PACT Poetry Jam!

The Little Turtle by Vachel Lindsay

This afternoon was PACT's Poetry Jam. Julia participated in the K-2 group, and was actually the very first student to participate. She was a bit nervous and began her poem as soon as she got to the front of the room (I wasn't quite ready for her and that's why the video begins so suddenly and her poem doesn't start at the beginning, plus I don't know how to rotate the video...sorry). There were about 6 or 7 kids participating in this age group and Julia was awarded Second Place! That means that she as well as the first and third place winners advance to the school wide poetry jam on Tuesday night.

Second Semester

Tomorrow we begin the second semester. There are no classes on campus this week and we will find out this week whether or not Julia will get into the next set of classes. She has decided not to continue hip hop, PE or computers for the rest of the school year. Instead, we signed up for music appreciation, Spanish, and drawing (she will still be in her Kindergarten class too). I'm not sure if they will let her into drawing or not since it is a 1st - 3rd grade class, but I thought it wouldn't hurt to try. If they don't let her then we can always pick up the art curriculum that we began at the beginning of the school year (We got away from it because she wouldn't do as the lesson said to do; instead she would draw or make her own thing.)

Big news in our house: Julia and I will begin piano lessons soon. And that also means that we now have a new piano in our house! All four of us are really having a good time with it (and so far the kids have been very respectful of it and following the new "piano rules"). Julia will begin a children's group piano lesson in a couple of weeks. My lessons will probably begin in March. Karley just began a new session of Kindermusik. She is enjoying that immensely.

One "funny" note before I go: Last Friday Julia was having a tough time focusing and getting work done at home. I gave her several time outs because she wouldn't do anything and also because she began to get mouthy with me. I told her that she would stay in her room as long as it took until she was ready to be both respectful to me and to do her work. She replied with "its too hard to do both!"

The beginning of a new year

Even though school doesn't officially start back up again until Monday, I thought I would share some observations I've made over the past few months. Although we stay quite busy during school time, it is still hard for me to see the subtle day-to-day changes. I know Julia has made progress in her skills and knowledge base since we began in mid-August, but sometimes it feels as though it comes too easily. The progress that I have noticed:

Penmanship:
Julia began the school year only writing in capital letters. She was even frightened with the idea of learning lower case. Today she writes effortlessly and often. Occasionally she makes her letters the wrong way, but the vast majority of her writing is clear and easy to read.

Math:
Julia's math learning has been progressing well. The last Friday before Christmas Break she took the first review test of our second book. That means we only have another 25 or 30 lessons left to be where I was hoping we would end up at the end of the school year. There are still somethings that I feel are missing in her math knowledge, but she has been introduced to some complicated concepts already.

Reading/Phonics:
Julia's reading is really taking off. She does not love the drill of phonics learning, but I know it has helped to improve her reading skills. Last night she and I began the first book of the Magic Tree House series. We started alternating pages and I agreed to read two chapters with her. We came to the third chapter and she was hooked. She asked if she could keep reading. I said yes, but that I was done reading for the night so she would have to read all the pages to me. She was about half way through the first page when John handed the phone to me and told me. So I left her with her book. I was on the phone for awhile and Julia found me, book in hand, and asked me what one of the words was. I told her to ask her father. Later I was off the phone and in the living room. At one point, maybe 30-45 min after I had left her room with the phone, she came downstairs with a huge, proud grin on her face. She announced to us that she read the whole book! She was so happy and proud. The book had 10 chapters, 68 pages. After congratulating her we told her she really needed to get to bed. Later when I checked on her before I went to bed I noticed she had the second book out with a bookmark at the third chapter. I'm sure there are words she skips over or isn't reading correctly (although she told me one day that she found if she kept reading she could figure out the hard words by the rest of the story), but I think her reading fire has been lit!

History:
Julia enjoys history well-enough. She doesn't like me asking her review questions about what we have read, but she is definitely getting an idea of the world around her. Much more, I'm sure, than I knew at her age.

Science:
We are continuing our life science notebook with our study of animals. We will continue this into the spring, but may leave the animal kingdom for awhile and do some plant biology. I think we will leave human biology for next year.

Dance:
Julia goes back and forth about whether or not she enjoys hip hop. I think it is fun for her, but it does move awfully fast and just when she feels like she is starting to "get it" her teacher adds to it or introduces a whole new dance.

PE:
Although Julia enjoys running in a soggy, muddy field, she doesn't like her timed runs so much. I imagine she will want to drop PE for next semester.

Computers:
I think Julia enjoys her computer class and will probably want to continue. I can't say that I have noticed a great improvement in her computer skills, but I'm really not worried about that at this point.

So anyway, although I don't see big break throughs day to day or week to week, they must be happening, because when I look back on what we have done so far this school year I can tell that she has grown from a preschooler to a true kindergartener.