"Caught Up" With the Other Kids

It's been interesting. Since #3 was moved up from Kindergarten to 1st grade, her teacher was always telling me that she was "almost caught up" to where she should be as compared to the other 1st graders. She was "just about there" in this or that. I'm guessing this was because she missed the first 3 months of 1st grade, and so it would just take a little time. I hoped she was doing alright. I know she was a smart girl and a super reader.

Well, anyway, this past week she was sort of the very important person and got to have the spotlight on her in school. She brought home this booklet where everyone in class had to write a page about her and what she liked or whatever they wanted to write. As I first started reading these papers I laughed as I read, "She lics cats and rabbits" and then other papers that said "she is nis to ma", "she licks spring" and "she hav 6 in yor family". As I continued to turn pages I was actually surprised that so many papers had so many misspelled words and the sentences were kind of all over the place and the handwriting on most was pretty sloppy.

OK, so now I'm not meaning to critique 1st grade work, but her teacher was always saying how her handwriting needed work and "it was just about there" as to measuring up to her classmates. However, from looking at this booklet I could see that she was actually doing quite well. She didn't have any problems spelling simple words like "your", "like", and "nice". She knew how to capitalize and punctuate words, and her handwriting didn't seem half as bad as some of her classmates.

So, what was the deal? Either she had really improved and was doing great, or was I missing something? It's weird. The teacher had me all worried for so long, but after looking at this I see that she didn't have any problems in so much. I'm glad she is doing so well, but then it still surprises me that even after she skipped a grade, she still seems to be excelling even more so than many of her classmates who are all almost a year and a half older.

I can't believe 1st grade is about over. One more month of school and then my little girl will be going on to 2nd grade! 2nd grade! She hasn't even turned 6 years old yet. Ah, I still feel as if my little girl has been stolen from me. Yes, with my boys, I did feel a little robbed of that extra time when they both skipped grades, but #3 just seems so different. Maybe it's because she was the most dramatic skip as far as young age, or maybe it's because she's a girl and so little, but who knows. Only time will tell.

A Six Year Old's Writing

Yeah, he looks pretty little and cute, and along with his piano skills, our 2nd son is also a pretty good writer. For the last 2 years he has been making little "books" stapling papers together and writing stories. Now tell me, what 6 year old is writing stories with narratives and creating their own books?

I came across yet another "book" he was making. This one was a work in progress but as I read it I was surprised at how a 6 year old could actually put words into a story and be more than "My name is Joe. I like cars. The end."

"What Happened When I Woke Up" this work is titled. This is what he wrote so far:

Chapter 1 More Arms

When I woke up something weird happened. Every second I got more arms! It was so weird that I fell to the ground. In two minutes I had 120 arms! My mother fell to the ground when she saw it. She said "Oh my gosh!"

Chapter 2 Start the Search for the Cure

"What happened?" She shouted in a very very very loud voice.
"I don't know" I said.
"Then we must search for a cure right away." My mother said.

Chapter 3 Is There A Cure?

"But....oh yeah is there a cure? We are going to go around the world everywhere until we find it." I said.
"That's what I thought." My mother said.
"That's what I was going to say and we will never know there's a cure until we just look."
"OK, you're right."

Chapter 4 The Last Place to Look

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OK, so this is all he had so far and I guess it isn't the most fancy story out there, but it was pretty good for a 6 year old. I don't remember writing any stories when I was 6. We will have to see how his story ends.