new School Year

September 4, 2012 - Ben's first day of 2nd Grade. 
We snapped some pictures before he went to the bus stop. His teacher this year is Mrs. Jen Woehlke, and Ben was super excited to go to school. It's November now and he still enjoys it, so that's good. :)

After we waved goodbye to Ben's bus, Eliza and Sam played in the yard.
(Eliza made a cute paper bird with a paper, pen, leaves, tape and scissors.)

Later in September, Ben's teacher posted this picture with this caption on their classroom website:
"Ben is the first student in the WHOLE school who has earned enough Accelerated Reading points to be added to the Race. There are other students in our class that aren't far behind. Way to go Ben!!"

The last Accelerated Reading report that Ben brought home (dated 11/2) said that he has completed 183 AR points out of the 15 required for the first trimester. His sweet teacher wrote a note, "Way to go Reading Rockstar!" :)  He likes reading big chapter books, so they end up counting for more points. (A regular children's book like the Bereinstein Bears is half of a point. A basic chapter book like Magic Treehouse is about 3 or 4 points. A more difficult chapter book, like the books in the 39 Clues series, is between 5 to 9 points, a book in the Warriors series is up to 12 points, and a Harry Potter book can be 14 points or more.  He was loving the Warriors series over the summer and into September. Now he is into 39 Clues, and he is starting the Harry Potter series, but I said he could only read the first three of that series... I remember the last ones being kind of dark. He checked out #2 yesterday at school and finished it around dinnertime last night. He got to read it while we were at ballet for Eliza, so he finished it quicker than usual. Because normally I have him do other things after school besides reading.)  Anyway, he loves to read, and the AR points are only a fun afterthought for him. They're definitely not his motivation, though.
Now he is in second place in the school AR race, behind Austin Mills the 5th grader. Yes, I know him by name because Ben told me a few times about how Austin Mills was the boy who beat him last year too, and how he wants to get ahead of Austin Mills... :)  Ben asked me if we could go bowling if he won the race, and I told him that we would go bowling if he was in the top five in the race, so that he wouldn't concern himself too much with competing. :) He hasn't mentioned it for a long time, so I'm glad it's not that big of a deal. :)

Eliza had her first day of preschool on September 18th. Her preschool is at Ben's Elementary School, Monday through Thursday for three hours in the afternoon. She loves it!  She has two teachers, Miss Bonnie and Miss Alex, who are the sweetest teachers ever. Eliza invited them to come to her Church Primary Program in October, and they both came! And Miss Bonnie brought her husband along, too. Wasn't that so sweet of them to come see her? (They also knew another family in the program, which helped make it more fun for them, I'm sure.) Anyway, she loves preschool.