Critter Chronicles
Education
Meet Maria Tomasso
The second grade at Brenna’s school is learning about immigration at the turn of the 20th century. As a culmination of the unit all children were assigned identities; Brenna’s was Maria Tomasso, a sixteen-year-old seamstress from Italy who’d been hired to work for a company in Massachusetts. Though Maria speaks no English she can read … Continue reading
Smiling, Despite An Inclination To Rant
I spent about an hour earlier composing a post about all the things that are going wrong in my life right now, but as it turns out a cat having litterbox confusion issues, and a car with a slightly louder exhaust system, and a return of what will (and should) be a regularly scheduled event … Continue reading
One Bite: Week Eight
Bite Number Thirty-Three: Streamlining Your Kids’ {Schoolwork} Collection Technically this Bite was supposed to be about organizing kids’ artwork, but as I’m terribly unsentimental and save only the best of the best, we don’t have a lot of that around our house. What we do have, however, is piles of school progress reports and projects … Continue reading
Second Grade Performance
I love Brenna’s school. In addition to providing what I consider to be a high quality academic education, they stress citizenship and character in their students, as well as promoting the equality of all. In honor of Black History Month the second grade had been preparing an evening concert in tribute of six lesser-known but … Continue reading
Eating My Words
I had a parent-teacher conference at Anthony’s preschool yesterday. It was… good. And important. For the record, I think communication between parents and teachers is incredibly important and should never be underestimated. But I’ve never needed these conferences before because Brenna has been an exemplary student all along, at the top of her class and … Continue reading
Ready, Set, Kindergarten
Last year, right around this time, I was freaking out about The Critters’ next steps in school. In the past twelve months I’ve chilled out some; Brenna very successfully transitioned back into a classroom and loves it. Anthony went on to do three mornings a week at his preschool, and loves it. You’d think I’d … Continue reading
Video: He Reads!
On Brenna’s birthday this year we brought her to a bookstore and because stores like that are as additive as crack for all four of us, we walked out having spent far more money on books for both of The Critters than we’d intended to. Last year when I was homeschooling Brenna I purchased the … Continue reading
The First Report Card
Brenna came home from school in mid-September with a semi-quarterly progress report. Academically she was completely on track, but in the comments regarding aspects of her behavior she was lagging behind, with scores (questionably quantifiable, but numerical regardless) in the low 80s. The lowest score? An 82 in the category of “Shows Respect”. I flipped … Continue reading
First Month of School – Thoughts
Brenna’s first month back in school was a success, which doesn’t surprise me but makes me happy nonetheless. So far the transition hasn’t been cheap: $450 for brand new uniforms for the year (from Land’s End because our school has a contract with them and all in size 6x because my closer to eight- than … Continue reading
Her First Days – A Five Year Recap
I know I already posted her first day picture here last month, but it really just hurts my heart a bit to see how much she’s grown up in the past five years. I would also like to note the following things, for the record: In these five first day pictures she … Continue reading
