Last Day of School 2020

Historically speaking the last day of school consists of me sending Thatcher to school and taking to big boys to do something fun. It usually is a week later than this too, but that's beside the point. Our day usually starts with t-shirt pictures in their senior class shirts and an excited good bye as they get on the bus one last time. This also all happens after month long end of year celebrations. There is Antler Day, Tug of war day, the various days that each class has that are full of end of the year parties or dates with their teachers. Then on the last day of school I come and check them out a little early and we go do something fun. Last year, with Rowan in Kindergarten, I checked them out after the Kindergarten program in the morning so it was a full day of fun.

There is  usually a laundry list of lasts before the actual last day of school. This year Zane is missing a ton of lasts. This was his last year at Prairie Vale which means he's missing all the lasts at that building as well. There would have been a clapping out ceremony, a 3rd grade farewell ceremony, not to mention hugs and good byes to all the teachers there that he has grown to love and consider family. I guess missing all these things will spare me some tears. I had been anticipating those good byes and knowing I was going to be a crying mess. He's been through so much at that school, it was going to be a sad good bye for everyone. This year was also the last year that both boys will be in the same school building until high school, which is so bittersweet to me. I hate that we are missing all those moments. The boys have gone through a range of emotions about it over the past few months, but they seem to fully fine with it today. Meanwhile I am desperately wishing I could hug the teachers and let them have those good byes at the end of the day.

So today, after two months of distance learning, and a week before it was originally scheduled, it was the last day of school, whatever that means in this world. So we I busted out the senior tshirts from the cedar chest and we took last day of school pictures on the porch, then headed back inside. It's cold and rainy this morning, a fully gloomy day. The only celebratory things we did today was, I let them opt out of morning exercise time, I didn't enforce how long they had to read, and we went to pick up pizza for lunch. The pizza was amazing and I couldn't stop eating it.

Here is little Rowan in August, three days post breaking his arm for the second time. Rowan had a bit of a tough year as the academics of school became harder. There was a pretty big learning curve with the new technology and various ways of testing. This year Rowan fell in love with math. He would do his math learning apps all day. He doesn't have the same love for reading and I'm not convinced he made as much progress and he was supposed to on that front this year. The way they assess a student's reading is completely different now than when Zane was in first grade two years so we end with me very confused about how he is doing on his tests verses how he reads for me at home.

Prior to these past two months I would have said that Rowan and his teacher didn't have a great relationship this year. I would've said they didn't really click and that sometimes happens, such is life. However, from this quarantine time I think I have changed my position about it. Rowan has cried about missing his teacher multiple times a week, every week for the past two months. He has requested zoom calls with her and we've walked over to her house (which happens to be in our neighborhood) multiple times do he could say hi and talk to her. I have realized that the issue Rowan has/had is that he cannot handle any type of criticism or even teaching. He takes it all as a personal attack. Any time you try to correct him or even teach him a new concepts he cries and thinks he's in trouble and that you are mad or don't like him. It's all 100% personal and he dissolves into a puddle of tears about all of it. I think Rowan started getting some criticism and needing more correction this year as the school year went on. I think that was difficult for him to deal with and stressed him out. I think that when other kids got in trouble in class that stressed him out. I think he's an anxious kid that takes everything that anyone ever says directly to heart, just like his name sake. That's a lot to deal with, but it's a good thing to know about him going into the next year. Hopefully we can find some tools to help him deal with that as well as expressing that to his teacher early in the year next year.

Rowan doesn't have a million friends like Zane and I'm not sure he's found exactly where he fits in friends wise. He's definitely more shy and seems to be one of those kids that only wants to have one best friend at at time and is still figuring out being friends with multiple people or even just playing with random people when your "best friend" is playing with someone else. This brings him lots of heartache and stress as well. It's a struggle at times when I really don't think it needs to be. Overall he's well behaved and only got in a little bit of trouble this year mainly around telling the truth and having a good attitude. These are both the things he gets in trouble for at home so this was not surprising.

Then there is Zane. Zane always seems to test at the top of all the things though he doesn't seem to put forth much effort doing school work. He goes through spurts of loving all the subjects. Sometimes he's really into reading, sometimes he's really motivated to master his multiplication facts, and then sometimes it's a fight get him to do everything. With that being said he always does well and nothing seems to terribly hard for him. His favorite subject, per his admission is social studies. He loves all things history and loves learning about famous historical figures. The Who Was books are his favorite thing to read and he frequently has to be forced to read fiction books instead of always nonfiction. He loved doing his living history project on Jim Henson this year and learned lots of things about other famous people as well throughout the year. 

Zane continues to a wide range of friends, but I've found he tends to have more girls as friends than boys. I recently asked him about this and he said it was because the third grade boys get in trouble a lot. They are mean to girls and to each other and are either always playing/talking about fortnight, football, or they are being mean to people. So he chooses to hang out with the girls who are kind to everyone and are more imaginative at recess. He has a few good friends who are boys, but not a lot. I take this to mean that is a great judge of character and hope that this is something that continues to work for him in the future. Next year the size of his class will quadruple as fourth graders from all five grade school go to the same building. This means there will be a lot of opportunity to meet more friends and more boys who have similar interests as he does or who just aren't jerks. I love that he knows who he is and stands firmly in that. I also love that who he is is kind. 

It is becoming increasingly obvious that I highly under estimated how large my children were going to be. This is an XL tshirt, that while it is a little long, isn't all that big on Zane as a nine year old. There is zero percent chance this fits when he's a senior. It was a fun idea, but his pictures in this as a senior are going to be a belly shirt situation.

Here is the first of the year brother picture. Look at Thatcher's long hair. It looks crazy compared to his current buzz cut. Of note the shorts Rowan wore to the first day of school in August are now shorts Thatcher wears daily, because Thatcher is going to be a giant.

 Say what you will about quarantine but it has bonded these brothers, for better or for worse. They fight like cats and dogs but there is definitely love bonding them together as well. They are a tight crew now, by force. Who knows what will come of all this, but hopefully a lasting bond between these three will develop in the end.

 Pizza Party!!

And now it's officially summer. We had just barely slipped into a normal rhythm and schedule with home schooling and now we will have to adjust it for summer. Having a schedule to go back to definitely helped in the end, but summer schedule probably can be a little less school heavy. I'm scheduled to work every weekend again this summer but who knows when I'll be going back to work. Usually on the last day of school there is a feeling of panic that all these children are going to be home all day, everyday now. In good news I've overcome that panic weeks ago and we've settled into that being our reality, with no hope of fun field trips in our future. I don't know if that will make this summer better or harder. It will definitely look different. I wish I knew what it would look like, but for now we'll just settle on, it will look different and we're taking it one day at a time.