The Beginning of Summer

Pickle officially finished her 1st grade year on Friday.   The most noticeable growth this year was in the realm of reading and writing.  She's not laboring laboring to sound out every sound of every syllable like she was in September.  She glides easily through many books now and is even able to read well enough that she can add inflection to her stories as she reads to me.  Her writing has become interesting and detailed and although she fussed working on her spelling sentences from start to finish this year, she's can get through them now entirely on her own.

With the end of the year came the reams and reams of papers, artwork, workbooks and all the remnants of learning.  It will take me at least a couple weeks to go through it all, deciding what gets tossed and what few pieces we'll keep for posterity.

My favorite workbook that I've seen so far however, is her spelling notebook.  Apparently, each week they would write out their spelling words and then write one "interesting" sentence that used at least two of the spelling words. 

Let me share with you some of the highlights.  (The words in red are the spelling words from that week)

They start out normally enough:

Don't splash your milk when you drink.

I saw a rose on my trip to the lake.

How do you plug in the black clock?

She then takes a little creative liberty but still well written and easily understood:

I will dust the cute bun for him.

The bug can spell best of all.

Were the flute and the grill in the grass?

Which white whale will chat with the chum?

Pickle moves into metaphor and poetic expansion:

We must spin on the last drop of mist.

I have a backpack full of sunshine and footballs.

The giant circus was in the space in my garage.

Then she goes to a whole new level:

We taught the clown how to draw a mouth with his claw.

Clearly, Stephen King took over her Language Arts class and no one told us.