Perfectionist

Since Elijah has been doing first grade math this year, it's been a little more challenging than usual. For the first time ever I'm actually grading his papers when he's finished with them. For some crazy reason this is his absolute favorite part. He brings me his paper, and the dreaded red grading pencil and lets me get to work. He hangs breathlessly over my shoulder while I mark little red x's next to the ones he gets wrong. (I'm so mean, right?) Well, since we're doing a lot of review of what he learned last year, he hardly ever gets any wrong. The first day he nailed all his problems, I half-jokingly wrote "100% Great Job!" complete with smiley face. Now whenever he gets all his problems right he insists that I write "100%" on his paper, "Oh and don't forget the smiley face". One day he brought back the paper, even after I had written on it. "The smiley face needs a nose".




Today he was doing more review, so they were easy for him. Still, he wanted his "100%". And yeah, you can't tell the difference between my writing and his.