The ABCs of Third Grade

Ryan loved his third grade year. I keep telling him how lucky he is. I only remember three things from my third grade year, and they were all bad. So, to wrap up Ryan’s third grade year and highlight some of his favorite things, we have created “The ABCs of Third Grade” together…

A – Assemblies; the Aquarium field trip; the Aquarium’s visit to Ryan’s class and AR (Accelerated Reading, the computerized program where they take tests as they finish books).
B – Mr. Bacall, Ryan’s favorite teacher so far; and Ryan’s birthday, when I took treats and he was interviewed by his classmates (and received a very enthusiastic group hug).C – Learning to write in cursive; computer class; and Copper visiting on the last day of school.

D – The dance program; and learning division.E – Learning about the earth in science.

F – Flag ceremonies; Field day, Fridays, when Mom volunteered; and friends.G – Learning Geometry; and reading George’s Marvelous Medicine and other Roald Dahl books as a class.

H – The Halloween parade and activities; and learning that his friend Henry is a cousin!I – Learning about the Incas; and, in Ryan’s words…I LOVED it!

J – Juice with notes from Mom in his lunch every day.

K – Komodo Dragons, the topic of Ryan’s first ever research paper.

L – The Living Traditions Festival field trip (Mom was a chaperone); and Library time.M – Learning multiplication; Music class; and Mom volunteering on Fridays (I know, this is the third time, but he really did say it for all of these letters.)

N – Learning about Native Americans; Notes from mom on juice (yes, he said it for both J and N); and playing the noseflute for the music class talent show.O – Teaching the class how to make Ooblek.P – Mr. Prusse, the best principal ever; PE; and Pizza Hut pizza on Wednesdays (one of two menu items that made Ryan choose school lunch over home lunch. See “T” for the other). To explain the picture, this is Ryan holding the flyer for Mr. Prusse's good-bye open house, and the wadded up tissue he used to wipe his tears away during the good-bye assembly. The kid is worse than I am!!!Q – Learning about quadrilaterals.

R – Entering the Reflections Contest with a drawing of himself with Alice & Claire; Rara coming to talk about Bountiful history; and I suggested recess, every other kids' favorite thing about school.S – Science, his favorite subject, which also included learning about space and the solar system; learning about the Shoshone; and the St. Patrick’s Day lunch from Mom.T – Tater tots, the other lunch item Ryan would choose over home lunch (for those of you who appreciate Napoleon Dynamite, we always joked about him wearing pants with cargo pockets on tater tot day); learning about different kinds of triangles; and the talent show in music class.

U – Learning about Uranus during the solar system studies.

V – The opportunity that the kids had at Ryan’s school to vote for their favorite presidential candidate in November.

W – “We Are the Loyal Lions” (school song) on the noseflute for the music talent show (I know, we’re duplicating again. He mentioned it for more than one letter.).

X – As hard as we tried, we couldn’t figure out anything for X. Feel free to give us your suggestions in the comments.

Y – Signing yearbooks on the last day of school.

Z – We’re also stumped on Z. Again, we welcome suggestions.

Ryan and I will both miss Mr. Prusse, who is moving on to a new school. We've already had an offer to move in with friends within the boundaries of his new school, but I think we'll stay where we are. Ryan also asked Mr. Bacall if he'd consider moving up to fourth grade. (Ryan also asked me if he could be held back a grade and have Mr. Bacall again.) We both enjoyed this year, and are sad to see it come to an end, but hope that fourth grade will be almost as good.