Its been so fun to watch Dekker and Laela learn through this school year. Dekker is learning SO MUCH in school, making very real strides. Just recently, his reading levels were tested, and he was thrilled to have skipped another level altogether, bumping him up TWO levels in one shot! We congratulated him and celebrated, and then had a casual chat about how, as tends to happen, his next level might be a bit tricky, and we’ll help him through it so he won’t be discouraged. That whole thing where it has to get more difficult can really get him down. But then he just read the book. Like WAY smoother than I expected! He finished it off with “Well, that was easier than I thought it would be.” Win! So Dekker is doing AWESOME!
Laela is in preschool this year, which she has loved! Its been great for her, to stretch her social skills, as well as taught her some new games, some basic skills like cutting with scissors, and the general “school” vibe of lining up, putting her hand up to speak, etc. I’m SO glad to have the opportunity to have her in preschool! But she also watches Dekker do his homework when he comes home and I can tell she’s ready for more.
As I’ve said on here plenty of times, Laela has work books that she likes to do. She practices printing letters, and identifies the items on the paper that start with the letter she’s working on. Stuff like that. She LOVES it.
Today, after our morning got off to a rough start, Laela settled herself down on a couch and announced that she was going to do some homework. She had a few books with her, and started going through them. She easily identified all the letters in the alphabet books, and figured out what on the page started with the letters. If she got stuck, she’d ask me and I’d definitely help her, but the majority, she figured out on her own. Easily. She moved on to a numbers book after that where I learned that she can easily count to 50, and I assume she could get up to 100 easily, but this book only went to 50. She understands the concept of how the numbers kind of repeat, and she can count by 10s to 100, so I think thats already done.
I’m not trying to suggest that she’s some child genius, but I am SO thrilled that she already knows so much before kindergarten has even started! She will know her basic stuff, and have a nice solid head start. Because of preschool, she’ll already be familiar with many of her classmates, so she won’t likely be very nervous at all to stay at school for the day. I think she’ll be a quick sell on school. She is SO ready.
We have just a couple of things to achieve before the fall, so I’m in no rush 😉 Let’s do summer first and fall can figure itself out down the line. Its just nice anticipating that transition ahead as a smooth one.