William Penn Walk-a-thon

Last year when Ethan was in Kindergarten, I volunteered in his classroom just once a month and then helped with their Halloween party. Mostly I didn't do more because I wasn't sure how to get involved and also because there were so many other parents helping out as well.


This year, my big first grader is at a new school and since Isaac is in preschool every morning for 3 hours, I only have Miles and he's pretty portable. So I decided this was a good year for volunteering and jumped into a lot of it.


Every other Tuesday I help out in Ethan's spanish math class where I pull out kids individually and assess them on the previous week's lessons. There's a parent that comes every single day of the week so the kids are literally always being assessed and the teacher always knows what they know and what they need a little help with. After I assess them, their full-time aide pulls out those who need a little extra help. I think this is GENIUS! Especially since all 30 of these kids have been thrown into Spanish and could easily get behind in their learning.


And even in Ethan's afternoon Language Arts class where everything is in English, the school has the same system set up- a parent every day to assess the kids and then an aide to help keep them on track. Fabulous!


One of the benefits of volunteering is getting to eavesdrop on his class. So cute to see Ethan raising his hand and answering questions and talking in Spanish. He is truly happy at his school and I know it because I see it every time I'm there!


In addition to every other Tuesday I'm his Music Mom which means once a month I take over his class and teach them music. Very fun, but a little crazy, and I'm not sure I'll ever take or post a picture. But lots of fun for me and a little bit of celebrity for Ethan who is still happy to show off his mom and have other kids tell him how fun it was to do music with his mom.


And lastly I signed up to help with their annual Walk-a-thon which happens to be the one and only fundraiser that the PTA puts on. I volunteered to help with the games since I figured this would most benefit me (in the entertainment of Isaac and Miles) but who knew that was 1/3 of the entire program. Whew! So lots of planning meeting, lots of sign making, and prep work later, we survived it and the school made out pretty well.

One of the booths we had was a picture station where there was a William Penn Penguins backdrop and lots of hats and props to dress up in and have your picture taken (for a ticket of course). So while I forgot my camera and wouldn't have had time to take pictures anyways, I did make sure we all got in the photo. How cute are we?

I LOVE Ethan's new school! And in every single way that I thought there was a short-coming, I'm finding they more than meet my hopes. Here's to 5 more good years for Ethan (and hopefully the rest of the clan will get in too :).