First week of school

The first full week of school is done for the younger ones.





The twins are having ups and downs. Up--they love getting dressed in their school clothes and riding the bus. They seem to be learning. Down--they do what they want. Really. If they don't want to do what the class is doing, they tell the teacher "no" or destroy whatever they are supposed to be doing. Kaleb tore up headphones on Friday because he didn't want to be in the listening center.





Kayla's teacher is much better about keeping in touch. I get a daily behavior color each day. If Kayla gets a green, she gets to watch a movie and have popcorn after supper. If not, she goes to bed. Kaleb's teacher doesn't send a daily grade so I don't know how he's done. When I asked her if she could, she said he was doing fine, just liked to push and grab other students. For Kayla's class, that is an automatic red, but it sounds like Kaleb's teacher overlooks it for him. So he's getting the movie and popcorn every night since I don't know how he does but he may not deserve it, and I may be unknowingly reinforcing his poor behavior but giving him the reward when he shouldn't have it. Does that make any sense?





I'm hoping as the teachers remain firm and consistent, the negative behaviors will end because the twins will find they are missing out both at school and in getting the movie at home.








Jasmine likes her teacher. She has a different teacher for math and seems to like him, but math is killing us. The books starts with place value:millions. Here is a question from page 11:





Suppose a bead maker wants to separate 10,000,000 beads into boxes. She will put 100,000 beads into each box. Into which box would she put the 4,358,216th bead?











Huh? Excuse me? This is 4th grade math? I had to use a calculator and draw it all out on paper so I could see it. What happened to reviewing at the beginning of the year? Last year Jasmine's math went to the thousands. We switched curriculum so we could be the most advanced school and jumped right in with millions!! Place value has never been a strong area for me. I don't remember ever learning it in school.








Adam is not saying much about his new school. He just says "it's small." I'm hoping it being small and having more structured and supervision will result in him actually learning rather than engaging in poor classroom behavior. The school actually allows for more free time and student interaction once lessons are done. Everything is computerized and if they finish the classwork early, they can play approved online games. That would certainly be incentive for many students to get their work done. I'm not sure about Adam. He's never been as into that kind of thing as Tyler. But if everyone is doing it, he'll want to.








Jeff hopes to finish his school work early and be done by Christmas, but it depends on his motivation. He really wants to leave the place he's at because of trouble he got into. He was the one who broke rules, but he's upset that he was punished. He's 17 and wants out. We gave him three options for when he gets out. It was hard, but necessary. He chose to go into the military even if he must go into the army not the marines due to his school classification. I guess he thought he'd come home and just hang out here all day. Doesn't work that way. If you've graduated and are at home, you are in full time college. Of course if one of our children really needed our help, we'd negotiate this.








Tyler and Jessica have attended each of their classes one time at the college. They have M/W classes and Tu/Th classes. They've already run into a few issues. Like, someone sold Jessica the wrong textbook for $50 and she's out that money plus has to get the right one. She felt like it might be the wrong one, but went through with the purchase any way. Lesson learned. She seems to enjoy all her classes, especially understanding theater. On two days she out at 12:15 and two days she's out at 3:15.





Tyler ran into an issue with Wednesdays because he has an early class and then nothing until a 3:30 class that doesn't get out until 5:45. He tried to grab the city shuttle from college to church and got there right as his group let out! I guess he won't be attending Wed night church this semester. He works Sundays 2-9 so that only leaves Sunday mornings.





There are lots of plans being made for extra curricular events and activities that I'll share about next week.







My little joy and song has surgery Tuesday. Pray for her health so that this can just be completed and over with. After this, she has another one that is going to be nasty. But Tuesday's surgery isn't supposed to be too bad. Still...

First day of college

First day of college!!

First day, second year. It was so hot and muggy at 6:50 that my camera fogged up so that's why the picture looks foggy.

Ty doesn't look thrilled but he was pretty hyper this morning. Jessica will go straight to work from classes. It's Wed and she's not supposed to be scheduled due to church orchestra but there was a mix up. Ty is going to hang out at the college and then grab the trolley to church.

Our schedule isn't too crazy yet. Just school, church choir/orhcestra, softball for Jasmine and Explorers for Ty and Jessica. Dance starts after Labor Day and we'll have to get a new routine going.

"uniforms"

I have uniforms in quotes because I don't consider what our school requires to be uniforms. More like a dress code since the clothes don't have to be any one brand or bought at any particular store.



What our county does is require the students to wear khaki, navy or blue jean bottoms--pants, skirts, skorts, capris etc. Short can be as short as 5" above the knees. Girls can wear plain dresses or jumpers in blue or khaki. The shirts have to be white or one of the two school colors. They must be collared and buttoned for the middle school and high school. Elementary can wear plain t-shirts in the colors. I didn't know this at first and bought Jasmine all three button collared shirts.


Many of the kids were upset when this dress code was put in effect a few years ago. Said it stifled their creativity! But there is a lot of variety of styles within the code. And it saves fights about shirts that are too low or have spaghetti straps etc. It eliminates t-shirts with questionable slogans, gang colors and other distractors.





The twins and Jasmine go to a school whose colors are red, white and blue. It's navy blue, but they allow any shade of blue for the shirts. And since you can wear t-shirts, there are limitless options. Okay, not really limitless, but you know what I mean.



Kayla kept the white shirt clean all day!




So I'm posting some of the combinations the kids have worn the first few days. There are also school t-shirts in red or blue but I'm not going to post those pictures so it doesn't pinpoint my kids. Each class also has a class t-shirt. I need to send in the money for those still.

I like Kaleb in the light blue.

I moved Adam to a small charter school with much more supervision than the large public school he was in. I hope this helps eliminate some issues with him.

He has to wear three button shirts with the school logo on it (he's turned so it doesn't show) and those start at $22!!

It's a little too early for all of us. 6:35 and we're on the way to walk about 1/5 mile to the bus. Maybe 1/4 mile. Not sure.

Moving Up

Ready for church!
Jasmine moves to her new SS class today.

Jessica moves up to the college group today.

Ty goes to a different church. He does much better at the smaller church he attends.

The twins and I are home. In a bit they will watch the story of Jesus for kids in Creole HERE. I'm not going to start the twins in SS for a while due to bonding and behavior issues.


Rick is out of town picking up Adam and visiting Jeff.

Here are a few pictures of Jessica with the friends that came over for pizza, movies and games yesterday.

Tyler bought Jessica Apples to Apples for her birthday and it was a hit.

We finally booted everyone out in the evening. We'd been talking about trying Thai food so I sent Jessica to a carry out place to choose some things to try.

They seem to put cucumbers in a lot of food and that is one food I am very allergic too!! But I was able to pick them out.

New outfit

HaPpY BiRtHdAy JeSsIcA

Happy birthday Jessica!


She was in a hurry to be born (thankfully!) and in a hurry ever since.

Very much a textbook baby as far as development. She did everything pretty much right when the baby books indicated.

She's changed just a bit!

From Tyler

From Grandma Sims

From Jasmine

From Grandpa and Grandma

From Uncle Ken

From Aunt Lou

Start of School

Jasmine's first day of school--August 11.


Getting a hand with the shoes.

Ready to go.

She rode the bus since we'd visited her room and teacher at orientation. I handed the driver three forms only to be handed three additional forms that need signed!

The twins had kindergarten orientation for an hour. Jessica went with Kayla and I went with Kaleb.

I didn't really know how much to tell the teachers, and I knew they wouldn't remember it all anyway. I just asked that only the teachers hug them and anyone else high-five them. And I asked that they eat their own lunches and not get any other food from anyone unless it's a class treat that everyone is getting.

I didn't really mention much about behavioral issues because I didn't want to sound negative or to overload the teachers with info. BUT I SHOULD HAVE!

Ready for the first full day.

Ready to go.

The truth of it is, they both have adjusted well, but both have some behavioral issues pretty common in children who've been in an orphanage.

They can both be very stubborn, and although they don't tell me "no" to my face, I recently found out that they will yell "no" right in Rick's face. I'm not sure why this is since there is never a happy outcome.

I'd forgotten my glasses one evening last week when I was going out and went back in the house to get them. The twins had done something, and Rick had sent them to time-out. They were standing in the kitchen screaming all kinds of things at him. When I walked in they ran for their rooms. I have no clue why they will try this with him and not me. We basically handle things the same way. First-time out or time in or in some way removed from the situation. If that doesn't work--go sit on bed for a while or nap. If that doesn't work-spank. Not something I wanted to use, but they are very stubborn. And if they run around and refuse to do either #1 or 2, I'm not sure what's left. It needs to be immediate with them.


Anyway, back to school....

Ready to go with angelic smiles in place.

Kayla's smile stayed in place until center time. There are four kids per center. She wanted the house center but it was full. She went anyway. The teacher tried to redirect her. She wouldn't leave. The teacher tried to get her to play blocks with another student and Kayla started throwing blocks. The teacher tried to put her in time-out and Kayla told her "no" and refused to go. It got ugly, but the teacher won. I guess I should have warned her, but I didn't think Kayla would do this at school on the first day. I figured she'd want to charm her teacher. Nope. Oh well, I guess it's better that the teacher saw that right up front so she knows what Kayla is capable of! Only half the kids were there and the other half are there today while the first half stayed home. And actually, it's easier to deal with the outright defiance than the manipulation and games that are often undetected.

I'm thinking that since the teacher won this first round, things will go better. But Kayla is very resistant to learning for some reason. She's very capable, but I bought the twins some cute preschool learning work books and all they'd do was trash them. Perhaps she doesn't want to acknowledge the fact that there are things she doesn't know. Who knows? It's no longer an option though. Our school prides itself on a demanding curriculum. I don't always think that's good since Jasmine struggles so much with math and comprehension but that's the way it is. So little Miss Kayla will learn whether she wants to or not--or do it over again next year!

The teacher also said Kayla was very protective of her lunch. She didn't want to leave it in her cubby, but wanted it with her. I think she'll figure out that she will always have her lunch and it will be where she put it.

I didn't hear from Kaleb's teacher, so I don't know how he did. He is just as stubborn and since learning comes hard for him (and he appears to me to be much more delayed than Kayla), he may act out to distract from that fact.

Kaleb will also go into a MAJOR POUT if he thinks he has been wronged or doesn't get his own way.

They got to do fun things the first day. The real learning starts Monday.

Our school uses Saxon phonics, harcourt reading and math for kindergarten.

I would love to hear about anyone else's school experiences with their newly adopted children.