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Kindergarten Testing

Thomas took his Kindergarten Readiness Test today at Christian Academy of Louisville, Rock Creek Campus.

They ask things like:

• What is your full name (written)
• What is your address (not written I hope!)
• What is your phone #?

They don't keep them from getting in with this, but I think it's just a gage of some kind....

Then they test his knowledge of:

• Shapes
• Colors
• Numbers
• Letters
• And who knows what else!

I will have a conference with the Kindergarten Teacher

On January 20th, at 1pm to let me know exactly how he did in each area!

:-)

MJ

More Yellow Parade

They marched around in the courtyard of the playground, then gathered together to sing us some songs. Pretty cute.

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Yellow Day Parade

Grace and Thomas had a "Yellow Day Parade" at school. They've been learning about Ocean Life. You'll notice their fish hats....

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On the First Day of School, Gracie said to me...

I was soooo impressed when Grace came home yesterday in the same clothes she left in! I was sure she'd have an accident on the first day of school. She told me "all my friends used the potty too. And all Thomas' friends used the potty too." I told her, "That's because you are big kids. You go to a big kids' school now!" She said, "I am a big kid now!" and looked so pleased with herself. It was pretty cute.

The other really cute thing she did was to sit herself up on the big toilet instead of the her little pink potty (I guess because that's what Thomas does, and that's what she did at school) and ask me to read her a book. So I started reading her a story. After a couple of minutes, I looked up to find her sitting there with nothing on, with her legs crossed at the knees, just as polite as a little lady! She didn't need to use the potty, she just knew that's what you do when you want to hear a story! I helped her down and we got on clothes again to finish the story.

Thomas had a great day at school. His only complaint was that his friend Ava wouldn't pretend to be the character he wanted her to be. I explained that she probably didn't know who Annie (from Magic Tree House) was. That he might want to explain who that is, and about the Magic Tree house, then maybe Ava would want to be that character. Or, that he might like to look for games that Ava did know how to play. I also suggested that he try to meet a new friend today...I don't think that went over too well. We'll see.

School Starts Tomorrow!

Well Thomas and Gracie are starting at their new school tomorrow!

I'm a little bit nervous about letting them go to be honest. I don't know why. I guess because I've loved having them home all summer. Now I have to go back to the way it was before:

Wake them up, rush them around getting dressed & teeth brushed etc, try to make them eat something really fast, drive them over to school half asleep, and turn around and leave......

then at the end of the day.....

Rush in, pick them up (usually in a big hurry to be somewhere...) grab their stuff and jackets or whatever, run them out to the car, whiz out of the parking lot, dash to some place or another (Bible Study- always late, Mom's on Tuesday, Linda & Leigh's on Friday) get them to eat dinner, have maybe an hour together, brush teeth, etc, make them rush through bedtime "NO No time for books tonight, it's really late!" And finally at 11pm I get to have 30 minutes of time to myself, but.....

I've not spent ANY decent time with the kids that I wasn't fussing at them to hurry or get something done.....

This summer was so different.

We'd get up at 8 or 9am, brush teeth and get dressed. Come downstairs for breakfast, a lot of times together -All 4 Of Us!- and then Sam would leave for work.

Then Thomas and Grace would do some school work with me for about 2 hours. Usually ABCs flashcards first (they got really good at those) then some worksheets. We also read books together. Or did some projects like animals collages or making our own solar systems...

Then we'd all go in the living room to watch Sesame Street and then Word World.

By then it was time for lunch. Sam would come home about 1 or 2 for lunch and we'd make lunch and eat that together, before I had to leave about 3 or 4 for work.

Some days we even got to go on field trips to places like the park, the zoo, the pool, the library, etc.

Then Sam would put them down for naps after lunch.

When I got home from work about 6:30 or 7, we would trade again, since Sam had to go to Karate. The kids and I would go to Mimi's on Tuesday and some Thursdays. Some Thursdays we got to hang out with Derema and Lucas.

On Mondays, Sam stayed home with us and we had Family nights.

On Wednesdays we still get to go to church for Bible Study, but it's not stressful, it's nice. It's our big outing for the whole day.

Then on Friday nights, we go over to the Convers' and have dinner with them, and sometimes the kids stayed over, usually not though.

The weekends were about the same, but without the weekly stress, there was a lot less need to de-stress on Saturday, so we actually got to sleep in some and go out some.

Even going to Church seems nicer on Sunday because we have gotten used to the routine of getting up and getting ready, eating breakfast, and getting out the door together.

So, what can I do to make tomorrow, more like today?

That is the question......

Thomas Can Read!

Thomas Read his first sentence today.

He was finishing his worksheet on the letter 'W' and I was across the room working on his responsibility chart, when he got to the bottom, where it asks him to write out an entire sentence. He had completed this, and he and I usually work on sounding out the sentence.

I said, "Go ahead and start trying to sound it out, I'll be there in just a second." So, he started trying to sound out the letters.

He said, "Wa-Ea-Sss" "Wes" That was the first word in the sentence, a boy's name, "Wes."

"Yes! That's right" I said, "Wes. You read that just now! All by yourself!"

"Wes?" He asked looking skeptical.

"Wes. It's his name." I explained

"Wes is a strange name," he said.

"I knew a guy named Wes. Go on," I said. At this point I was done with what I had been working on but I knew better than to hurry over to him.

"Wes Sss-A-Wa No...Wes Sss-Aa-W. Wes Saw Wes Saw!" He looked up and grinned at me. I was standing next to him at this point. I had helped him in sounding out the hard A in saw over to a soft a sound.

"What did Wes See?" I asked him. He looked back at the paper.

"Wes Saw 'a' " he paused and glanced at me to see if that was really all you had to say with that letter.

"That's right..." I prompted

"Wes saw a Wa-E..." He tried a hard E sound a few times, then figured it out... "Wa-E-B"

"Wes Saw A Web!" He looked astonished as he realized he had really said something, and began repeating it, "Wes saw a web!" I pointed to the drawing of a spider in it's web. "Wes saw a web!"

"You really read that whole sentence all by yourself!" I exclaimed I grabbed him in a big hug and he was beside himself. It was sooo cute. He just knew what he'd done and it was great! He gave me five and then took the paper off to show his Dad in the other room.

When he got in there, he hands the worksheet to Sam and just stands there. Sam of course looks at it and reads the well written sentence across the bottom, and says very good, but from the look on my face knew something must be up. Thomas yells, "I read that whole sentence by myself! It says, "Wes Saw a Web!"

One interesting thing is that just like he tries to invert the lower case d and b he also is saying some of the words kind of inside out. When he's told the story a few times, he has said, "Sin saw a web." And I'll correct him and say, "Wes" there are other words he does it with too, but not as often. I think part of it, is that that it is such an odd name to him.

Anyway, we called Gannie and he told her his news. He pointed out that he was holding his Spider-Man toy when it happened (it's the horrible red monster one, not Venom, the other one...) and he told Gannie, "My Spider-Man toy must have some Magic in him!" She told him, "No Thomas, it's you. You have the Magic in you." He liked that.

Then we drove over to my Mom's driveway, and she came out to the car. As soon as she opened the door, he tells her, "I read a whole sentence today." She said, "You wrote a whole sentence today?" and he smiled real big and said, "No! I READ a whole sentence today!" She said, "Oh My Gosh!"

Now he's pretty shy about the whole thing! He's afraid someone will ask him to read something else I think!

MJ