Play-Learn-Grow-Repeat

From Wednesday Mom – Janelle:
Jack’s attended Kindergarten for a month now.  He is loving it.  I couldn’t be any happier to hear the fun things he is doing and more importantly, learning.  His teacher sends home all of his work weekly.  I look forward to Thursdays, because that is the day when all his weekly writing, artwork and storybooks come home in his take-home folder.   Today was his first homework assignment.  He was instructed to read ten sentences and then color the objects within the sentence the color described.  I can’t believe my son is old enough to have real homework.

Over the summer, we practiced some sight words, and he started to get into addition and subtraction.  I didn’t want to push anything too hard on him, but wanted to introduce a few words to get him started.  We worked on a Kindergarten workbook we purchased from the bookstore, and he had a lot of fun with it.  Most of the content was review from preschool, but reviewing is always a good thing.

The past four weeks of school have really made an impact on Jack.  He is now reading words and small sentences.  He loves math, and is repeatedly adding up things around the house.  So far, I’m extremely happy with Jack’s teacher.  She is so engaging with her students and makes learning so much fun.  She teaches “out of the box” in creative ways that Jack enjoys.

I don’t mean to boast at how well Jack is performing in school, but I’m very proud of him.  I never doubted his work ethic, but am thrilled with his enthusiasm for school.  He still loves recess and lunch time in the cafeteria, but listening to him read (short) sentences and how to spell words makes me giddy inside kind of like when your child scores a goal or takes that first step.  I’m hoping the rest of the school year progresses the same as the first month.

From Monday Mom – Neetika:
I loved Friday’s post about Andrew going to the concert with Jaime. My favorite part was when the woman let him take tickets, and then he maturely decides it’s time to go back and enjoy the show. It’s great that Jaime can share her love of music with her child. As a parent, you may not get as many opportunities to enjoy the recreational activities you once loved. But when your kid is old enough to participate, it adds a brand new layer of fun!

This weekend marks the first games of college football season. We love college football and root for the Alabama Crimson Tide—a long-standing tradition in our family. I always knew I’d enjoy dressing my kids up in University of Alabama attire, but now Haley is old enough to learn how to cheer a bit—even if she doesn’t really know what’s going on! She still looks adorable in her houndstooth hair bows and face tattoos. When she gets older, she can honestly say she can’t remember a time when she wasn’t pulling for Alabama.

I wonder if Haley will go through a phase in the future in which she’s not interested in watching football with her boring parents on a Saturday afternoon. Maybe she’ll prefer to be with her friends, or participate in her own activities. Growing up in New York, I can’t imagine she will have many friends who give a hoot about college football. (This is an NFL town!) Whatever she chooses to do with her weekends is fine. But she has to be home for the SEC Championship- that’s not negotiable!