A day in the life of a Lincoln grade-schooler

    Lincoln Elementary School invited parents to walk a mile in their children?s shoes Friday. The school held its annual ?VIP Day? which allows parents to sit in on their kids? classes. Phil Krachak attended a few classes with his son Wil, who is in sixth grade. It was the first VIP Day he?s ever been to.

    ?Elementary school is more hectic than I remember,? he said. ?I went to Lincoln, too, and there is more going on now. I?m not used to this anymore. I?m used to a calmer day.?

    Krachak said it seems as if there are more kids at the school now. He said he was pleased with the two classes he attended ? science and math.

    ?Science class was impressive,? he said. ?In math, I?m glad they?re teaching them things they?re going to use.?

    Concerning the comportment of the student body, Krachak said it was a mixed bag.

    ?You?ve got the good kids and also the rowdy and rambunctious kids,? he said. ?But you?re going to have that no matter where you go. Overall, the kids seem well-behaved.?

    Toni Adrian teaches sixth grade language arts, reading and spelling (LARS). She said about half the kids in her class brought a relative to school Friday. Adrian usually plans something special for VIP Day. She was going to have the kids read their favorite poem on Friday, but the weather messed up her schedule. Lincoln dismissed early on Tuesday and did not have school Wednesday or Thursday. Instead of reading their own poems, the class read a poem from their textbook ? Casey at the Bat.

    The wintry weather also derailed another Friday pastime ? a spelling test. Adrian gives her class a list of words on Monday and tests them on it at the end of the week. She didn?t do that last week because of the snow days.

    ?Normally, I would give the parents the spelling test, too,? she said. ?The kids crack up because they can do better than the parents.?

    Jane Flander entertained the parents of her fourth graders with educational games. In her language class, she gave the students an object inside a paper bag. The students then wrote adjectives on the bag describing the object. The kids and their parents went around the room attempting to guess the content of their classmates? bags based on the adjectives they used to describe it. The social studies class featured a Jeopardy! style trivia game about the Northeastern United States.

For more, see our Feb. 7 print edition.