School Days

Time is just moving right along and both kids are really enjoying school.  I just can’t say enough good things about LCC.  The teachers and staff are so friendly and kind, and the kids have both learned so much already.

Evelyn loves kindergarten.  She’s working hard on her reading and she knows how to spell the colors of the rainbow plus a few more.  Her class uses songs and rhymes to help the kids remember and Evelyn spends a lot of time at home singing about what’s she’s learned.  She has R.E.D. folder (Read Every Day) and she gets a new book each week to read.  This books are short and repetitive, but they are exactly what she needs to learn.  It’s been wonderful to see her enthusiasm.  It’s interesting because her class will write words based on how they sound.  They are focused on learning the letter sounds and how letters sound together rather than actually spelling most of the time.  For example, Evelyn was drawing a picture of her and my mom.  She wrote ‘Evelyn and CeCe’.  She knew what the letters were and to her, that’s what Kiki sounded like.  We talked about how letters can sound different in different words.  We go the library a lot too because I want to keep encouraging her.  We get the Early Reader books and read them together each night.  She’s got sight words that she’s learning so when we read, I following the words with my finger and I stop on the sight words so that she can read them.  It’s been cool watching how much she has learned already in a month of school.  And it goes far beyond just reading.  She seems to be doing well in Math and enjoying having us ‘quiz’ her.  She’s learning Spanish and I’m already thanking my lucky stars that Pat and Grandma Rita can speak the language.  I think I need to get Rosetta Stone if I’m ever going to be able to help her with that!!  She really seems to love the S.T.E.M. (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) activities that they do in school.  The teachers pack a lot into the kids’ day, but it seems to be a good balance of learning and play.  They go outside at least twice a day and their activities are not all structured.  Pat and I have found that while Evelyn loves school, when we ask her about her day, she will usually just say it was ‘fine’.  It’s a little frustrating for us because we want to know what she did that day.  After school, however, there’s usually too much going on and I think she just gets distracted, not to mention that she’s tired from a long day.  A few times I’ve picked her up from school and taken her to Panera before we get Mitch.  We get a drink and a sweet treat and we just sit and talk.  I like to have that one-on-one time with her and I’ve come to find that it really means a lot to her too.  

Mitchell is doing well in school too.  He no longer cries at Drop Off according to Pat.  He’s working on his writing.  At this point, it’s mostly scribbles, but they do practice their names and they have a letter that they learn each week.  He talks about his friends a little, but he doesn’t know anyone’s name.  I see one of his teachers, Miss Teri, often when I pick up Evelyn from school.  She tells me that Mitch is doing great and is participating and talking and not giving them any issues.  Whew!  She said that they think he’s pretty funny.  He apparently told her in no uncertain terms to call him Mitchell, not Mitch.  We call him both names at home and it surprised me that he showed a preference for Mitchell.  He told his other teacher, Miss Kelly, that he was ‘a little bit nervous’ one day and when she asked him why, he said he didn’t know.  I can definitely see a change in him when it comes to other kids.  He’s never been as social as Evelyn, but since he’s started school I’ve seen him initiate social interactions with other kids.  What’s surprising to me is the he initiates them with the little boys much more than the little girls.  He has rarely shown a preference before now and I know a lot of it probably comes from school.  I remember the same thing happening with Evelyn when she started school.  The gender divide starts young!

 

I’m so happy the kids are doing well in school and enjoying it.  We’ve been trying to participate in school events.  We went to Fall Fest and the Pancake Breakfast.  Both kids have fields trips in October and there are all sorts of Halloween shenanigans coming soon.