Monday, June 25, 2012

Zacks funny for the day.

Weeks ago I warned Zack that just because it was summer time it did not mean he wasn't going to be learning. I bought a couple different work books for him to do a few pages in each day. Today was the day we started using those books. He chose to do some pages from the spelling book. But...while he was making his choice of subject to work on, he took a close look at the covers of the work books, he pointed to the circle at bottom of the cover that says 64 fun pages. He looked up at me and said "Ha that's a lie, there is nothing fun about these books." Then he grabbed the spelling book and walked out of the room.

I just had to laugh because as smart as this kid is he sure does not like anything that forces him to learn.

Friday, June 8, 2012

Summer time.

It is official

We now have a rising first grader in our house. I can not believe my baby has finished kindergarten. Why is he growing up so fast?

Yesterday was the last day of school, the final day of kindergarten. My baby was excited. He was as happy as a clam. He was thrilled that only a few more hours of school time before he gets to "goof off" for the summer.

He was awake when I went into his room to get him up for school. He finished his breakfast in record time. He brushed his teeth, washed and combed his hair in a matter of seconds (yes I made him brush his teeth again the proper amount of time). He dressed quickly even after fussing over wanting a different shirt. The shoes and socks were put on more quickly than I had ever seen it happen before.

Why was he getting things done so quickly? I will tell you why. The last day of kindergarten in my sons school means all kindergartners get to walk over to the local park with their class after the awards ceremony and spend the day playing on the playground and eating pizza for lunch! Yeah buddy what better way to end the school year.

He was all smiles when he came home. Telling me all about playing with his friends from last years pre-k class, playing with his friends from other kindergarten classrooms. He proceeded to tell me all about how many pieces of pizza he had (he should be grateful I did not show up because there is no way I would have let him eat that many). He told me about the cookies they had, the watermelon and all the drinks.

I have to say he is going to be disappointed next year on the last day of school because all the other grades get the privilege of staying in the classroom with the teachers and taking down all the artwork and decorations from the walls, making sure everything is counted and inventoried and boxed up for the summer.

Of course the celebration had to continue at home too. Once school was out the video games came out (playing video games in our house on a day other than the weekend is unheard of). We took him out to eat and ended dinner with dessert (yet another thing that is something we rarely do). Once we were home from dinner I gave him a year end gift (books of course) and to top it all off, like a cherry on top of an ice cream cone, he was able to stay up an hour later than his normal bed time.

Now just because it is summer does not mean the learning stops, one of those books I gave him was a gross science experiments book, that should be fun. His school does a thing where they ask parents to clean off their bookshelves, donate some books so all the kids get to come in and choose some books to take home for continued summer reading. They also started a program this year where the kids keep track of their reading over the summer and earn prizes when school starts in August.

All this reading is a good thing. My rising first grader is reading at a 2-3 grade level. We will be working on the writing all summer long too because he now has his very first pen pal (how awesome is that). Plus his teacher requested that he write in a journal all summer because (as she says) as smart as he is, he should be writing his own books by now.

Here's to a happy exciting mind expanding summer!