Kindergarten

My youngest son will be 5 in about six weeks.  He's on the borderline of the cutoff when parents investigating Kindergarten are actually encouraged to  "hold back" their boys from starting school.  However, Kindergarten readiness has nebulous benchmarks and they're mostly social.  Academically, can he count to 20? Does he already recognize at least 18 letters?  If so, he's going to spend his year re-learning it all over again anyway.  Is he ready to write?  Is he able to rhyme?  If he's not that doesn't mean he's not ready for higher thinking.  It could mean, like my children, that there are other things going on... such as ADHD or dyslexia.  If he's not ready in one skill set should that determine he's not ready for any skill set?  Obviously, my answer is, "no."

I'm not holding him back (and I hate that term).  So, I'm currently considering what to do this year for my final Kindergarten student. I've already taught Kindergarten-aged students twice so you'd think that I could just pull out the old ideas and go with them.  But, no.  Each child is different and I have a natural propensity for reinventing the wheel.

My first little Kindergartener was a quick student.  We were doing preschool activities at home and by the end of the year when my 4 year old was reading I discovered we had actually far surpassed the Kindergarten benchmarks.  So, we moved straight into first grade.  Was it my curriculum?  Was it my advanced child?  Was it the way I made learning fun?  Who knows.  But that child didn't actually have a kindergarten year.

My second little man spent his kindergarten year tagging along with his brother's learning activities.  We did some Sing, Spell, Read and Write without the singing and some Math for the Hundredth Day (now out of print) activities and I read aloud to him.  But as our months went on, his reading wasn't progressing (as it turns out, he's my dyslexic son) and I actually relabeled his Kindergarten year as Pre-Kindergarten.  The next year he started  in K and then mid-year, at his birthday, he had finished the entire Kindergarten Horizons Math and was thinking and reasoning at higher levels because he was present for his fourth grade brother's education.  So I bumped him into first grade everything.  His reading didn't develop until a couple years later, but he was ready to think more and Kindergarten seemed babyish to him.

It turns out, neither of my older sons ever actually did a formal year of Kindergarten.  So, I'm contemplating what my "Final Four" should experience this year curriculum wise.  A focus on nature?  Literature extensions?  A simple ride-along with HIS fourth grade brother's education?   As I read the Kindergarten benchmarks found all over the web he is already halfway to meeting them.  The most important thing is that he daily has some of my focused time and energy and he'll easily meet the rest.

What are you doing with your Kindergartener this year?

Summer's Second Act

On this first day of July we said good-bye to my parents who had been visiting for well over a week, finished S's last day of soccer camp, played at the lakeshore beach and took a long afternoon siesta.
This was our moment of rest.  


This past month we've been busy getting summer under way:  the vacation that wasn't quite what we'd planned, the beginning of a beautiful summer mom's park group, getting J fitted to his volunteer job, the start of B's baseball, camping with extended family.  Juggling, swaying, finding a balance.  The children didn't understand how necessary today's rest really was, but looking ahead I know that summer will have its tumults to come and today, if only for a few hours, was the day for stillness.

In many respects, this is the beginning of Summer Part II.  Part I introduced the routine. Part II is where we live into it and settle resolutely into summer's palm.  This is the part, the core if it, where those memorable quiet moments and discoveries will surprise us. Tomorrow my husband and I will entrust the children with  friends and escape to the mountains for a night. It will mark the next act of summer, in which I create and ponder and reflect and grow. In these next days my plans and philosophies for what comes next will become present and I will listen to what God is speaking into my world. These are the days I've been moving toward for months.   They are my only preparation for what is to come next.

I know that Summer's Third Act will come blowing in with a lesser grace and greater urgency.  The endings will come one after another. And we'll launch into the unknowable future of leading and learning. For now,  I am exactly where I want to be.

And Then We Stayed Home...

Staycations are nice.  Everyone sleeps in their own beds, you don't have to buy ice every day, it's cleaner, and we don't all have to go to bed at the same time.  There's time to enjoy a summer night in the backyard after the kids are in bed, there's space for separate read aloud stories for each child, there's room for everyone's suggestions to happen.

We went out to dinner when we came home from camping and then laid out our schedule for the week:

Tuesday:  Kung Fu Panda Matinee movie and evening mini golf.

Wednesday:  Pirate's Cove Waterpark.  The trick is to go before all the day camps start.

Thursday:  The warmest day.  So we went swimming at our local pool and had A&W root beer floats after dinner.

Friday:  A trip to the nickel arcade and then Krispy Kreme for National Donut Day.

Saturday:  Hiking in Rocky Mountain National Park. 

We hiked through snow (!) to Alberta Falls.

and enjoyed a walk around beautiful Sprague Lake.

We ate the food we'd intended to eat if we'd been camping and we only spent the cash we had on hand so there are no vacation bills to pay.  (We pocketed the extra to pay for a car repair.)  We read books on the lawn, worked in the yard a little, stretched out that camping laundry all week long, and just relaxed.  Sunday was kept for doing nothing, our tradition of transitioning back into regular life.  We did still clean up the house and do a little bit of work, but because we left town at the beginning and the end it still felt like a vacation.

Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons will always be there. We just know to go at the end of summer now.  So, August 2012 you'll find us there.

Well, We Did Go Camping...

...but this was Plan C.  The night before we were to leave for Plan A, S came down with something that really knocked him askew.  The forecast for the Yellowstone area was going to be down in the 30's at night with snow likely.  So, if he was sick, it wouldn't be the best time to go tent camping.  All of us in one cold tent with one coughing child eleven hours from home... yeah, we cancelled.  Plan B was to stay home a few days and when S was better we'd camp at Rocky Mountain National Park for a few days.  Still camping, still a National Park, but much, much closer and hopefully warmer.

And then S woke up the day were were going to leave and he was FINE.  He's pulled this trick a couple times so he MUST have allergies, but I can't tell the difference until he's over it.  We debated a bit, but after phoning the ranger in Yellowstone and finding out that there was snow on the ground and more to come we still opted for Plan B.  But then our friends called with Plan C and we jumped on it.  Camping with two other families with kids (yay!) and dirtbikes (yay!) out in the middle of beautiful nowhere Colorado.  I'm talking pee-in-the-woods-nowhere.  

It's not the Grand Tetons, but it's Mount Princeton in the Collegiate Range near Buena Vista, CO.  We actually had a beautiful campsite with a stream running nearby, a zero-depth sandy entry shoreline, and rocks and a thirsty Cottonwood to climb on.   It was windy and warm.  Sunburns and drama happened (random Jeep crash in our campsite on night number 1, lost child, vomiting, dead van battery).  But we were so glad to have begun our summer with friends and freedom.  Thanks for the invite, Noy and Dawn!