School

Aaron is loving school. Recess is still his favorite, especially the tricycles and the play structure.  He told me he has never played in the sand, which is surprising because they have a huge sand box and I've seen kids in it every time I've been there at recess.

Aaron's teacher has been back from maternity leave for a month or so and he seems to like her just as well as the sub.  I like her, too. 

Aaron started off the year eager to do his homework and finishing the entire week's worth on Monday afternoon.  But slowly he's been less eager and going slower with it.  One day, while doing a color by number, he told me he likes challenging stuff.  I asked him if what he was doing was challenging and he said no. But he said he likes challenging stuff.  Because it is fun. 

However, some pages, usually the ones involving drawing a picture and writing some sentences about it, quickly become frustrating for him.  There is a fine line between work that is too easy and work that is, in his mind, way to hard.  But he is improving on that.

I met with his teacher yesterday to discuss keeping him challenged and she was very understanding.  She is going to try to switch out the math homework, which has been well below his ability, but mentioned we might want to practice folding and cutting at home.  They do a lot in class and I think he is a little slow and maybe gets frustrated with it.  He is not big into craft projects at home and I haven't pushed it, but she made me realize these fine motor skills are also important.  I think I will try to find some folding and cutting exercises that are math oriented since he likes anything to do with math.

Penmanship is another area we need to work on, although he has improved since the beginning of the year.

The books she sends home at night to read seem too easy for him, but when I asked about it, she pointed out that he needs to not only be able to read the words, but to remember and comprehend the story.  So now, instead of just having him read the story, afterwards, he tells us the setting, the characters, and what happened at the beginning, middle and end of the story.

He also does a website called raz-kids.com.  He logs on from school sometimes, but he can also do it from home.  They have books he can read and/or have read to him, and then there is a 5 question quick on each book.  He is on Level D, about half-way to Level E.  It is nice because there is a reward system of stars to encourage him to read and he can progress at his own pace.  All of the kids in his class do raz-kids, but most are on lower levels.

We are also planning to sign him up for the Accelerated Reading (AR) program. It is for kids in grades 1-5, but Kindergartners can also participate at the teacher's discretion.  He can't do it at home like raz-kids, but he can read books and then take quizzes on the school library's computers.  Each school library book has an AR reading level assigned and number of points he can earn.  There are some incentives like being entered into a drawing for a book and recognition in front of the school when you reach certain level of points.

Outside of school I am planning to try doing a math co-op with some other kids who have a high interest in math.  I really want to keep up his interest level, keep him challenged, and have him be around other kids who are as interested in math as he is.

Audrey Update

Audrey turned 3 last month.  We had a birthday party for her in the backyard.  We invited a local singer/songwriter who plays children's music.  He plays around town regularly and she is a big fan.  It was a surprise to her and Aaron and when he showed up and she literally could not speak.  She just spoke jibberish, she was so excited.  It was a lot of fun.

Her hair has gotten so long.  I gave up on trying to trim her bangs straight, so we've been growing them out.  Most days they are in ponytails, but not when we harvested our pumpkins yesterday (when we took these pictures).

Audrey has a style all her own.  It mostly involves wearing stripey pants, or polka-dots.  And pink.  And an owlie hat a lot of times.  Despite the pink, she's not very girly.  She is just as happy to wear a hand-me down shirt or jammies from Aaron as she is to wear the more girly hand-me-downs we've been fortunate to get from friends and family.

Shortly after Aaron started Kindergarten, I signed Audrey up for a preschool class that meets once a week and requires a parent (or nanny in our case) to stay.  They have circle time at the beginning and end, but the rest of the time is self-directed.  There is always a craft or two for the kids to work on and outside time to play.  Kim has been taking Audrey for the last two months.  She is really blossoming there.  Audrey is a very shy girl, but at the preschool, she interactes with the teacher quite a bit and does tasks independently of Kim (who is also watching Lila).  The class is offered in 3 week sessions and at first I only signed her up for 1, but I've been signing her up for subsequent sessions because she enjoys it so much.

Audrey will turn 5 just nine days after the cutoff for Kindergarten in 2014.  The state of California is moving the cutoff date up one month each year until 2014.  This year the cutoff was November 1.  Audrey already knows her alphabet and about half of the letter sounds.  She can almost count to twenty without making a mistake.  And she now recognizes the word 'the' which is how Aaron started learning to read.  Since they are teaching the letter sounds to the kids in Aaron's class and many of them do not know them, I'm pretty sure Audrey will be ready for Kindergarten in 2 years.  I can't imagine making her start when she is almost 6.  Since Aaron already knows what he needs to know by the end of Kindergarten, I am hoping the school will let us enroll Audrey for the 2014-2015 school year. 

After Aaron started school, Audrey went through an adjustment phase.  She did great while he was in school, and even up through nap time.  But in the afternoons, she wasn't listening to me, melting down and ending up in time-out every day.  After awhile, maybe after she started her preschool class, she settled down a bit.  But she is still high drama when she doesn't get what she wants.

Audrey is such a sweet girl.  And so verbal.  She often talks about how much she loves her family, and lists off all the people in her family. Yesterday, she told Thom "I love you, Papa." And he replied "I love you too, Audrey."  And then she announced "We love each other!". 

I love her use of language and how much she seems to understand.  This morning, I was still in bed when she got up.  Whenever I'm in bed, she is impatient for me to get up and go potty with her and make her breakfast (I think before Papa does it instead, because she wants me to do these things for her.)  So this morning, she was telling me to get up and that I could go potty after she went potty and then I could get her the special cereal that she has been waiting until Sunday to have.  I said she was awfully bossy this morning.  So she immediately said in her sweetest voice, "Mama, will you please get up and help me go potty?"  Because she understands what bossy means and knows how to use her manners when she remembers.

A couple of weeks ago, I had given Aaron a heart shaped cookie after lunch.  Audrey wanted one when her lunch was done.  There was only one left in the bag.  When I pulled it out, part of the top of the heart was broken off.  She looked at it and said "That's not a heart."  I told her it was broken and braced myself for a melt-down.  She just looked at it, said "Thanks you, Mama" and ate it.  She often says thank you to me without prompting for getting her meals or milk or water, all of the things I expect my kids to take for granted.

She still naps every day for about 2 hours.  There was a time when it was a bit of a struggle at nap time with crying and lots of declarations of "But I'm not tired!"  But we seem to have gotten past that.

Her favorite food of all time is quesadilla.  She could eat it every day for lunch and dinner.  With raisins.  I try to broader what she will eat, but I have to say quesadillas are darn simple to make.  And since Thom doesn't get home until close to 7pm, I always make the kids' dinner separately from ours because they need to eat closer to 5pm to get to bed on time.  It is tough enough planning our dinner every night, so I rarely plan their dinner more than 5 minutes in advance.  Plus I try to make something quick and simple for the kids' dinner since it is Lila's fussiest time of day.  Then Thom and I make dinner after all 3 are in bed which is much easier.

Aaron Update

Aaron has been in school for 2 months now.  He knows all 117 Kindergarten sight words that he is supposed to know by the end of the year.  He knows all his letters and sounds and his number 0-30.  They tested him on these things.  He knew the numbers and sounds before Kindergarten and recognized all but a few of the sight words which he learned in the last few weeks.

He was finally assessed for his reading level and his teacher is now sending books home more at his level.  He's been able to read since just before turning 3, but he prefers us to read to him.  If I ask him to read a book, he might read it, but more likely he will say he wants me to read it.  Or if he chooses a book to read out loud, it is well below his reading level.  But he is a rule follower.  He knows he is supposed to read his homework books 3 times so he will read them without complaint.  And I think he is gaining confidence in reading already.  Based on his reading level we were told and looking online, I think he is reading at about a 2nd grade level. 

Since the math they do at school is not challenging him, I am looking into starting a co-op math class with some other families I know who have mathematically talented children like Aaron.  For example, I want to explore things like different number systems since Aaron and the other kids I know have shown an interest in learning to write numbers in different ways.  And I just want Aaron to be around other kids who love numbers and math as much as he does.

Lila Update

Lila turned 5 months old this month.  For awhile, she had been only waking me up once per night and I was getting plenty of rest.  But about a month ago, she started to wake up at least twice and the first time was often within 2 hours of when I went to bed.  Sometimes she wakes up just as I am falling sleep which is the worst.  I'm pretty sure it is because she is teething.  Then she went from taking a morning nap and a long afternoon nap to taking 3 naps because she'd wake up too early from her afternoon nap to make it to bedtime.  It's a little frustrating, but Tylenol seemed to help 2 nights ago and last night she did better, waking up once before Thom went to bed so he got her back to sleep while I slept and she only woke me once and even slept in a little this morning.  Hopefully the teething calms down and she returns to being the champion sleeper she was.

She has also started rolling over with ease.  When she goes on her mat on the floor, she flips over a lot and looks like she wants to crawl.  I had to lower her crib mattress and I considered switching her from a swaddle to a sleep sack, but that did not go well.  She wouldn't stay asleep.  Plus, I found her after nap one day swaddled but on her stomach and she didn't seem in any distress or in danger of suffocating, so we'll keep swaddling for now. 

Lila is still generally a happy baby.  She fusses when she is tired, but even then, if you hold her or take her outside, she'll quiet down.  She loves her brother and sister and they love her.  Aaron loves to make her laugh.  Audrey wants to touch her and kiss her all the time.  Too much, actually.

Below is a video from about 3 weeks ago of Aaron stacking blocks and calling them baskets.  Lila was cracking up.

Owl on the Roof

Thom noticed this owl sleeping our our roof one morning recently when he got the paper.  I had no idea owls would sleep out in the open like that.

What Powers of 2 has to do with family photos

Yesterday, when Aaron was getting ready for bed, he asked me if he had 2048 great-great-great-....-great grandparents.  I lost track of the greats, but I recognized that 2048 was a power of 2, I just didn't know which one.  He told me he'd said 13 greats. I assumed his question was based on something Thom had told him.  So at lunch today, I got out a sheet of paper and created a chart like this to see if I could answer his question:

For each line, I wrote the left-hand side and then the power of 2.  But after I did the Grandparent line, Aaron told me the total.  We got to nine Greats Grandparents which was 2048 and he realized it was 9 greats, not 13 and it was 2 to the power of 11.  I think he miscounted and was thinking 2 to the power of 13 was 2048.  Since we still had room on the paper, I figured 10 greats was a good stopping point and he figured out what 2 to the power of 12 was after asking me and not waiting for an answer. 

I'm not sure, but I guess he was doubling the previous number.  He was doing it in his head, so that's pretty good, but I don't think he was calculating powers of 2.  He may have had them memorized from working on powers of 2 with Thom, but he did seem to think about it like he was doing some kind of mental calculation.

After lunch was quiet time for him.  He took the sheet of paper I had written this on at lunch.  He complained that my writing was too fancy and he couldn't read it very well.  I explained that it wasn't fancy, it was just messy.  But he took it to the couch with him for quiet time anyway.  Exactly when quiet time was over, he came to me with the sheet of paper and wanted to sit with me and look at it.  We talked about it again and he pointed to the 4 circles on line 3 and he said the ones under the circle designated as me were his grandma and grandpa.  And then he pointed to the circles under Thom and said those grandparents had died.  So I got pictures off of the shelf of Thom's parents.  And then he wanted to see my parents' wedding photo. 

And then he asked me if one of the circles was Alan.  We don't have any Alan's in my family so I was confused.  And then he clarified that he meant the one whose tummy Grandma had been in.  That would be my Grandma Helen.  I happened to have a picture of my grandparents on the shelf, too, so we looked at them and then I got out some wedding photos and showed Aaron pictures of his aunts and uncles on his dad's side as well as another picture of his Grandma Lillie.  There were also a couple of cousins from his dad's side that he hasn't met.  He was fascinated by all the pictures and wanted to refer back to our chart.  But I pointed out his aunts and uncles aren't on there, just parents and grandparents and great grandparents.

I'm frequently amazed with how his mind works.  And how a lesson on the powers of 2 turns into a family tree discussion.  I think I will try to make this chart for him with photos instead of circles next.  And maybe another family tree showing aunts and uncles, too.

Entertaining Lila

 

The kids are great at entertaining Lila.  Aaron shows her the Black and White book because I had explained to him when she was younger that babies see black and white best.  I don't know if that is still true at 4 months, but she seems to like them.  She seems to like whenever her big brother or sister interact with her.  I'm afraid she will grow up being unable to entertain herself.  She is happy just getting to watch them run around and play.  If I'm making them dinner and she is getting fussy, I can ask them to entertain them and that will generally keep her from crying unless she is really tired or hungry.

First day of Kindergargen

 

Aaron started Kindergarten on about 4 weeks ago.  We all took him to school for his first day.  He did great.  We waited outside his classroom until the teacher opened the door.  He gave us hugs, went inside and had a great morning.  He's had a great day every day since then.

Aaron's K is a half-day program that is 3 hours and 20 minutes.  He is mornings (my preference since the afternoon kids get out right smack in the middle of nap time and I didn't want to have to wake up Audrey and Lila to pick him up).  We are really lucky because class sizes have been going up, but in our school, they actually got smaller this year.  Instead of 2 teachers to a class of 26 kids, they are experimenting this year with 1 teacher per 13 kids, with an overlap one day a week with all 26 kids there for an hour and a half.

We were a little nervous about him starting because when we talked to him earlier in the year about starting school, he was excited until I explained that we wouldn't be staying with him.  He was anxious about that.  He was worried he would need to tell me something and I wouldn't be there.  So we had a lot of conversations about school and how much fun it would be and how much he'd like his teacher.  We attended a couple of events on campus that were open to the community, like their holiday festival last December, to get him used to the idea of it being his school.  When he had his evaluation in April, we both went and waited outside and he did fine being in the classroom with the teacher (who tested that he knew his letters, numbers, and how to use scissors). 

The Friday before school began, there was a meet and greet in his classroom.  His teacher is on maternity leave, but we met the substitute whom I really like.  The kids got to get out a pencil box and go to a table with supplies like crayons, scissors and pencils and put a set amount of each in their box.  Then they put their boxes at their table and we just got to look around the room and meet other kids and parents. 

Now, Aaron's classroom is pretty big, but with both morning and afternoon kids arriving within the same hour-long open house, along with 1 or both parents and some siblings (we had all 3 kids with us), it was too crowded and noisy for Aaron.  Aaron is very sensitive about crowds.  And noise (unless he makes it himself).  Lila started crying and Aaron was hiding under tables, so we decided to leave.  It was hot and I was hungry and too many of my kids were stressed out.  We had gotten there early hoping to beat the crowd, but everyone had had the same idea.  But after coming home, Thom took Aaron back to the school by himself.  The hour wasn't over yet so there was time.  And Thom didn't want that negative experience to be how Aaron remembered his classroom. 

Things were much calmer when they went back.  Aaron had a chance to explore the classroom and Thom got to talk to the teacher.  Although she is a sub, she has kids in the school so she had insight into handling drop-offs and pick-ups.

So Aaron has been in school for a month now.  In the classroom, there is a board with the kids names on clothes pins.  They all start off at "Good Student".  They have opportunities to move up to Super Star throughout the morning.  Or they might move down to Warning or Time Out.  Wherever their clip is at then end of class determines how many tickets they get.  Super Stars get 2, Good Students get 1.  Aaron has come home with 2 tickets every day.  Every 20 tickets you earn can be redeemed for a trip to a treasure chest.  Only once has Aaron had his clip move down - and it was from Super Star down to Good Student.  And it was back up by the end of the day.

Aaron wishes school was every day.  Why?  Because he loves riding the tricycles at recess.  And he likes playing with all his "best friends".  They are all girls.  Because only girls can be best friends.  He does mention some of the boys he plays with.  But every week he comes home and tells me how many best friends he has.  Before school started, he had 2.  The first week, he had 3 - one new best friend from school.  And then he told me he almost had 4 best friends.  I assumed it was a boy he was playing with (who was friends with his school best friend).  But no, it was another girl. 

He seems to recognize that becoming best friends takes time.  He will tell me the girls that are almost his best friends, and then the next thing I know he's telling me he now has 8 best friends and he will rattle of the names of the 2 girls he liked before school plus 6 in his class.  I know from talking to the mother of one of the girls that at least one of them likes him.  A lot.  She thinks he is so handsome.  And he told me she asked him if she could come to his house.

After school, Aaron is amped up, bouncing off the walls.  He has a lot of energy to get out.  He has also gotten a bit sassy.  I think it is because he doesn't have control at school so he tries to exert it at home.  It's been a big adjustment.  And the first few weeks Audrey would drive me bonkers in the afternoon.  I think she got a lot of individual attention in the mornings and in the afternoons she wasn't getting that.  So there were a lot of melt downs, a lot of time-outs. 

It's gotten a little bit better, but I also switched around my schedule so I work Tuesday afternoons instead of mornings so I don't have to deal with them one evening at least.  It's also tough because between 5 and about 6:45pm when Thom gets home, I'm trying to get them fed and ready for bed at the same time that Lila is most fussy.  Sometimes I put the TV on and get Lila to bed before Thom gets home.  But I often try to keep her up until 7pm so the kids are done getting ready for bed and are doing stories with Thom when they are a bit quieter.

I could go on about school, but will save more for other posts as this one is long enough. 

I'm back

Lila Anne is already 2 months old!  Time has flown by.  With the pregnancy and new baby, it's been hard to find time to update the blog.  I also find it so much faster and easier to post photos and updates on Facebook.  I don't have to reduce the photo size like I do for the blog since I don't have to worry about using up my free storage like I do on Blogger.  I also like that FB restricts access to people I know so I feel more comfortable posting photos there that might reveal where in California we live.  And honestly, one thing I like about Facebook is getting feedback from people!  So if family and friends are reading this blog, please post comments.  Thank you! 

Once I got so far behind on posting, I felt overwhelmed with the idea of catching up.  So rather than going back to Christmas and trying to bring you up to date, I'll just try to post when I can and slowly fill in the missing time.

I may decide to turn this blog private at some point to address my privacy concerns.  If I do that, I'll try to give access to everyone I know who is reading this blog and you can also send me an e-mail requesting access.