Dad's Day 2007

Today I got to go and spend the day with Alex in school. His 1st grade teacher is out on maternity leave, but his education really is spread out over 7 teachers that handle different parts of his day & week. So even with his substitute teacher filling in, I got a pretty good glimpse of what a day of school is like for him.
In the morning Alex completed his daily review which reviews reading, writing, and math skills that he should have mastered and reinforces them. He blew through them claiming, "These are so easy!" - which is the point, I suppose. We then worked on a story he was writing about a 3-inch tall friend (a ninja named Osaka) that they started after reading "The Indian in the Cupboard" in class.
A winter recess introduced me to the sledding hill. Apparently the grades take turns with the actual sleds, but that doesn't stop the sledless kids from penguin-sliding down the hill on their bellies. While I wanted to participate in Alex's day, here I just stood at the side of the hill and took pictures. I didn't want to show anyone up with my superior belly sliding skills. Yeah, that's it.
In art class the kids were given a lump of clay and instructions on how to compose a Native American art sculpture. Alex decided to try for a buffalo. Since they have big bodies and little legs, Mrs. Glover suggested that they have their buffaloes resting with their legs bent under them. Alex unsuccessfully tried to get his buffalo to stand up anyway...

He compromised by making him sitting on his back legs and standing on the front ones, as if it were getting up to charge at an unwitting foe.

I shared lunch with him and his friends (and a few other dads). I saw him in Math class and a social studies segment on Native American stories. By the end of the day he was really dragging, and I had to help redirect him to finish his work. His parent-teacher conferences are in a few weeks, so we'll talk with his teacher about how to help him out here.

Overall a great Dad's Day. I get to repeat it in 2009, but I'll be dancing between classrooms then because Aaron should be in the P-4 preschool here then.