Kai and Kindergarten

This past week Kai had his first class field trip.  He was excited to go with his teacher's morning class to Wishing Star Farm.  They seriously spent 3 hours at the farm!  Kai had a great time and was so proud of the pumpkin he picked out.  He is so anxious to carve it into a jack-o-lantern that I just don't have the heart to tell him that it's a tad soft and a bit on the lighter side for a pumpkin (I'm guessing it's not too fresh on the inside. :()  He loves it and that's what matters!

Also this week was our first round of parent-teacher conferences.  I'll admit that I wasn't sure what to expect, but I came out very impressed with what he is learning and what is going on in the classroom. I have volunteered in his class twice over the last month, and so I think his teacher is feeling more comfortable with me (she is super-shy and  has a hard time talking to adults) and that makes me feel better.  I'm hoping that by the end of the year she'll feel free to share with me anything that she needs to.  Anyway, she started the conference by pulling out Kai's work.  She showed me a one-inch binder that she keeps especially for Kai (with his name printed on cute paper on the spine) for a sampling of his work and art throughout the year that she will then gift to the parents at the end of the school-year. How awesome is that!  She also pulled out his journal to show me handwriting samples from the first day of school through to the present, and I was really impressed with just how far he has come in a short two months.  Finally, she pulled out his assessments.  When I was in the classroom last week I noticed that they were pulling kids out on an individual level to do assessments, and so I was very curious about this.  The first thing she noted was that in terms of reading, reading comprehension, and math Kai scored a 0.8.  Ummm....that number didn't look good to me.  She went on to explain that meant that when the school year started Kai was on the same level as a kid in their 8th month of Kindergarten.  Ok, I thought.....not so bad.  Then she told me that he scored the highest out of all 31 kids from her 2 classes.  Ok, not going to lie, it was a proud mommy moment!  She went on to talk about watching his progression throughout the year to see if he would qualify for gifted testing at year's end.  She did warn me that it's awfully hard for a kindergartner to get into the program and that in order to even qualify for the test he would need to score a 2.5 on his assessments.  Yikes!  He has a ways to go, but I'm sure we can get him there.  And if not, that's ok, too.  I'm awfully proud of my little guy and he sure doesn't need a label for us to all know that he's a "smart cookie" (Ms. Korte's words, not mine).  After that we ended up flipping through the remainder of his assessments.  Kai scored 100% on every.single.section.  Well, he struggled with only one section--segmentation--but that is one that we've never really introduced to him, so that's understandable.  We talked about it and agreed that we would work on it at home with him, and she also said that they just started working on this in the classroom and she didn't think he would have a hard time picking up on it.  We'll see.  I HATED phonics as a kid and always struggled with it.  I never understood the rules.  I just memorized my words--just like Kai.  So, we'll see!  :)  We finished with talking about his assessments for the first trimester (which ends right before Thanksgiving) and she said that since he has already demonstrated mastery of the requirements she's not even going to reassess him.  Fantastic!

I also wanted to mention that last week the school had a program called "Kindergarten Preview".  Kai was so excited about this evening as it was a chance for him to bring me to school and rotate around to all of the different specials so I could see what he was learning in art, technology, counseling, PE, library, and music.  It was a fun night and I was impressed with all of the teachers, especially the ones that knew the kids' names right off.  (which most of them did)  I had another proud-mommy moment when the librarian found me and asked if I was Kai's mom.  When I answered in the affirmative she told me that Kai had told her he was going to be an astro-physicist and that she believed him because he was really that smart.  She also told me that she has a son in middle school who takes the bus over every day to help her out in the library and that Kai is his favorite kid.  This made me smile, and also helped to explain who this "Cameron" was that Kai has come home talking about.  So, not only does Cameron enjoy Kai, Kai really enjoys Cameron.  Her comments made me proud and watching Kai in his specials "classes" that night made me realize just what a good kid he is.  He has his moments, and I think Ms. Korte deals with them more, but for the most part he just loves school and everything that includes.  He says his favorite class is PE.  I'm sure one day in the not too distant future that will change but, at least for this week, that's his favorite.

We sure do love this little man!