Too School for Cool

For all the amateur and professional photographers out there,  everyone's desire to be creative and artistic in their photography and to "capture the essence of the person," there's still nothing quite like the classic school photo.   

The mottled, multi-colored background.  

The sitting straight on a stool.  

The head tilted just so.  

It's all perfect.  

This year's crop of photos did not disappoint.  They also happened to have arrived about the same time as parent/teacher conferences.   

Allow me.

JBird

5th Grade

Model student.  In the advanced reading and math groups.  Loves school.  Is loved by his teacher.  She put her hand over her heart and let out an audible sigh when attempting to describe what it's like to have him in class.   One thing he could work on: Not socializing so much during class.  It doesn't help the situation that his BFF is in his class, but he promises to work on it.  Conference ends with more accolades and descriptive words such as "joy," "adore" and "amazing kid."  

TBone

3rd Grade

Doing well in all subject areas.  Mrs. Teacher is aware that, despite his two trips to the principal's office this year, he really is a good kid and just had some unfortunate circumstances (and reaction to those circumstances) come his way.  He is fun & creative.  "What's his room like at home?  Because his desk is atrocious.  You can't walk past it without something falling out of it."  Needs to work on organization skills.  Mrs. Teacher recommends a large exercise ball for TBone to sit on during class (rather than a chair) to help with the "extra energy issues."  She would much rather have a little bouncing all day than large outbursts of energy later.  I walk out grateful for a young, energetic teacher who really seems to "get" Tbone.   I know I won't always be this lucky.  ::writes "exercise ball" on Walmart list::

Beebee Girlerz

4K Preschool Class

Her teacher called for a telephone conference a couple of weeks ago to check in and let me know how Beebs was doing.  She is great with her letters & numbers.  She's in the early stages of spelling (she can spell the names of everyone in our family plus the pets and has my & Gty's cell numbers memorized). She plays with everyone and is kind.  She loves "school days" (Mon-Thurs) and loves her teachers.  One thing that Mrs. PreschoolTeacher said that she can work on: helping clean up after their various activities.  Apparently she & Sarah try to get out of cleaning up all the time by "needing to go to the bathroom" or hiding in a different room until the clean up is over.   When I mentioned this to her she gave me a look like "Um, how do you know about that?"  and then could not get over the fact that her teacher knew her telephone number and could call her house.  She promised to help from now on and it's her goal for Mrs. PreschoolTeacher to deem her The Best Cleaner Upper by the end of the school year.  We'll see how that goes.