End of Grade ONE!

The past 5 months at Carter's new school has been AMAZING! It was truly nothing short of a miracle that he got accepted into what we have always felt like was the best school. We are truly blessed. I was so scared in the first few months of Grade 1 after noticing that our fun, energetic and confident boy was truly a different kid. He was being crushed everyday at school and enough was enough. We got accepted into RDL and his life (and ours too!) was forever changed.

Within a few days, our confident, full filled, energetic boy was back! Our hearts rejoiced! Carter was placed into Mrs. Castonguay's grade one class and instantly he grew fond of her. She was caring and kind and sensitive to his experience at his old school.



She has this little puppet mouse named, stuart who carter LOVES! Stuart is part of their class and the kids treat him just like another kid. They each got him a valentines card and he "interacts" with the kids on a daily bases. He helps them focus and makes them laugh with "his" jokes. He is part of the class!

RDL has been so much fun. It isn't part of CBE so it was a whole new district which means different rules and expectations to a degree and we are so happy! Carter started half way though the school year on February 6th. He went in timid and shy. He had ZERO confidence and was just shattered from his previous teacher. But, Mrs. Castonguay took him in, he made friends with everyone instantly! One thing we loved about the school was all the funding and sooo many field trips. They went to fish creek park, skating at olympic plaza, skiing and snowboarding, they did the city colour run at school, built bird houses and log cabins, and most recently went to the theatre to watch the new Cars 3 movie as an end of year wrap up party. They had so many themed days too which was so fun including pyjama day and crazy hair day.





Carter went up 5 ready levels in Mrs. Castonguay's class and truly mostly because she is such an amazing teacher giving them so much guidance, help and incentive to read! She sent Carter home with a new book every single day. Once he would read it with me, he would write the date and the title of the book down on his chart and I would initial it. The next day, Mrs. Castonguay would give him a sticker on his sticker chart for it. Once the sticker chart was filled up, he would get to go into her treasure chest and pick a prize. He picked a stuffed animal (twice) and recently he picked a whole page of dinosaurs stickers.



She would also send him home with a page of sight words. She would test them individually every Friday. If they got them all right, they would get a topper to their ice cream and the next level up of sight words we be sent home that day. Once they got to the very top, she would buy them an ice cream cone.



She was constantly writing fun and sweet notes in his agenda often which was fun for us to read as well.



Mrs. Castonguay even started a bag of gems for each kid. Whenever they would volunteer to read a book to the whole class, they would get one. Or if they completed one page of sight words, they would get another gem. When I was looking through them, she even added cute ones like "Mrs. C loves you" And "Stuart loves you". She had such a way of making each student feel special and so very loved.







Mrs. Castonguay sent this little chart home today (for the last day of school) for home reading over the summer. She wrote each kid a note saying that for every 10 minutes they read each day over the summer, they can colour one box. If the whole thing is coloured when they go back to grade 2, she will give them each a present in the first week of grade 2. (She even has wicked incentive over the summer!!)



Our experience at RDL has exceeded all our expectations. Carter was so sad that today was the last day of school. For the past week he has been praying that Heavenly Father will help him to not cry on the last day of school. He worked hard on coming up with something special for Mrs. Castonguay and Stuart!







And he was so excited to give it to her this morning!



After school today poor Carter came out of the doors just bawling. He was red faced, puffy eyes, silent crying. I rushed over to him and he told me that he is so sad to be done grade one and that he is going to miss Mrs. Castonguay and Stuart more than anything. Her influence on Carter is beyond any words I could write.

We are so happy Bentley got in for Kindergarten and we know Carter is already anxious to start grade 2 although he wishes he would have the same teacher, we have been assured that the grade 2 teachers are just as amazing so we are hopeful.

Im so glad grade 1 has ended on such a high note for Carter. That the past is the past and that this new school was able to change his attitude about school. He LOVES school and even though we have a fun summer planned, he cant wait to go back to school (as of today lol) We are so proud of you Carter, you rocked it!