So time for more bragging on my kids. It is another end of a school year. They had a fun last week of school with water day and D.E.A.R. day. Maxwell's T.A. who is also my friend, will be a Kindergarten teacher there next year and Maxwell's teacher got promoted to Master Teacher. There are two Master Teachers for the PK-6 and they are the teacher's bosses.

All the boys got all MDs. MD is mastery with distinction and it is what they call an A or 90% and better. M means mastery which is equal to a B or 80%-90%. IP means in progress; at their school that is failing and the student, teacher, and parent need to work hard in that area to get up to at least an M. Everything below 80% is an IP.

Xander and Elijah both got MDs for their leadership grade. Xander really improved in being a friend to everyone and in developing friendships with boys. Elijah improved with reading at appropriate times. Maxwell's teachers just really loved him.

I got to look over their writing portfolios which are given to their next year teachers. They show the progress they made the year before in writing and where they ended the school year at.

Maxwell's was hilarious. His teachers both said they enjoy reading his papers because he writes with humor and has a good voice. He improved from writing not even a full sentence to filling 4 Kindergarten pages, adding improvement post-its, and using descriptive labels for his pictures. Often his brothers were labeled as silly or crazy, dad was cool and mom is pretty. Before 3rd quarter summative, Maxwell was worried that Dad wouldn't even look at the global warming stuff because he doesn't believe in it.

Xander's writing also improved greatly. His book was awesome and his rough draft was even more awesome. He has really nice handwriting and I don't know where he gets it from since I have chicken scrawl.

Elijah's writing was also great. He ended the year writing a multiple page research paper on earthquakes. His handwriting was neat. Unfortunately, it is part of his writing portfolio so I didn't get to bring it home. His teacher thinks he will thrive in 5/6. I worry about the additional self-discipline and personal responsibility, but she thinks he will really enjoy the challenge. His language arts teacher does a really challenging vocabulary/ spelling unit. I wish he was going into Pre-Algebra next year but part of his reading at inappropriate times ruined his chances since a lot of that was happening during 3rd quarter math when they assess that. He had a lot of incomplete and unfinished assignments in 3rd quarter math.

Since their school uses 2 grade grade levels, (I.E. 1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8, until high school when they are just 9-12), my boys only move up every other year. This is a huge year for us with all 3 boys moving up and Elijah moving up significantly. Generally they try to keep the kids in the same class for 2 years in 1/2 and 3/4.

I can't wait to find out his band instrument. His teacher thought it might be several weeks into the school year before that is settled on. I was disappointed that we didn't get Xander and Elijah's standardized test scores back yet. Usually we have gotten those in final I.L.P.s. I guess I have to wait until their first I.L.P.s in August.