Mr. Sketch

Ryan’s Kindergarten class continues to amaze me with their vast intelligence. Again, I work with two year olds all day and so a class of Kindergarteners is just years ahead of a class of two year olds to me. Yesterday was a volunteer parent day for me in Ryan’s class. They are getting ready to hit their 100th day of school on Tuesday, where they are going to do several things in 100’s. They are going to eat 100 things and have an art project that has something to do with 100 things. Last week was the end of the first semester for the Kindergarten classes. They have 4, 9 week sessions instead of 6, 6 week sessions. Report cards were sent home with a Parent/Teacher conference day shortly thereafter. Ryan brought home a really great report card and when I went to the conference, his teacher showed me some of his writing samples and journal entries. He is doing such a wonderful job sounding out words and learning how to read and spell. We are so proud! Yesterday, during my volunteering, the kids worked on comparing the L and M sounds. In addition Ms. Clark talked to them about how they have done so well learing how to spell their first name and now they are going to begin learning how to spell their last names. The kids all know how to recognize their last name, but not all of them know how to spell it. Ms. Clark had written their last name in big outlined letters for the kids to design and color. She asked me to go get the box of markers on the cabinet in the back of the room while she continued to talk to the children. Mr. Sketch Markers! Man, the kids are going to love these I thought. The first group of kids that came to the table to design their last name cards immediately took the tops off of their markers and began smelling them. It was so funny! I remember doing that myself! I don’t actually remember Mr. Sketch markers in my classrooms, but my mom had some in her classroom. She had them in these little Styrofoam holders that went into a little sleeve that kept them from falling out. They always smelled so good! As I helped Ms. Clark by removing some things off of the walls and cleaning up the paint center, I watched the kids smelling their markers. Good thing these markers are not harmful . . . the large amounts of inhaling that was going on . . . their designs were not getting done since they were all smelling so much.:) Ryan in particular-Washington was the second to the longest last name in the class. I had to remind him a couple of times to stop smelling and do his project:). As the children finished up and showed me their beautiful masterpieces, they smiled at me with their bright shiny teeth and their colorful noses:). It was too funny!

Growing up

Ryan is learning so much in Kindergarten! He loves going to school and could not wait to go back after winter break. Last semester Ms. Clark, Ryan's teacher, did a unit on nursery rhymes and what lessons they teach. On Thursday Ms. Clark invited all the parents to a nursery rhyme recital and lunch with our kids. Mike and I were able to eat lunch with Ryan and then head to his class for the recital. All of the children were assigned a nursery rhyme and a nursery rhyme fact. They stood up in front of all the parents and recited their fact and nursery rhyme. Ryan's assigned nursery rhyme was Humpty Dumpty. His fact was "Nursery Rhymes are silly." All the kids did such a great job! Out of the 18 children in Ms. Clarks class, only two of them had an issue when they came up to recite their part--and Ryan was NOT one of them!!! In addition, as a class, they sang some songs and did a couple little skits.

The pictures I have attached are not that good . . . we failed to bring our camera and the pictures were taken with our phones. Ryan really wanted us to take a movie of him to put on the blog page. The movie I have posted was also taken on our phone and the volume is pretty much non-existant. When you play it, make sure the volume is turned all the way up on your computer. Getting up in front of people he does not know is not his idea of fun:). We are very proud of him!

Oh No . . . Not Again

Ok, it is official . . . I am a basket case when it comes to my children:). I continue to try to deny it, but I believe it is just in my nature to cry at EVERYTHING. Today was the first day I was able to watch Ryan get on the bus. With the bus pick up mess up (mentioned in a previous post) that happened the first day of school . . . I had taken that day off so my normal Friday off was transferred to that Tuesday. The following Friday we left for the beach and the Friday after that we were coming back from the beach. Today was the first normal Friday I have had since Ryan started school. In addition to this being the first Friday to watch him get on the bus, today was my first day volunteering in his class. Ryan's teacher, Ms. Clark, asks for volunteer parents to come and help out with the children during centers and their art project.

In watching him get on the bus I found myself getting a little teary eyed. It is so surreal watching your child get on the bus like it is just second nature. I was very proud of him. Since we live so close to the school, I parked the stroller in a neighbors yard and Lydia and Emily and I ran across the baseball field of the school and stood at the fence to watch Ryan's bus pull in the parking lot and drop him off. Lydia and Emily were so amazed with all the buses that were coming to Ryan's school. We were too far away to make out which child he was with all the children walking into the building together, but I was able to see where his bus parks and where all the children go when entering the school.

At 10:00 I went to Ryan's class to do my volunteering. It was so great!!! When I arrived the children were still in gym class. I helped Ms. Clark by setting out snack for the kids as well as setting out their project that they were going to do while eating their snack. When the kids came back of course they all wanted to know my name and they were all made aware of the fact that I was Ryan's Mommy. After their "Letter B" project and their snack they broke off into centers. In centers, I was in charge of the art project which consisted of the children making "Big Beautiful Butterflies." These kids seemed so smart to me! I work with 2 year olds all day that I have to help do EVERYTHING and most of these kids would tell me they already knew they had to do something when I would tell them they had to do it. Amazing how independent they are!! This was also a really great opportunity for me to see Ryan's teacher and how she is with the children, etc. I think she is terrific!! The kids all seem to like her and the entire class just runs along so smoothly. Of course she has been doing this for 20 years and it is old hat now I am sure, but with new kids comes new obstacles I imagine. (I visited my mother's 2nd grade class many times over my lifetime while she was teaching, but never looked at it from a parent's point of view). After centers Ms. Clark gathered everyone on the rug to get ready for lunch. All of the packers were instructed to get their lunchboxes and line up at the door. Ms. Clark then pulled out a stack of little papers that she went through while calling the buyers names individually. As she called the children, she would ask them if they needed their paper. About half of the children said yes and took the paper from her and about half said no. Ryan said no. After thanking the children for letting me come to visit with them and they thanking me, they headed off for lunch and I headed to the office to sign out. I followed them as they passed the office going to the cafeteria and decided to follow and see how things operate (I know Ms. Clark hates me--I am WAY too involved!!!:)). I stood at the opening of the food purchasing and receiving portion of the cafeteria and watched as the class filed through getting their food and milk. Ryan's food and his little milk carton was placed in front of him and he was standing in front of this little credit card machine looking thing. You could hear the beeping as he was typing something in on the machine. At the same time, Ms. Clark noticed me standing there and I explained I just wanted to watch for a second. She showed me the little stack of papers she was reading the children's names from in the classroom. They had the child's name and their lunch identification number on it (each child is given a lunch identification number so when we send money for his lunch account, they know which child to credit it to.). This identification number is what the children had to punch into the credit card looking machine. It is a four digit number and about half of these kids--Ryan primarily--have memorized it and don't have to look at it to punch it in. I exclaimed my surprise at Ryan's ability to remember this number. Ms. Clark said "He buys every day, right?" This meaning it was not a surprise to her that kids that buy mostly (we have packed twice) can memorize it quickly. I responded "yes." but thought to myself--but my child was gone for a whole week and a day and STILL has memorized it!! I don't know if I could do that:). I told Mike that when I went to school I remember handing a little slip of paper to a cafeteria woman who punched a hole in it with a hole punch. This was not a hard thing. We did not have computers in the classroom either. It was such a great morning! After watching Ryan go to his seat at the lunch table, I thanked Ms. Clark and headed on my way back to the office to sign out and wouldn't you know it . . . I started crying AGAIN! What is my problem!!?? See what I mean . . . basket case!! I think next time I will stay for lunch.

With the Big Beautiful Butterflies art project this morning there was a beautiful poem that the children put with their butterfly to eventually be put in their alphabet book that Ms. Clark is going to make for them with all of their letter art projects. This poem was so pretty and is something I need to remind myself of from time to time and I am sure anyone with children-young or old-can use this reminder sometimes too.

A child is like a butterfly in the wind.

Some can fly higher than others.

But each one flies the best that it can.

Why compare one against the other.

Each one is different

Each one is special

Each one is beautiful.