5th and 3rd Grade

Thatcher's schoolmates had a pre-third grade party at the Beck's home. 

Forever 21 and Tilly's for back to school shopping. 

The night before the first day! 

Thatcher is good at different hand signals. 😂

First day outfits picked out!

Strangest first day of school breakfast request. Apple sauce and bacon. 🤷‍♀️

Every year we take this pic and every year they hate it. 😂 Notice Sam's arm placement. 🙄

One of our favorite teachers at Peabody, Mrs. Craviotto. 

And another favorite, Mrs. Heffernan.

It took until fifth grade but finally these three were in the same class together. 

This is second grader, Parker. They call him lil' T as in Little Thatcher. 

First day success! 

Sam's cute fifth grade folder. 

Picture day!

Loved emails like this from Mrs. Craviotto. 

And then I'd have to have conversations like this with her. We were both scratching our heads as to why Thatcher would score BELOW a first grade level on the testing they did and when she retested him he scored at a fourth grade level. 

Thankfully it turns out the first test was done in eight minutes! Only my child would choose to select anything to be finished with a test. He's learned his lesson that he won't be doing that again. 🤪

Thatcher is definitely our kid that thinks differently including describing math problems as "hotdog style" and "hamburger style" 🤔

Tween homework. 

The soccer ponytail made appearances in third grade. 😬 

Thatcher's class had little buddies for the first time. Thatcher's little buddy was William Thatcher, definitely paired up because of their names. 

Fifth grade in Heffernan's class is Harry Potter themed for the first quarter. The entire fifth grade year Sam's nose was in a book of Harry Potter. She's actually still reading the series currently, it's never-ending! 

This would drive me crazy but you sit on exercise balls in Heffernan's class. There was a lot of bouncing up and down but a good core workout. 

Heffernan's class is also a bit of a zoo. 

What's funny is that prior to this Sam texted me from school that "Beyonce died" and of course I googled immediately. I didn't know she was talking about a class rat at first. 😂

Beyonce was clearly loved! 

One of Thatcher's third grade goals (and mine!) was to get him caught up on the computer program they have to do. He's so behind because he HATES it. 

I gave him my old MacBook Air and I type so hard I have rubbed the keys off. Nothing a few labels can't fix. 

Harvest Carnival! 

Peabody celebrates Kindness Awareness Month and Sam's GSF shirt was a perfect fit! 

We had a rough start behavior-wise for Thatcher in third grade. After a lot of meetings and time spent on getting to the bottom of why Thatcher was struggling we have been able to make huge improvements. Mrs. Craviotto is a gem! 

This is as far as I go with this fundraiser 😂 Not sure what happened to Sam's form. I am sure her artwork was amazing too! 👏

Math these days. And Thatcher loves it! 

Harry Potter was the theme of every. single. one. of Sam's homework submissions. 

4th grade was a HUGE year for A LOT of writing at Peabody. And then 5th grade was even more, naturally. Which makes me real nervous for Thatcher, we've been prepping him this summer for what's to come. 😬 Although he'll like typing better than handwriting. 

I mean.....

But I do like the way Thatcher's mind works. 

At the beginning of third grade, I was still needing an interpreter to understand what Thatcher was saying. We were learning that Thatcher had a lot to say but needed a better way to get it out on paper. 

And then HELLO cursive! 

Thatcher has amazing cursive! 

Mrs. Craviotto encouraged Thatcher to try and only do cursive which slowed him WAY down with writing, which helped his thinking and helped our understanding of what he was trying to say!

👏👏👏👏👏👏👏

Speaking of cursive, Sam's is so good too!  

The "Excellent" must have been a mistake for this particular week's reading log.

Pretty much sums him up!

Sam's teacher requested that students attend parent conferences which I think makes so much sense to get them involved. She also has them grade themselves. 

I love Sam's confidence. 😊

And Sam pretty much mirrored what Mrs. Heffernan gave her too! 

Samantha Gets Braces!

Samantha got the green light for braces just before summer last year but we opted to wait until right before school started so that we could have our summer vacation and summer camps braces-free and kick off 5th grade with some shiny new hardware. 

The last time we'd see this smile. 

I actually don't think they were that bad. But Samantha has been going to the orthodontist since she was pretty little because she had teeth crowding so she had teeth pulled, a spacer and a wire for her bottom teeth all before braces so they've been working on them for several years before this next step. 

We LOVE our orthodontists, Dr. White and Dr. Grube. They sent Thatcher and I out for free coffee while they got to work on Sam. And they've also been VERY generous with all their extra attention they've given Thatcher who isn't quite a patient yet but has been looked at by the doctors several times for all his teeth catastrophes. 

Remember this one? He's had several more teeth accidents since then and chipped front teeth to show for it. 😬 The good news is that throughout all the skateboard, baseball and biking accidents, he has such big gaps in his teeth that all his adult teeth seem to be falling into place much better than expected. 

Brace Face, Tin Grin, Metal Mouth and all, I think she looks pretty cute with braces. 

A painful first few days but she's almost now had them for a year and only has one more year to go. She also had a palette expander for six months that has already been removed and has widened her smile so nicely. She'll be metal-free before junior high!