Proud Mom

Since I ragged on Emma this week for cutting her hair and donating $20 to some lucky kid at school, I'll also sing her praises. She is one smart cookie and doing great in school.

When we had her first parent teacher conference in the fall, we learned that she went to Enrichment classes three mornings a week. It isn't yet considered a Talented & Gifted class per se, but it is the same idea. There are two that go from her class and 5 kindergartners all together. She is the only girl in the 5. This month they have been focusing on Presidents, so one day they took a T/F quiz where they had to predict the answers, then they read a book and found out what the answers were. They also had to come up with a topic having to do with presidents and draw a picture, then dictated what they wanted to say to the enrichment teacher who typed it out and put it on the back of the picture. The five kids then gave a "presentation" to the other 95 kindergartners.

Of course Emma chose Presidential Pets. Did you know Grover Cleveland had a pet raccoon which he called Rebecca? And some presidential kids have had snakes as pets in the White House. "Kind of scary!" The last part of her presentation she asked, "Do you know what kind of pet Sasha and Melia Obama want in the White House?" She said she was the only one who asked a question and then got to call on someone for the answer.

I don't know about you, but I was impressed. On one of the online bulletin boards I frequent, there are often topics that bring about "heated" discussions and one I read about last week as kindergarten readiness. It was either "Your child needs to know differential equations and read Shakespeare by age 5 or they will be way behind in kindergarten and doomed to fail at school" or it was "My child already knows his/her ABC's and 123's and is bored out of his/her gourd at school." I don't believe either extreme. Yes, the expectations for kindergarten are maybe higher than when I went (you had to be able to tie your shoes, something Emma hasn't all the way mastered) but I don't believe in "prepping" your child for kindergarten by intensively teaching letters and reading and numbers. But on the other hand, if your child goes into school with maybe a greater base of knowledge, they shouldn't be left to sit and twiddle their thumbs and be "bored" because the other 80% of the class is working on reading three and four letter sight words.

I am glad that in Emma's class there seems to be a balance for those who are maybe more "advanced". The enrichment classes help them to explore subjects further and give them an opportunity to share what they have learned. Her teacher is also a wonderful 30 year veteran teacher who is able to teach to the whole class. There are two other boys along with Emma who are around the same reading level and they do different activities during "workshop" time. There are probably 4-5 groups in total that are all working at different skill levels. She has never once come home and told me "Mom, I am bored at school". I hope that we can stay on top of her interests and she always enjoys going to school. At least for the next few years, anyway.