Another post written a year later…
First day of school
And Last day of school!
It’s been a doosey of a year. After going to school for 2 weeks, the battle began. He started flat-out refusing to go to school and I had to physically drag him to the car and to his classroom. It was so hard and so awful! For a good week.
- It was a really hard transition for him. Last year he had half day Kinder with only 14 kids in his class. This year – he had a full day – nearly 7.5 hours long – with 25 kids in his class!
- Grandma was in town visiting and he felt like he was missing out on all the fun.
- None of his close Kinder friends where in his class, and his fave buddy Gage moved over the summer.
- Not sure if it was her teacher. I helped each week and got to know her really well.
- Thankfully, he came home happy, saying he had a great day at school, I can’t help but think something happened to make him so anxious and fearful. If so, I’ll never know!
Overall, it's been a roller coaster of a year - filled with many tears, laughter, anxious mornings, new friends, hurt feelings, focusing (or lack thereof), and a hefty dose of hard work and persevering. And it's only 1st grade!
But he's made amazing progress - his little 6 year old is reading at 4th grade level!
Look out summer, here we come! We're so ready for lazy mornings, swimming at the pool, and many other adventures. First up, Dallas trip! Wahoo!!! And maybe one day I’ll catch up to the others…
First Grade Events
Walk-a-thon
They PTO tries to sell it as the only fundraiser during the year, asking for $50 donations. But then when they reach the goal of raising $25K+ for the school – and the principal throws candy off the roof for all to enjoy – it’s pretty cool!
And he’s off!!!
Love this pics of our friends! 
And when you go to watch, you end up running alongside. So NOT prepared!
But after many laps, it’s time to cool down a little and *walk*!
Afterwards, they celebrated with popsicles. And Tanner apparently decided not to be in the pic :(
Halloween
This was the first year I gave Tanner complete and total control of what he wanted to be for Halloween. The result – A NINJA!!
Here he is with his school buddies! 
Then they lined up and had a costume parade in the gym. There must have been 100s of Elsas!
Then it was time to P-A-R-T-Y!
Some crafting…
For the classroom party, I was in charge of the game/activity. It was the last spot left…and thank goodness for Pinterest! I found the cutest Mad Scientist activity where the kids had to stick the hand in the jar and try to determine what the actual “"bat heart” or “witches eyes” were.
I even dress the part and tried to talk in my Mad Scientist Voice. Definitely outside my comfort zone!!!
The kids LOVED it! I’ve never seen them so engaged..and loud!
Thankfully, lots of moms and Ms. Kleweno volunteered to help!
And finally, the big REVEAL!
The school had a special day for adults to come and join in the fall festivities. Tanner also got to carve this pumpkin with the help of Grandpop Knick! Once day I’ll find the cute pic of both of them:)
Christmas Party
The cutest little elves in Ms. Kleweno’s class. Tanner is in the bottom-right corner!
Crafting! They made snowflake ornaments with their pics in the middle. We may or may not have made them with the girls. Of course they wanted one with their picture too!
Once again, I was in charge of games. I had lots of minute to win it games lined up, but they were so hyped up and crazy, I could barely hear myself and had a hard time explaining. Fun, but a bit crazy and out of control!!!
So often you hear stories about not being able to celebrate Christmas at school, but I thought his school did an awesome job balancing! Their theme for the school was Kindnessville and helping grow Grinch’s heart was 3 sizes too small.
Each kid had their own stocking. When you saw a good deed, you’d add a heart to Grinch. Or when you had something nice to say to a classmate, you’d write a note in their stocking. So cute!
Here’s Tanner stocking. Not bad…considering we whipped it up a few mins before school.
Valentine’s
These were the cute Valentine’s Tanner passed around to his friends. Love that they weren’t ALL candy!
And I was in charge of the crafts – the kids made these cute owl puppets!
For games, they played some more team-building minute-it-to-win-it style games. Crazy fun!
Pretty sure this picture catches Tanner in the act of cheating, lol!
When I came home, these two were all snuggled!! Thanks mom for watching my kids so I could go to all these fun parties!
1st Grade Musical
The did the cutest, silliest, funniest musical called E-I-E-I-Oops! It was about a cow who would NOT moo!
Tanner had several long speaking parts. From the kid who wouldn’t say his line in primary church program a few years ago, he’s come a LONG way and did a fabulous job!
Tanner is a donkey and also the square dance caller. The rest of his class are the cowboys/cowgirls dancing away.
Brooke and Rylee were so captivated! Brooke was singing and dancing along, don’t tell her she’s not a part of the show :)
I’ll post the videos separately here so you can see for yourself how cute he was :)
Volunteer
I got to volunteer a LOT in the classroom. Thankfully, Anthony is off on Fridays so it gave me a perfect opportunity. Each Friday I’d spend a few hours at the school stuffing Friday Folders, making copies and classroom supplies, ya know – really important things! Once I had the thought that it would be better for me to work and donate the $$$ back to the school (than spend time stuffing those folders, lol!), BUT I was grateful for the relationship I built with Ms. Kleweno and the added insight it gave me into the classroom.
My favorite -- doing crafts with the kids!
Guest Readers
Random Pics
We sure did miss Tanner while he was at school. But we did take advantage and meet him for lunch many, many times!
And once we even had a special visitor! High fives to Comet!!
I saved some of my favorite pieces of artwork – one day I’ll get around to posting them. They did some awesome stuff – love this Fall piece!
In May, each day was a party! No more spelling or guided reading, pretty sure even the teachers were done with school, lol!
Mother’s Day Read-in, all squinty eyed and all! The sun was shining in our eyes!
Then he shows me a self-portrait of yours truly. Ain’t I pretty!?! I especially love my lashes :)
Bubble day
Recycle Sailboat Regatta
Tanner made a sailboat complete from recycled materials – 2 water bottles on the bottom, stryofoam for the sail, and lots of HOT GLUE! He thought for sure it would take 1st place, but handled the news well when it didn’t. Good job Tanner!
But my absolute favorite part of the year, was receiving these!
