School's out- braggity brag post

My little boy is now officially DONE Grade 1! A full year of full-day school. A remarkable year of friendship, learning, with a couple of truly amazing teachers. The kids were totally in love with the series of Mr. Men and Little Miss books. Each child in Liam's class was given a title, so Liam was Mr. Tall (for obvious reasons). The teaching assistant, Mr. R, a huge bear of a man but who was so obviously adored by each student, was Mr. Tickle. And his teacher, lovely Ms. E (who is even lovelier carrying twins!) was Little Miss Sunshine. They were a great team, and having had the pleasure of volunteering with the class through the year I was able to see the vast improvements many of the students made, and the love of learning that was clearly evident every time I was in the classroom. Mr. R even made a lovely slide show of the year, and will give a copy to each student.

So, the final report card was really quite good. I still can't believe that they grade the kids this young, but Liam had many A's, B pluses and B's, B being at the provincial standard. He's particularly good at Reading and Communications, and Health and Phys Ed (that part's not from me); meeting expectations in Math ( it may take a couple years for the Asian math gene to kick in - sorry, I'm so terrible!). Not straight A's, so I have to hide the report card from Grandma. But what I was most happy about was the comments section.

Ms. E reiterated that he is a hardworking, polite and conscientious student, with a very positive attitude to learning; he perseveres when faced with challenges and is always willing to assist others when needed. He's a reflective learner, self-aware of his strengths while recognizing his own areas needing improvement. WOW - it sounded like this had been written by his mother! To me this was the most important part of the report.

I had a great conversation with the mom of one of Liam's best friends yesterday, as they came by for a playdate and lunch. She shares a basic philosophy with me - academics are important, but it's more important to have be a well-rounded individual who is self-aware, empathetic, more in tune with the world around them - IQ with EQ. For her daughter, they're exposing her to music and the arts and skating; for Liam, he's tending more toward the sports. Although I'd still like to get him into piano lessons, and potentially visual art classes in the fall. But for now, I'm happy just to let him be a boy of summer.

A day of celebration as hubster is also officially in long-weekend mode, with Canada Day coming up. So yesterday was in fact also "throw-a-drink-back thursday"...

The wine we had with dinner - lovely full-bodied cabernet:


And after the kids were asleep, he brought me this:

All the health benefits of pomegranate juice beautifully combined with vodka! Love it, love my husband all the more for it!

Have a great long weekend to all my fellow Canadians!