How Jonathan is Doing

Switching schools has been a big adjustment for all of us, but a huge one for Jonathan.  He loves school once he's there, but when he's at home, he sees it as an interruption to his main career goals of building with Legos and reading books.  He'd rather stay home and follow his own agenda.  His school day finishes later in the afternoon here than in our old town.  He's had a bit of a hard time giving up his uninterrupted time to create and read just so he can go to school.  However, we all know that's what he needs to do, for many, many reasons.  :)

He says he loves his teacher and likes this school as well as the old one, so that's good.  His teacher is a good friend of one of our new friends that we've met here, so I'm very happy about that.  I do think he is making friends - slowly - but, like most boys, he doesn't give me many extraneous details about his day, so I have to do a lot of guesswork (and stay in touch with his teacher.)  He has had some bumps in the road at school - getting lost, getting frustrated, etc. - but for the most part, I think he's doing well and has learned from the bumps in the road.  He is still learning how things work at this school - how they do Accelerated Reader, how they approach homework, etc. - which are different than the old school.  I think he's being challenged academically more this year, which is good for him and makes me happy.

This week, his teacher wanted to talk to me about a couple different things:  an occasion when he got super frustrated and embarrassed in class, and the fact that he would be getting an academic award.  Of course, each school has "the way we've always done it," and I think I had gotten a good feel for that at his old school, but I am completely starting over at this school.  So what I've learned, I think, is that at this school, there is an awards assembly each month, and each classroom teacher chooses one student to  receive a character award, and one to receive the academic award.  Jonathan received the year's first academic award in his classroom.  Benjamin and Grace came with me to their first school assembly experience, and we watched Jonathan - and lots of other kids - accept their awards.

He didn't know that we were coming or that he was going to get an award, so the surprise was really fun.  He was really proud, and it was a huge encouragement to him.  At the end of the day, he told me that his day had been awesome!  Here's what an academic award looks like at this school.  He says it glows in the dark, so what could be better than that?

And here he is with his fantastic teacher.

And by the way, I got lost on a rabbit trail last night, looking at old blog posts.  If you want to see an adorable video clip of Jonathan shortly before Grace was born, click here.