The Se*ars scratch and dent stores were having a sale this weekend, so we went hunting there.  We found a nice side-by-side, only slightly scratched, for about half off, plus an additional $50 off.  Bonus is,  its an Energy star model, so it should be much cheaper to operate than our current 13 year old fridge.  It will be delivered Monday, so tomorrow I get to clean off all the fridge magnets and then Monday, I guess I will be loading up all the contents of the fridge and freezer into coolers, waiting for delivery.  I certainly hope that they come fairly promptly - they are supposed to call tomorrow to tell me when my window will be.

5 out of 6!

We got the results from last nights meet, this morning.  Each kid can swim 3 individual events, so for M and A, that is 6 individual events.  Out of those 6, they got 5 new best times!  Woo hoo!

As we had feared/expected, A was DQ'd (disqualified) in breaststroke last night, but he had best times in both freestyle (for the 3 straight meet) and backstroke (first time he swam it faster this year).  M had best times in all 3 of his events - breast, free, and butterfly (he took 8 seconds off his time from last year!!)  Way to go kids!!

M gets another shot at beating his times later this week, while A will be off camping 3 nights with the Cub Scouts.  I'm rather liking this trading off of kids deal so far.  It certainly makes things calmer around the house (and gives the kids new things to talk about rather than just fight - always good!)

Banner Day for M

Yesterday was a banner day for M!

First up was 6th grade awards in the morning. M got an award for outstanding achievement in Science and another for outstanding effort in Social Studies. I must admit, I had to comment to the SS teacher afterwards that I was glad that he was seeing good effort from M, since at home he seems to put in the minimal effort needed to do well. He does care about doing well, but he doesn't want to do *anything* more than necessary. And he NEVER studies! But, hey, the teacher sees effort in class (and sees results too) so maybe he is doing more at school than home.

 

Then in the evening, he had a Court of Honor for Scouts. M received 1 merit badge (art) and 2 increases in rank! He became a Tenderfoot and then moments later Second Class! Way to go M!!



Here he is pinning the rank pins on his dad.

Finally!

Two weeks ago when A and I went off camping with the Cub Scouts, M went biking at a BMX track for a friend's birthday party. D was going to get M's bike ready Sat morning, but discovered that WHOA that bike was too small. It seems M grew enough over the winter to not really fit his bike anymore. So off they went to Tar*get to get a new one. I'd already had to get M a new helmet after his last one self destructed (plastic circle with all the little foam bits had disconnected from the main helmet).

M had a good time biking at the track and is now enjoying his bike more. He says he'll be biking to swim practice this summer too.

Meanwhile, we needed to work some more with A on getting him truly riding his bike. Deja vu - his old bike was too small too! So, we got out M's old bike and lowered the seat just a smidgen and now we have proper size bikes for both kids.

I took A and the bike up to the top of the yard on a grassy slope and helped him get started. He was a little wobbly at first (over steering), but he had the hang of it. He was riding. on his own. He practiced some more down the front yard and back and forth in the driveway. By golly, this time I think it will stick! Several times before he had gotten very close on riding, but just didn't have the confidence to take off. I think this time he will. It didn't help though that he turned in the driveway and was about to head down a rather steep slope towards our neighbor's yard. He didn't brake soon enough and the brakes weren't going to be much good on that steep a slope, esp when covered with pine straw. He ended up skidding into the edge of a tree and stopping. Not hurt really, but a little shaken and a small scrape. So we ended the session. With thoughts of another session tomorrow though.

I'm glad he's finally getting the hang of the bike. At 9.25 years. I think he's happy too. Now he'll be able to bike to his friend S's house rather than walking...

Strawberry Time!

Yay, it's strawberry time again. We went this afternoon before picking M up from school. The berries are so beautiful and luscious. And A has become an expert picker! Last year, I think I filled my bucket while his was 1/3 to 1/2 full. This year - different story! He showed me his bucket and it was as much or more than mine! Blew me away!

In 15 minutes, A, my mom, and I managed to fill 2 buckets of strawberries. We could have picked more quite easily, but a gallon of strawberries is a lot to go through. I'd rather have these now and go pick another bucket next week.

A gets his Bear Badge

Here are the promised pictures from last night. M did quite a nice job taking pictures (though the flash doesn't really work that far, so I had to lighten the first photo).


They had all the kids earning rank badges come and line up with a parent to receive their badge. Now A has to do a good deed before I can sew the badge on his uniform.

Awards day for A

Yesterday was 2nd quarter awards for A's school. They had all the 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders in the cafeteria - getting awards in volleyball, perfect attendance, honor roll in 3 varieties(all A's and B's, more A's than B's, and all A's), and meeting the AR reading goals.

Here's A and part of the rest of the all A's 3rd graders getting their awards:

 

There were noticeably more kids getting all A's in 3rd and 4th than in 5th - 8 total kids in 5th with all A's.

The presentation was nice, but long. I would guess that at least 80% of the kids got the reading award - they had 5 pages of names!

A got 3 awards - perfect attendance, all A Honor Roll and meeting his reading goal (steamrolling it actually, he is supposed to have 5 points per quarter, so 10 points total by now - he has over 230!) Reading is obviously a love of A's (and the whole family), but they clearly have set the goal too low!

A's Walk-a-thon

A's school had their walk-a-thon today. Very different from M's school. This one was how many laps of the track could you do in 30 minutes.

They said they expected the average child would be able to do 6-12 laps in 30 minutes. They also said that the track is just shy of 1/4 mile. So I was thinking that 12 laps or almost 3 miles in 30 minutes would be pushing it for elementary kids. Well, either they are wrong on the track length or we have some pretty impressive kids. A walked/ran 14 laps! 14 3/4 if you ask him. I was quite impressed. Especially when I saw that he walked more laps than any of the other kids in his class (though there were only 5 others who walked). There is a prize for the top walker per class, so he should earn that, if he doesn't qualify for one of the top moneymaker prizes (not too likely, but he may decide to try to collect more pledges). He would bankrupt me if I hadn't put a cap on my pledge. You see, I pledged one dollar per lap number - ie
$1 for lap 1
$2 for lap 2 total $3
$3 for lap 3 total $6
This adds up FAST! 14 laps would be $105!!

But I put a cap of $50, so I'm still out quite a bit, but A did a great job. He walked and jogged and ran for 30 minutes straight and completed more laps than almost all the other kids out there. I think there were 2 kids who did 17 laps and one or 2 who did 15 - out of about 40 kids. WAY to go A!

Where M gets himself off to school

This morning A had "Pastries with Parents" at his school. Nice pastries and a chance to see other parents and kids. All well and good, except that pastries were from 7-7:30, and then I needed to check on something at school and I wasn't sure I would be back in time to hustle M onto the bus.

Now, M is a morning person (actually all the males in this family are morning people. I am NOT), so getting him up in time to get ready is rarely a problem. He was up by 6:15 this morning, had breakfast and even a shower by the time A and I left for pastries at 7. So, M was all ready - what's the problem you wonder? Well, its the computer - it sucks M in and consumes all his time (or rather all his time plus a little more). M was convinced he could get himself off fine, I was a bit worried. We compromised - I set a timer for a few minutes before he needed to leave. As things went, I was pulling in the driveway just as M was leaving the house - at a perfectly appropriate time for the bus. Yay for M! He said he didn't even need the timer, but it made me feel more confident, just in case the computer video or webcomic was too interesting to notice it was time to stop.

I get to go have pastries with M at his school next month. None of the bus worries then, as pastries will be starting after A's school has started.

more on M and the walk-a-thon

M at the walk-a-thon:


M raised $168 (so far) for his school PTO. This is a big deal for him as he doesn't like approaching people. But he took the initiative and asked me to help him make a sign-up sheet (he had left his official form at home) at church on Sunday and went around asking people for donations. The fact that he can win prizes of cold, hard cash for raising money helps his motivation I'm sure!