Little letters and missing the bus

#1 son has been saying how he can not see little letters. I, being the wonderful mother that I am, did not believe him. It seems to only happen when we want him to do any kind of work. I did notice that he couldn't seem to see far away but he didn't complain about this.

I did know that he was not learning his sight words the way that he should be. He started a formal education just after his third birthday. He went to school, with a certificated teacher at a real elementary school for four days a week. He was there from 9:00 to 11:50. This boy knows his numbers, shapes, letter names and letter sounds. He has been writing his name for over two years now. Sight words should not be a challenge. I finally gave in to the idea that maybe, just maybe he couldn't see.

I took him to the eye doctor on Monday and he will be receiving his very first pair of glasses in 6 to 8 days from now. Opps. I never know when to believe him. In my defense the prescription is not very strong. So he wasn't totally blind.

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My children at school are not always the best behaved. You may have noticed that I complain about their behavior pretty much any time that I mention them. I have really be cracking down on behavior and it is FINALLY starting to make a change in the day. Bell work went well, reading went well and math went really well. The received compliments at lunch for being the only class that was quiet and at art for listening and following directions. Wonderful!! Other people are noticing as well.

The end of the day still SUCKS!! It just does. They are crazy and run around the room. It does get clean and they do not kill each other but it is pandemonium. I was tired of it and couldn't understand how you could have such a great day and then fall apart the last ten minutes.

I finally broke them up into three groups. The same three groups that they are dismissed by at the end of the day; Park kids, car kids and bus kids. The park kids did well and left the room. The car kids almost always do well so they left the room. (There are only four of them and they are all really quiet kids.) The bus kids were loud. They were drawing on the board and making too much noise. I told them to sit down and stop talking. I counted backwards from five to let them know that I was trying to get their attention. That didn't work. Finally I said that they would not be going home until it was quiet. I didn't care if they missed the bus. They weren't leaving until they stopped talking.

Two of the kids stopped and were sitting quietly. I left those two leave. This usually is enough of a motivator to have to the others go. Not today. I noticed that I was missing my after school duty to take the park kids to the park so I sent the bus kids out even though they were still talking.

The Vice Principal runs into our building asking for Jenny*. She kept saying that she needed Jenny. What class is Jenny in? I tell her that I have a Jenny. I ask her for the last name, she doesn't know. As she is saying this the teacher who's job it is to walk out all of the third grade students that take the bus, comes out of the classroom to see what is going on. We try to figure out what the VP is saying. Finally after almost a full minute, it turns out that Jenny is not on the bus and the other students are looking for her.

The buses had started to leave and none of the third graders where on them!!!

They would have gotten on, even with me keeping my class longer if the VP hadn't distracted us so long and just said that someone was missing from the bus. There were four students that missed the bus.

We'll see how tomorrow goes.


(*name changed of course.)