Kindergarten

It's hard to believe that Ava has been in kindergarten for over a month...but in other ways it seems like we've been in this routine now for quite some time. Ava absolutely loves school. After being in preschool for 2 years and in the daycare center this summer, I don't think she found the transition to kindergarten all that daunting.

We had our first parent-teacher conference this week with her teacher, Mrs. Lloyd. Mrs. Lloyd has been teaching kindergarten for over 20 years, so she really is on top of everything. She started by showing us Ava's assessment results from the beginning of September. She scored high on it all - recognizing letters, numbers, etc. and she will repeat the same tests twice more over the course of the school year. She showed us other examples of Ava's work - and pointed out the folder cover that Ava made, as she was impressed that she used a scissors to create such detail in her picture.

One of my favorite things she showed us was Ava's Writing Workshop folder - each day they practice writing by thinking about something they did recently, drawing a sketch of it, counting the words in the sentence to describe it, and then writing it by drawing a line for each word and writing the words. The skills among the students vary widely but it's something they can all participate in, regardless of their level.

Here are some of Ava's writings/drawings. I'm especially proud that she has begun to spell words on her own and get pretty close to the actual spelling a lot of the time. She wasn't doing much independent writing before school started, so she's come a long way very quickly.

Me and my sister were watching Sponge Bob this morning.


We are getting our pics today.


Mommy pulled my tooth out.


A long time ago my family went to the apartment. (Atlanta!)


Like writing, her reading level has come a long way quickly too. She just started reading this summer and has become much more confident since school started. She is one of the top readers in the class and so Mrs. Lloyd is going to have Ava leave the classroom two days a week to go down to the Special Ed classroom and read to those kids. I feel like a broken record, but I'm so proud of her! Scot and I think it's great that she can practice her reading even more and essentially "volunteer" her time as well. It's awesome all-around and she is so excited about getting to do this.

Of course, not everything is good. Ava has issues with self-control in the classroom and sometimes needs reminders about the rules. Not surprisingly, she wants things her way. Mrs. Lloyd asked if we see those behaviors at home. Yes, we said,ever since birth.

I like so many of the things Mrs. Lloyd does. She sends a "book tote" home every Friday with a book and special activities that we can do together to work on comprehension. She also just started sending beginner reading books home every Thursday so the kids can practice those and then rate them easy/ok/hard. This week we got a special math pack that came home with all sorts of math-related games to play. We took this opportunity to also finally teach Ava how to play "War"! She had a lot of fun playing that with Scot and it reminded me of all the times I used to go over to my neighbor Essie's to play when I was her age. :-) Tonight when we got home, the first thing she did was sit down and play one of the math games by herself - drawing 2 cards out of a bag and then either adding them or subtracting them. I had to take a picture of Ava doing math homework first thing on a Friday night - I know that won't last long!



I also signed up to volunteer in the classroom one Thursday a month, so I had my first session last week. I helped during "center time", where the classroom is set up in about 8 or 9 centers with various activities. It was fun to check out Ava's classmates and see who she's been talking about so far. I give lots of credit to anyone who can spend all day with 20 5 and 6 year olds!

So things are going well with school. She started off the school year by only taking cold lunch (and even started packing it herself!) but since then she has diversified and gotten hot lunch about half the time. We check the menu every night and I let her decide what she wants. She also really loves to ride the school bus, though she also likes it when I drop her off at school, which I've done a few times. I get to work at about the same time either way.

Ok, so that's probably enough annoying mom chatter - it's just we've had so many challenges with Ava over the years, it's nice to see her settle down a little and really start to mature. I have a teacher friend who always said she never stopped being amazed at the things her own kids learned and it's so true - they really are such little sponges. It's awesome to watch.