Thomas the Robot

| November 21, 2017

In their never-ending quest to create enough robots to conquer the world (or at least our house), Mark and Sam started building a new robot, this one pretty much from scratch, no kit at all. The goal was to create a robot that looked “humanoid” instead of like a Mars rover. Sam loved the idea and came up with a rough plan that Mark figured out how to carry out.

They toiled for a lot of nights after homework and on weekends, but it was coming along!

Sam helped to program it…

Here he is, almost done (yes, it’s a “he”).

Meet Thomas! (Sam’s choice of name). She wants to give him crazy hair, but they haven’t attached it yet, so she is holding it up for effect. Look out world! The robots are coming! I hope they’re friendly! He’s pretty cool. The lights can change color, his arms move, and he can smile or frown.

Sam’s Checkup

| November 20, 2017

Sam had her well visit today and since she is a pretty healthy kid, it went as quick as could be. I have given up talking about her picky eating because, well….I have exhausted that topic.

Sam had her flu shot in October, so this visit was more a quick checkup. Her vision screen said she was 20/20, her hearing screen was perfect, and her blood pressure was fine.

Unsurprisingly, the doctor confirmed what we already knew — she shot up in height! Sam is 4′ 3″ tall (she grew over 4″ from last year!) She gained some weight from last year but she is still pretty tiny. She always was though and her growth chart in that area hasn’t moved much. She’s doing great and growing like a weed. How is she getting so big? My baby girl!

Parent-Teacher Time

| November 20, 2017

We had our fall parent-teacher conference today with Sam’s teacher. It went well, pretty much as expected. Sam’s reading is slightly above where she is supposed to be, which is great, and she knows 371 of the 400 sight words she is supposed to be able to recognize by year’s end, which is awesome! Her main issue in the “literacy” area, is that her handwriting is horrible (which we know) and she doesn’t seem to get that neatness reflects on the quality of her work. We talked to Mrs. Smith about it and she said if it was ok with us, she was going to start making Sam redo some of her work if it is not legible, she is not using punctuation, keeps using capital letters in the middle of words, that sort of thing. We were all for it! I think that after a few times of being made to redo things, it will get old, and hopefully that will be the push Sam needs to be more careful.

In math, she is struggling, as she did early last year, but she is getting better. Her scores have improved steadily on her three assessment tests.

We discussed Sam’s….lack of focus…shall we say. We have had this same discussion with every teacher since preschool. Sam can be a bit of a dreamer and sometimes has to be brought back down to earth with everyone else! I don’t like to see that as a bad thing, I mean, she is super creative, and I love that about her, but she has to mature a bit and realize that when she needs to pay attention, she needs to pay attention. Mrs. Smith thinks its just a maturity thing, taking education seriously, and that she’ll get there eventually. She checks in with Sam a lot during the day to make sure she is on the same page with everyone else, which is just what Sam needs. It is hard for me to deal with, her lack of enthusiasm for school and the lackadaisical way she goes into schoolwork and education. I was such a school nerd. I took everything waaaay to seriously and got great grades without trying very hard. But I think that’s the problem — I didn’t have to try hard, and Sam sometimes does. I have a hard time realizing that sometimes and that does not make me a great teacher. I am really working on being patient. I tell Sam all the time that if she just tries her best, that is all I want. The problem is, sometimes I don’t think she does try her best, even when she says she does. But, overall, she is a good student. We are very proud of her!

As a side note, as we were walking out, I noticed a bulletin board in the hallway filled with “spotter” cards. Kids at Scenic can be “spotted” by anyone for doing something special and get a “spotter” card. I think they are all entered into a sweepstakes thing at the end of the year or something. Anyway, Sam wanted one in the worst way. She told us a week or so ago that she got spotted, and today I saw her card. She’s a good kid. 🙂

Stupid Urban Legends!

| November 15, 2017

So, this happened. Sam came home from school last night telling me that her friend Giselle told her the story of Bloody Mary. Seriously? OMG. I don’t think I heard that stupid urban legend/tale until I was much older. Kids are growing up earlier and earlier these days. It is upsetting. At any rate, Sam was scared to death, totally freaked out. I explained, ad nauseum, that it isn’t real, that the stupid story has been going around since I was a little kid, if not sooner, and it’s not real. Yeah, well, that doesn’t matter much when you are 8 and some girl tells you that if you say this stupid thing that the woman in the mirror will kill you. I can’t believe I am dealing with this nonsense.

So, Sam is in our room at around 3 a.m. and will she go back to sleep? No. Of course not. She is scared to death of stupid Bloody Mary. What is next? Give me strength.

Grandparents’ Day and Veteran’s Day

| November 15, 2017

Sam’s school hosts a grandparents’ day for the second graders. Over 200 grandparents came, which is amazing! I helped to coordinate the event (pretty much only because that way I’d get to be there to see it). The principal told me last year they had maybe 50 grandparents. It was a phenomenal turnout. All the grandparents went to the kids’ classrooms and answered questions about what it was like when they were kids that age. The kids couldn’t believe what school was like for their grandparents – how different in some ways, and yet so the same in others. Afterwards, they did a craft together using outlines of the grandparents’ and the kids’ hands.

Here’s their craft!

Veterans’ Day was the week before and the kids were asked to bring in photos of veterans in their family. Sam brought in pictures of her Great-Grandfather, Flavion (although whomever typed it up spelled his name wrong…Grrr) and her Poppy, Joe. I spied this display as I was leaving her classroom.

The little poster the kids made was very special. I am glad they are teaching them about what it means to serve our country. Those in the service don’t get enough credit for what they do.

On Veteran’s Day, the school hosted a Veteran’s Breakfast and the second grade sang for them – God Bless America and God Bless the USA. Here they are practicing (thanks to her on the ball principal for always snapping photos!) Sam is in the front row, near the left.

And here is a video someone posted on Facebook. Sam isn’t in it the whole time, but she is on the left, in a red dress. The kids are too adorable. The fact that they learned all the sign language for this song, and learned all the words, is so impressive!