Back To School

So Abby has returned to school – as a 1st grader! Woot! We lucked out again this year with another great teacher. Abby really likes her, and now that Lee and I have had a chance to get to know her a little better, we are very satisfied with her as well. Abby has a whole new set of kids to get to know, and she’s finally making a friend with a little boy sitting next to her. (She thought boys were too different to make good friends with!)

This year also comes with a new set of homework rules. Ok, so last year, I HATED their homework ideas. I thought it was waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much for a kindergartner. It was ridiculous. As parents, I thought we were doing a great job promoting learning, especially developing her love for reading. We read to her anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour nearly every day. She has a HUGE library of books, especially compared to a lot of other kids I know who don’t even have a single book in their room. I felt like, for kindergarten, we were already doing a lot. And then they just piled on the most stupid homework. Now, this year, they seem to have gone the other way. It seems like it’s too little. This year, they only want 20 minutes of reading/day + one sentence about what you read + one page of math. Really? That’s ALL they want the kids to do?? Reading and math? THAT’S what they should have pushed for in kindergarten! For 1st grade I expect a little more. Where’s history? Where’s social studies? (I’m expecting stuff like basic American history – like who’s our first President and who made the first American flag. And I’m expecting basic social studies – like what type of worker’s make up our communities. You know. Basics.) So where is all of this stuff going? The school assured the parents that these subjects weren’t being dropped; they just weren’t going to be taken home with the kids. They want the parents to focus on supporting reading and math in the home. Ergh. We were already doing that.

I’m really proud of Abby’s dedication to running laps. Last year there was a class competition for kids to get a T-shirt marked with the number of laps they walked/ran that year. Abby set for herself the goal of 50 miles. Lee and I knew she wouldn’t get there that year. We cautioned her about it, but she stuck to her goal and asked if we could get her to school early enough for her to run a lap BEFORE school started. Lee and I blinked at each other and then said “sure!” We even counted all of her hiking miles and any other big walks we would take. At the beginning of this school year, Abby has not only stuck with it, she has doubled her efforts. She now walks/runs two to three laps in the morning. Wow! She didn’t get a love of exercise from me or Lee, that’s for sure. But wherever this motivation has come from, we’re absolutely going to support her! She’ll get to that 50 mile mark in no time at this rate!

Time flies. Honestly, I don’t know where it all goes. My little girl is about to turn 6 too. 6!! Egads, how/when did she get so big?



These photos are from Letherby’s ice cream parlor. Abby got to pick her own dessert and she ate it with gusto! Until she got to the end and started to get a tummy ache. Though some of these photos are too blurry for words, I still think you get the idea of the progression of emotions she went through. Excitement/delight, pleasure, inadequateness, sickish, and then a full blown tummy ache. Ah, childhood!