Kindergarten: Week 7

An interesting thing happened this week. On Wednesday, Hailey can home with a little plastic pink necklace from Madeline. I thought it was a little weird but didn't think much of it after I made sure Hailey wasn't giving out her things. Then on Thursday, Hailey came home with an art project Madeline did a while ago in class, a homemade bracelet, a mirror, and an ICarly make compact all from Madeline. When I asked about them, Hailey told me they were her prizes for listening only to Madeline. Now I really don't like what's going on but was at a lost of what to do.  Should I really get involved? Hailey isn't interested in giving anything to Madeline so it is still a problem? After asking other moms on facebook about what I should do, I ended up just telling Hailey she needs to give it all back. I explained that we can draw things for our friends but we don't give or receive toys.  She handled it just fine and gave everything back on Friday.

I happened to be volunteering on Friday also. At least in her reading group that they do in the morning for almost two hours, Hailey and Madeline are separated.  It is useful for me to go in and get to know Hailey's classmates so I can help encourage her to be friends with everyone.

Mrs. Thomas actually had a lot of volunteers this morning. I was there, another dad was there, and Mrs. Thomas' little brother who was on a break at his college was there. Her brother and I worked together on the art project that day. They were finger painting little egg cartons black to turn them into spiders.  It got very messy and it took both of us to help with the mess. I went around writing their names and her brother stayed on top of washing hands. If they got done quickly, they could draw a picture of what they saw during their fall walk they took earlier in the week.  Some kids needed even more help filling up the time, so we talked about Halloween and what they were going to be. It is fun to interact with this age group. One girl, drew a picture of the road and sidewalk for want she saw on their walk. She ran out of time to draw more but it was fun to tease her that she was just looking down the whole time (she is a very smart first grader and understood the light teasing). A lot of kids talked about seeing a dog. Hailey drew some birds by making a V in the sky. However, when she was talking about her picture it sounded like she was saying she saw beavers instead of v-birds.

 I think in the first square Hailey tried to write I like leaves falling down without the teacher's example. Then the teacher wrote the sentence, then she rewrote it also.

 Hailey enjoyed doing the paths and did a great job at getting from one point to the other.

 Darlene pointed out that doing dot-to-dot pages can be tough for some first graders (she taught first grade one year). They have seemed to come to her very easily.