Schools Out! (Tessa)

Another school year is over - this one flew by even faster than the others have, I think.

First Days of School - September 2011

Tessa had a wonderful 4th grade year. I was her PE mom this year, which meant that I took the kids out for 30 minutes of PE every Wednesday afternoon. This was SUCH a fun job to do - we played lots of kickball and many different versions of Sharks and Minnows. We also had some "special" PE's - at Thanksgiving time we played flag football, in the Spring we played soccer and at the end of the year we had a jump rope tournament.

School picture - I considered a re-take because of her messy hair, but in the end decided to keep it. It is SO Tessa!

She got to take her first field trip this year! Field trips are a rarity these days - especially at Charter Schools - but in 4th grade everyone gets to visit the water treatment facility. Asher and I went along as helpers and really enjoyed it - I learned a lot!

 Asher on the field trip

 My big girl

 The whole class

Tessa and I

We only had one naughty Tessa incident this year...which I feel obligated to share - for posterity ;)
4th graders learn about Mountain Men in Utah. This is a favorite unit for most of the kids, and Tessa loved it, too. She was assigned a specific Mountain Man (explorer Father Dominguez) and was supposed to look up 5-7 facts about him and bring them to school.
I helped her look up the facts and put them on paper - made her do 7 instead of just 5, like she wanted to, because I'm a slave driver. Then I asked what they were doing with the facts.
Tessa - "Making a poster."
Me - "Wait, we need to make a poster???"
Tessa - "No, we're making it in class."
Me - "So do I need to get you a poster board or anything?"
Tessa - "No, Miss Lloyd is bringing all the supplies. We just need the facts."

A few weeks later, when I was in the school for my PE Mom job, I noticed the hallway displays had been changed to Mountain Man posters, but I couldn't find Tessa's. So I asked her about it that evening.
Me - "Hey, I saw the Mountain Man posters in the hall at school, but I couldn't find yours. Where is it?"
Tessa - "did you see the ones in the classroom?"
Me - "Oh, no...I didn't notice them in there."
Tessa - "Yeah, that's where mine is."

Long story somewhat shorter...
Tessa is a big fat liar. At Parent-Teacher Conferences that quarter I found out that the one assignment Tessa was missing was the Mountain Man poster. It was NOT done in class.
For the rest of the year her teacher was very diligent about making sure I knew exactly what was due, and for her part, Tessa didn't try any more funny business. I think she was too afraid to - Mommy and Daddy were not thrilled about her (disturbingly elaborate) lie.

Other than that, the year was perfect.
We loved her teacher, Miss Lloyd. Overall we've been very lucky with teachers at Summit, and every year we are sorry to say goodbye.
I find it impossible to believe that she will be in 5th grade this Fall. She seems so much younger than that! In the meantime, though, we are more than ready for Summer!!!