Persevering to the End

Seven and a half days left of the school year.  Kids have turned in their books.  Not much is really happening during the school day.  After school hours, I have tons and tons of meetings, clean-up, sheets to fill out, shredding of paperwork, and fifth grade graduation, etc...  this is when it gets it hard to persevere.  Because you just want it to be done so you can move forward.  But it's also the time to give it your all because what happens at the end is the last impression made on these kids.  And many of them I won't see again because they'll go on to middle school or move.

Madi had a good couple of days and a hard day on Friday.  She's feeling that it's the end of the year as well.  She is doing awesome with her Fasttmath work and her grades are doing amazing!!!  So proud of her for working so hard these last six weeks.

She has two final projects - one in LEAP and one in Mrs. Campbell's class.  I have come to dread projects.  Because they end up being a source of frustration for several reasons.  One of the main reasons being that the effort being put into them is very sub-par.  Instead of really working to make it great, the time spent on it is as fast as possible with as little effort as possible.  And then ugly looks arise when asked to spend more time and really think through what else could be said.  And then the pout comes.  When asked where the guidelines are for the project, we're told that she hasn't read them (though it is due on Thursday and has been being worked on for four weeks in class).  Then she says she read them a while ago, but doesn't know.

You'd think we were totally out of touch with what is going on, but we've been watching and here the whole time.  And it again comes down to that final stretch before it is due and the least amount of effort is put into it.  This weekend our toner in our printer is out (go figure) so in order to print it, we need to get that taken care of.  Not Madi's problem at all!  Just - go figure.  As it adds one more "ugh!"  to getting it done :)  I mean - couldn't it have gone out next week??!!

:)

So Madi and I had a tough talk yesterday about how frustrating it is when she knows she has a project due, forgets her flash drive in her desk, tries to finish the paper in three minutes (literally) at the end of Friday, and then gives me nasty looks when I tell her that she'll have to work on it this weekend.

She worked on it today and we'll be going over it tomorrow to make sure all is ready.  Monday I have a meeting, Tuesday I have Julia's dr. appointment and Wednesday I have another meeting so helping her come along on it during those nights will be tough.  So we're making sure she gets it done early.

Two more projects.  Two more projects.  Summer is coming!  Hallelujah!!!