Madison's Last Day of School

Madison had a fantastic first grade school year here in North Carolina.  She is now a second grader!

Here is Madison just off the school bus from her last day of school, Friday, June 8.  This was also her birthday. She had a great day.  I was able to eat lunch with her on the last day, and the school is really good about recognizing birthdays.

The backpack and lunchbox survived the whole year and are both still in great shape.  Madison lost two water bottles over the year.  She LOVED, LOVED, LOVED her teacher (and so did I).  She had 18 kids in her class with her teacher and teaching assistant.

Madison learned a lot of Chinese (all students learn Chinese at her school).  Her computer skills are awesome.  She learned a lot here at home, but man, they have showed her some great skills and resources.  She does well with keyboarding on the computer already.  Her favorite extra classes were "all of them" and they were:  Art, Music, Library (she brought home books everyday-yea from her librarian mom), Computers, PE, and Chinese.  She had at least one of these each day and Chinese three times a week.  Her reading skills are soaring; she loves to read.  Madison loves math and asks to do extra math at home all the time.  She wants to learn cursive writing, so we'll work on that this summer.  Her teacher had her put into the Discovery G/T class this year, and she also was in "Club USA" a program the guidance department does for military kids, with special focus on deployments. She can't wait for that class again next year.  I'm so glad the public schools here recognize the military issues and create classes for them.  I was so happy when she came home with that info sheet last fall and begged me to let her be in that class. 

Madison learned how to buy her lunch at school (there was no cafeteria in kindergarten in Yuma).  She also had to learn how to ride the bus, and thankfully, she had a really, really nice bus driver, even though he went to UNC and USC and was a HUGE Tar Heel and Gamecock fan  :).  He was one of the kindergarten aids, so he really knew the kids (Luke wants to be in his class this Fall).  Looking back, Madison spent the entire first semester of the school year at a new school with her dad deployed, and I'm so proud of how she handled herself. 

This school year, she played soccer and t-ball, loving both. She was in the kids' choir at church, and she also lost five teeth.

Now, onto second grade...

Looking back...the first day of school.   I would have had her wear the same outfit, but it doesn't fit anymore.  Yes, all the kids have grown a lot!