I’m thankful school is back in session. Now before you say “That’s easy for you to say if you’re not a teacher.” I need to remind you that in fact I am LuLu’s one and only teacher at Ladybug Elementary. And I have to say that despite all my whining and complaining about having to “go to school” today, I’m glad I did.

And glad that LuLu is back on a schedule and out of the funk that came to a head on Saturday with the Christmas decorations. Once I was able to get her up and moving (she was a bit groggy today…and I was too), we were able to accomplish a great deal and she worked eagerly and happily on tasks that just a few months ago would have caused her great frustration. Our first reading assignment was a page-long fable about “How Donkeys Got Long Ears” and a series of comprehension, prediction and imagination question. Just this summer she could have no more done the “what if” type question or the questions that have no right or wrong answer and are more about your opinion. But today she happily sped through that and the crossword puzzle related to the story on the next page. Next we embarked on a series of practice tests I got from a book of the standardized testing done here in this state. All in the area of Language Arts these tests covered synonyms, antonyms, words with multiple meaning and reading fluency. The reading section was a poem (not LuLu’s favorite genre). As she read it aloud, laboriously and skipping the end sounds on the words as she’s often prone to do, I wondered if she understood a thing. Yet, she didn’t ask for help a single time on that entire test and got all but one question right!

After lunch she breezed through her math lesson, where she was introduced to how to calculate area. It sunk in especially well when she understood the use of that information – to calculate the number of floor tiles or amount of carpet needed in a room. LuLu definitely grasps facts quicker if there’s a “reason” behind the fact.

We capped the afternoon off with going outside on this lovely 70 degree day (how often does that happen at the end of November in Georgia???) and raked some of the gazillion leaves that have fallen in our yard.

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