Thursday, September 8, 2011

A great start to 5th grade for both


The $1 section at Target had dry erase boards in their Back-to-School section, so I picked up 3. Each of the kids were using theirs to practice spelling words before bed tonight. After tucking them in, I did the usual walk through the house to pick up the miscellaneous items they forgot. This is a photo of Ange-Laurette's dry erase board, as I found it.


I also received an email from her new 5th grade teacher today: "What a lovely girl -- so enjoyable to have in our classes. She is doing remarkable in school considering the fairly short assimilation period since she joined your family."

Yesterday, I ran into Pierre's teacher at the grocery store. This is the first year they are in different classrooms, which has been a good decision that will help their individuality. Mrs. Ellis also had only good things to say about Pierre's progress and effort in school. (We had warned her that she would LOVE him!) She explained: You are right. I do really enjoy having him in class. Oh, that smile!

The fact that all three younger kids can read and write pretty independently is a treat. We were playing "Junior Loaded Questions" last night (a great game where you try to guess who wrote which response). The question came up: "What is your greatest accomplishment?" I explained that it meant something you were proud of or a big success you had. Pierre wrote "Fast ForWord" (the reading program he did each day this summer). Ange-Laurette wrote "making it out of the earthquake." If I would have been totally honest, my response should have been that my greatest accomplishment was "trusting God enough to obey his call to adopt these precious human beings!!"