Learning Norwegian

September 14, 2011 | Family,Norway,School

We signed up the kids for online Norwegian lessons with teachers in Norway through Globalskolen. I’m so glad I found out about this. The kids love it!

Reading homework

September 2, 2011 | Family,Iowa,School

One thing I never have to force them to do is their reading homework. At least he moved up from the floor.

Back to school

August 23, 2011 | Family,Iowa,School

First assessment of the first day back at school: “It was the Best Day Ever!” (Yes, she said it in capital letters.)

Heritage Park field trip

August 10, 2011 | Family,Iowa,School,Summer

The kids had a field trip to Heritage Park during summer school. Every time I go there, I see something new and different.

I love this pin, especially considering that they’d be serving lutefisk at the Heritage Festival the following weekend.

Related posts

Heritage Park
Train train, comin’ ’round, ’round the bend
Howdy neighbor, happy harvest, may your forty acres soon be fields of clover

Summer school

July 1, 2011 | Family,Iowa,Norway,School,Summer,Vacation

Believe it: School’s out for summer!

June 1, 2011 | Family,Iowa,School

But the school’s still there. Ah well. Life’s not always like the song, is it?

Here they were last fall.

Here they were this morning.

Wow. I can’t believe we’ve completed three school years in Iowa. I can’t believe I don’t have Kindergartners anymore. *sniff, sniff* I can’t believe it’s summer! I can’t believe Katie is wearing the same outfit she wore on the first day of school. (Totally random … I didn’t pick out her clothes. I didn’t even remember what they wore.) Also? I can’t believe this is the first time I ran across one of Mom’s comments on my blog (when looking for last year’s first-day-of-school photos). *sigh* Adds to the bitter and sweet to this day.

Listening with my heart

March 8, 2011 | Family,School

I hated school — from the first day to the last.

I started first grade in the middle of the year, just after my fifth birthday. There was no Kindergarten. I was terrifed. I got sick a lot. One day, I went to the nurse’s office. I lay in the dark on a cot, listening to another student get paddled next door in the principal’s office. I thought I was next. After that, I didn’t tell anyone when I was sick.

I peed my pants once because I was afraid to tell anyone I had to go to the bathroom.

I broke my pencil one day, and I didn’t tell anyone, not even my parents. I was convinced someone would take me to a doctor, who would look in my ear with a machine that could read my mind. Just so nobody would know, I practiced thinking, “I.B.M.P” over and over again so nobody would see me thinking, “I broke my pencil.” What awful thing did I think would happen if anyone found out I broke my pencil? Who knows. I was 5.

That was just the first year. I was mortified for being made an example to the whole second-grade class. (It doesn’t matter that it was a good example. I was still mortified.) I was bullied by everyone and protected by no one in a two-room country parochial school when I was 10. And then 11. Yep. Every day. All day. Until I was finally done. I spent freshman year cowering from a principal who threw boys against the wall. As a sophomore, I tried to avoid a senior girl who threatened to kick my ass if she and her friends ever found me alone.

I graduated at 17 with a shudder of relief.

With that kind of history, is it any wonder that I had tons of anxiety when my children started school?

I have big dreams for my children. I want them to love school, to learn, to be who they are, to be fearless … you know, all the things I didn’t and wasn’t and couldn’t be.

My second-grader daydreams a lot. Mostly, he likes his own imagination, but I also think daydreams sometimes help him deal with being overwhelmed. He gets that from me. His teacher understands that he’s smart and that he gets distracted and doesn’t hear things when he’s in his daydreams. She works with that.

Imagine what a punch in the gut it was when he told me one day recently that he fell behind with his work and got in trouble (his words). The reason? The questions were difficult, and he was afraid to ask for help.

*deep breath*

I helped him with the work. Then we had a talk. I told him his teacher cares about him very much and wants him to be comfortable enough to learn in her classroom. That’s the most important thing she does. Teach you, I said, and you have to help her with that. I told him I needed to tell his teacher. He didn’t want me to, but he relented. His teacher, bless her heart, understood. She decided to give him prompts to ask for help, and he had a very good day that next day.

*sigh*

Where was she when I was in second grade? Where was I when I needed someone like me?

Oh well. Water under the bridge.

The important thing is, my son will still be afraid of things. What I hope he understands now, though, is that he doesn’t have to be afraid alone.

Jan Brett contest

March 5, 2011 | Authors,Blogland games,Books,Family,Iowa,Jan Brett,School

We love Jan Brett. She’s not Norwegian, but she writes about trolls and has the most amazing illustrations. She’s a best-selling children’s author, and she’s won tons of awards for her work. The best award is how much children love her books. So do their parents. So do their teachers.

Our school loves Jan Brett, too. My daughters’ Kindergarten classroom reads Jan Brett books, and they do several activities related to her books. My son’s second-grade classroom has several Jan Brett books on the shelf. I’d bet most, if not all, classrooms in our school have Jan Brett books, not to mention our library.

When I saw that she’s holding a contest for the winning school to win a visit from her, I thought, how cool would that be? So I’ve entered the contest, and I’m passing along the information to get as many people as possible to enter. I want our school to win!

Here’s the info: Please help Forest City Elementary School win a visit from Jan Brett! Go to http://janbrett.com/. Click on “click here” to get to her Facebook page. Click “like,” then click on the “Contest” tab.

The school with the most supporters will win a free visit from Jan Brett in the 2011-2012 school year. You must be 18 or older. You don’t need an affiliation with the school, so pass this along. We still have time to win! Deadline is April 2, 2011.

Back to school

August 19, 2010 | Family,Iowa,School

My second-grader and two Kindergartners started back to school today. They have new teachers and lots of new classmates this year, so I hope they get to know everyone and adjust well. Luckily, they still have lots of familiar faces in school. Hope they have a great day and a great year!

Twin trivia: They really should rename this town Twin City. (There might be more twins than forests here.) I heard there are five sets of twins in Kindergarten this year (not all in one classroom, though). One of the teachers the girls had last year has 3-year-old twins. Their new teacher this year has grown twins. My son has a twin in his class this year (both twins were in his scout group last year).

With an oink, oink here

May 28, 2010 | Family,School

It’s time for field trips. Here’s one to a farm.