Grades, Grades, and more Grades

Rose wasn't the only one who got an awesome report card.  Ginger doesn't get letter grades yet since she is in Kindergarten, but she was rated very highly on the 1,2,3 scale in pretty much everything.  Not really that surprising because she went into kindergarten knowing it all already.

 

I went to the school early,  just in time to make it to Ginger's award ceremony even though I never got a notice from her teacher that she was receiving an award.  When I got to the school it was standing room only so I asked her teacher if I needed to be there and if Ginger was being awarded anything.  She told me that she didn't think I needed to stay.  So I went to the workroom to do some work and wait for Rose's award ceremony.

 

It turns out that Ginger did in fact receive an award.  She was awarded the Patriot Pride award which is basically the best award ever, at least in our book.  The teachers pick one child from their class each semester who is always respectful, responsible, listens and follows directions, helpful, and friend to others, and etc.  Basically a totally responsible student who has a great attitude!

 

We didn't find out until Ginger came home and showed us.  Poor Baby:(  She was so disappointed that I wasn't there.  We cuddled her for a bit and she perked up.  It could have something to do with me bribing her with a trip to Wal-Mart to pick out her favorite ice cream-- and promising her a special lunch at school next week.  Ginger is apparently a very good negotiator too:)  I felt super guilty.  I should have known better than to leave, I just had a feeling she would get an award.  Trying to being super efficient totally backfired on me:(

Darin came home with an awesome report card too.  Nathan forgot his at home but with the online grade book it was easy to see his grades from the previous semester.  Since they all had such great grades we started Fun Friday as soon as the picked up their rooms, amazing how the prospect of early free time got their rooms cleaned in under 5 minutes!

Darin and Ginger chose to play MineCraft first.

Nathan and Rose chose to watch TV first.  By the end of the night the kids had switched between computer games and TV off and on.

Ken and I totally wanted to take the kids out for dinner to celebrate.  Darin was the only one who actually wanted to go out and eat (after some prodding). Honestly, I think Nathan and the girls would have been happy staying home and eating cereal.  It turned out that they had frozen chicken nuggets.  But Darin wanted Chinese food.

It's funny that when we receive our kids report cards Ken and I usually make a wise crack to each other about how we need a DNA test or something to that effect because clearly they don't follow in our footsteps.  But seriously, we both graduated from HS with a 2 point something-ish average.  Maybe just under a 3.0.  We certainly weren't close to hitting the nearly 4.0 that our kids do (at least not until college).

Darin was so thrilled that he got a 90 in his World Cultures class.  It is basically the toughest class you can take as Freshman and his teacher has a reputation of grading super hard.  I've heard that kids who get C's in the class still pass the AP exam.  It's crazy difficult and he worked really hard.  Unfortunately in Texas the end of course (or standardized test) now counts for 10% of their final grade.  So both semesters combined with the EOC brought the semester average in that class down to a B.  We are so totally proud of him!  Darin was also super happy because he got 100 on three of his EOC, especially on his Geometry  and Biology! 

Nathan earned all high A's except for an 89 in his science class.  Considering how Nathan missed at least one class if not more each week because of doctor appointments this semester he did totally awesome!  I am surprised at how well he is able to keep up with all the make-up work.  He handles his work so well and is really good about following up with his teachers.  He hounded one of teachers so much about a missed quiz grade and waited after school for over an hour that his teacher ended up just looking at his test grade on the same subject matter (that he got an A on anyways) that she just gave him full credit and didn't even make him take it.

We are super proud of our children.  They do make great grades and that is super nice to see, but really Ken and I are proud that they value their education and are so independent and driven.  We love that they take ownership of their education. We rarely have to intervene or encourage them except to ask them if they finished their homework for the day.  Even with seeing Darin struggle with his World Geography class I will overhear the boys talking about how Nathan should hope that he is in her class the next year because he will learn more then in the easier one. That really makes us proud!!!