Evan's Last Days of First Grade

So Evan's first grade days have officially ended.  Just another reminder of how quickly our children are growing up.  Despite a few difficulties with his school this year, he learned a lot.  He became a very adept reader, and I am always so impressed when I listen to him read out loud.  It is always so amazing how quickly children learn and acquire these life changing skills.  His favorite subject now is probably math, but he really loves learning about new places in the world in social studies.  He has also made giant leaps in his writing abilities this year, and we plan to not let these skills go to waste this summer as he will be writing in a summer journal.  He also has a reading goal and has some math sheets to help keep those skills fresh in his mind.  Evan's last day of school was on Tuesday, June 10th.  On the last Friday of the year, they had a beach day and got to wear their favorite beach attire.  He chose his shark swim trunks with his bright green beach t-shirt that he got last summer at a favorite beach restaurant with his cousins.  On Monday, his class celebrated the end of the year with a little pizza party.  They played games and just had a lot of fun together.  Brody enjoyed getting to go with me to the party.  On Tuesday, the school had their last quarter recognition ceremonies so we all went to watch.  I am a little disappointed that this school does not do more to recognize academic achievements, and it feels like they are trying too hard to just give everyone awards whether they are earned or not.  Evan's report cards have him at the top in all subject matters so I guess that counts as "A" honor roll in my book.  He loves to run outside on the track, and his teachers are supposed to keep track of the number of times he runs around the track.  He comes home almost daily with 9 or 10 dots on his hand marking the number of times he ran.  His teachers are supposed to turn this information in so he can be recognized for the miles he runs.  He finally got recognized for reaching the 25 mile mark, but if his teacher had turned in all information as she should, he probably would have reached 50 this semester.  Last semester, his teacher did not turn anything in.  This is the first year teacher who decided that she just couldn't handle teaching after only one semester and quit over Christmas break.  Evan's class was a pretty good class, and she actually had a relatively small class.  It was very disappointing.  I am really glad it did not seem to slow Evan down this year.

Evan dressed for beach day at school.  

Modeling his favorite t-shirt.

Ms. Henderson did most of the work for the pizza party.  She is the mom of one of Evan's friends, and she was also the substitute who kept the class on track while they searched for a new teacher.  Ms. Martin came back from maternity leave to finish the year.

Evan always loves seeing little brother at school. 

Sharing snacks.  It was a hot day, and you could tell Evan had just come in from outside with his sweaty head.  

They were playing hang man when I arrived.  I thought they got embarrassingly close to hanging their man.  Haha!

Then they played a quiet game of bingo. 

Evan finally got bingo.  He was very patient.  He is also wearing a caught with character sticker which he gets almost daily for being so well-behaved.  He is my little "good" boy who always has his clip on the highest behavior number. 

Evan's sweet friends, Patrick, Addison, and Olivia

Brody was very well-behaved during the party and found a nice place to sit and read. 

Ms. Martin handed out some special pictures.

And they all got a little ice cream treat.

Even little brother got some. 

Ms. Martin read a sweet little card attached to her gift and got a little teary.  

Ms. Martin's life survival kit.  I really like the penny and chocolate hugs and kisses ones. 

A special picture of the whole class that they all signed. 

Evan's picture with his teacher.  His hair was looking so big and poofy in this picture, and he was in desperate need of a hair cut.  Ha!

Checking out all his treasures. 

A shot of him standing up for one of his awards at the recognition ceremony.  He had searched all over for us and finally found us so he smiled and waved. 

Technically, I was not a good mama and got no decent shots of him on the last day so the picture from the last Friday will have to do.  He has definitely grown a lot this year!