Alex's Important Book

This morning, as I pulled Alex's back pack out of his locker and a bunch of pens, papers, and crappy toys fell to the ground, I sighed. How do you teach organization skills to a child who had nothing for so long? As I attached his lunch to his backpack-he has a backpack with a lunch bag that hooks on it-I noticed a large stack of papers peeking out of his backpack. Graded papers. The first I've seen. Funny. He usually shows me everything the minute he gets home from school. I thumbed through his math assignments, noting that he's missing 10-20 problems per assignment. Hum? This is work that is done IN class and probably on his own.Yet he's always telling me how cool math is. How  much he loves it. I'm thinking these grades are as much a surprise to Alex as they are to me and the fact that he hasn't shown them to me makes me think he's embarrassed or afraid. Math was low but his weekly summary's show 100% on homework and unit work and his test score one week for spelling and vocabulary was respectable, at 83% but the following week (is graded odd and I can't figure it out) he got a 30%. Yet he really didn't do that bad. Humm....
When he came down for breakfast I had a chance to talk with him before the other children arrived. I mentioned I saw his math work and didn't make a big deal about it, I just asked if he thought he needed help with math? Yes. I asked if he'd like to talk to his teacher or should I? You. I asked if he'd like to get help in class or bring it home? Bring home. That surprised me. He complains so much about how much time it takes to do his homework at home. (It also scares me as I am not a math wizard!) Then I told him how awesome he was doing and that we'd figure out together how to help him with his math. He seemed relieved. (In the game of Mommy I should score some points for not getting angry and frustrated about his grades. Right? Because truthfully that was my first emotion. What??? You missed twenty??? Angry and frustrated happen more than I care to admit! I just choose to not make my blog a record of my horrid parenting skills and or lack of patience of understanding!)
But back to my backpack exploration...
Crumpled in the bottom of his back pack was a four page, stapled book about what is important to Alex. I can tell he got help on the first three pages but it's the forth page I know he did on his own. Take note of the art work. (Especially the self portrait of the muscular boy with incredible biceps standing in front of the class!) Here is Alex's Important Book.

Well, I need to do a million things this Monday. Starting with emailing Alex's teacher about what we're going to do about Alex's math situation and his weird grading for the 2nd weeks tests.

But at least I've been reminded about what is important:

Friends

Mom

Family

May we all keep the important things in perspective as we start this week!