End of Second and Fourth Grades

Second grade end-of-year party at the beach. 

Decorating the school sidewalks with art. 

Saying goodbye to Mrs. Wilcox

Our amazing chef at Peabody, Chef Laurel, retired after 23 years of making delicious and healthy meals for the kids.  

Thatcher seems to be 8 going on 18 in this photo. 

Sam's cute little buddy. 

Tweens. 

Loved this student teacher, Ms. Kemp. She's right, Thatcher is a funny kid.

The first day of school to....

the last day! 

Thatcher gets the award for growing the most! 

Thatcher was below the "E" the first day of school!

And now look!

Sam's shorts definitely got a little shorter. 😂

The last assembly of the year. 

Transitioning the grades back a spot to make room for the kindergarteners next year and saying farewell to the sixth graders. 

Shoreline Cafe celebration on the last day where we get to join our neighborhood friends. 

Naturally, Thatcher came home with a big bag of end of the school year work that looked like this. 

My thank you note from Thatcher's class for being a classroom helper. 

The puzzle piece that makes up Samantha. 

Oh how I wish Thatcher would have a chance to get Mrs. Sterling before she retired for English. These kids write and write and write. No busy work. No letting kids off easy—she actually read every single thing the kids wrote. By the end of the year, I couldn't believe the improvement in all of the kids. 

The picture is from the first day of school when the kids got to see the eclipse. 

The "here is a picture of my teacher" area could have been a little neater. 😬

No picture of Jack but they do like the "same things." And I think it's sweet even though Jack and Thatch don't go to the same school, Thatcher will still write about him. 

No picture of Thatcher studying because well, there wasn't too much studying going on in second grade. 😂 Thatcher was SO BORED the entire year. And I let it slide that he could have used some improvement on reading, writing, spelling just chalking it up to, "it's only second grade." 🤷‍♀️ We've definitely had to make some changes now that he is in third grade.  

There were a lot of blanks in his memory book. 🤦‍♀️

This is the neatest writing I have EVER seen from Thatcher. Knowing him, he may have dictated the words to a classmate to write in exchange for a baseball card in his desk.

I mean......

True story: ran laps, mom watched, got a cramp last year, no cramp this year and passed Mrs. Wilcox seven times. 

😂

🤦‍♀️

Sammy made it through 4th grade with A's in each subject all year. 

Thatcher actually did pretty good too for just "phoning it in" each day. Except he was WAY behind in one of the computer programs they use and it's partly because I do not allow any electronics whatsoever during the week (except sports on TV!) so that was my fault. I told the teacher up front we wouldn't be doing the iPad during the week but she could send him home with traditional homework. So she did that and guess what, he didn't do it. So we all failed on that one. Fast forward to today and Thatcher is on my computer every day after school catching up on a program that he despises. After watching him do it at home, I think I may have also put my headphones on in class and zoned out. It's pretty boring. But like Sam, he will most likely finish enough of the program in third grade and most fourth grade teachers will let you graduate from it. iPads in class are because teachers have no other way to give attention to small groups. Beneficial at times but not for every kid. 

This is so funny. As soon as Mrs. Wilcox begins to describe who she is giving the award to and says, "this kid can have a lot of energy" they all know it's Thatcher. 🤪 But what she says is true about Thatcher being kind and finding the positive, he's often grouped with kids who need help or need role modeling in and out of class. He loves being a leader and a helper and that started in kindergarten and is still communicated to me by his teachers today. 💓

These sassy second grade girls are so cute. They came up with this dance themselves and asked to perform it for the parents. I love a good interpretive dance. 💃

The students one by one recite poems to the parents and Thatcher not only got to do his own two poems but also got up to help a student who was feeling too timid to do it all on his own. Which is what I was referring to before, despite some of the boredom (laziness) in class, Thatcher shines when put to tasks such as these which is why after a few hiccups at the start of third grade (oh, just wait till y'all hear about that) we've now got a very successful third grade student thanks to a very special teacher.