Another great week

This was Jack's second week of school, and he is still loving kindergarten.  When I picked him up on Thursday, I asked how his day was.

"Another great day!" he said happily.

I volunteered in his class on Tuesday, and it was so gratifying to see how well-behaved and engaged he is at school.  I know I am biased, but he is definitely the most well-behaved boy in the class.  I don't know how kindergarten teachers in particular do it.  They have to have the patience of a saint.  I was only there for two hours, and my nerves were shot.

I was a little concerned that Jack hadn't found a really good friend in his class yet.  But after seeing all the children there, I think I'm ok with him not feeling the need to bond with any of them right away.  He doesn't seem to feel excluded or lonely, but I think he definitely has a sense that any friends he makes at school are separate from his "real friends."  He was pretty popular in preschool, but he still put his preschool friends in a different category than the friends he had known since infancy.  It's actually kind of nice he feels that way right now, because it definitely makes it easier for me as his mother to have a good sense of what peers are influencing him.  And honestly, seeing the boys in his classroom right now, I'm comfortable with them having a limited influence.

Jack has gotten pinks a few times this week and greens all the other days.  He is up to four pinks.  When he gets 10, the teacher will let him pick something out of a treasure box.  I both love and don't love that he can be so motivated by junky toys from the dollar store.  Our house is bursting with them.

When I had asked his teacher how Jack's been, and she said, "He's very active.  He always wants to participate, come to the board to write.  He's a very good listener."

Every day, I thank my lucky stars that I have been able to stay home with my children.  Both Jack's kindergarten and English teacher told me that Jack's IEP from the school district came across their desks.

Jack's English teacher said, "When I saw the name on the top of it, I was so surprised!"

Jack's kindergarten teacher told me, "I assume the IEP is for speech?  It can't be for behavior, because he has been excellent."

It was enormously rewarding to hear.

Both of his teachers have been wonderful so far.  Jack's English teacher told me that she is actively looking for ways to keep him engaged and really interested in reading.  She asked me how I would feel about potentially having her pull him out of his kindergarten class so that he could read with her first grade group.  The only problem is that it would be during a time when he would be receiving Mandarin instruction, instead of just a straight swap during his normal English class.  I told her I wanted to wait and see how he does with the homework assignments, which will start next week.

Jack's kindergarten teacher showed me the homework folder that they will be sending home on Monday.  Both she and the English teacher are sending home differentiated assignments in reading and math for Jack.  The regular kindergarten math homework apparently comes from a "practice book," but she also has a "challenge book" with more advanced work.  She told me for the first week, she'll send both the practice and challenge assignments for Jack, but that if he found the practice assignment too easy, she would only give him the challenge work going forward.

I had to laugh, because after school yesterday she said to me, "Jack is really good at math!"

I thought to myself, "You have no idea."

As a way to motivate her class to behave, she has marble jars.  She puts a few marbles in the class jar throughout the day if the class as a whole follows the rules (e.g., listens, settles down quickly, lines up quietly).  If they misbehave, take a long time to settle down, are disruptive, etc., she puts a few marbles in the teacher jar.  She was keeping a running tally of the marbles in each jar.  At the end of the week, if the class jar had more marbles than the teacher jar, she was going to reward the kids with a popsicle party.  Yesterday, after recess she said that she put three more marbles in the class jar.  There had been 33 in the jar, and she erased that number and wrote "35" on the board.  She said Jack said, "That's supposed to be 36!"  She said she thought to herself, "Wow, he can add past 30!"

The entire kindergarten math curriculum for the year is to teach the children to identify numbers up to 30.  I told her that Jack already knows how to multiply.

I really loved that Jack's English teacher told me that she wants Jack to constantly have something to try to achieve.  She said she didn't want him to feel that, just because he's ahead of all the other children in his class, he can get complacent and not have to strive to learn.  That philosophy is exactly what Jack needs in a teacher.  I love my boy, but he is definitely prone to delusions of grandeur and an overestimation of his own capabilities.  For example, he loved his golf lessons, but he's no Tiger Woods.  I asked him the other day if he would like to take golf lessons again this year.  He said, "No, I already know how to play golf."  Other times, he'll tell me, "I'm so glad I'm tall for my age!"  He's in the 25th percentile for height.  So I am so happy that he has a teacher who is already aware that here is a child who will need to be kept challenged, who has made it abundantly clear that she is ready to rise to meet that challenge.

After Jack told me had "another great day!" on Thursday, he said, "I'm so glad I chose this school."

At the end of another great week, I have to say that I am too.