Maddie's preschool wrapped up for the year last Thursday, finishing with a cute end of year celebration: an animal fashion show. Miss Kate went all out and rented a tent for the Pre-K graduation and the preschool refreshments after the show. The kids had each been assigned a particular animal and had to do homework assignments concerning that animal over the past couple of weeks. Madelyn had chosen a lion - and had been going around the house practicing her roar for at least a few weeks! (Funnier still is that she's also had her sisters practicing, so Sienna and even Little Miss Lyla have gotten their ROARRRs down pat!) Miss Kate had taped each of the kids describing key facts about themselves as the animal, which she played while each child was walking down the "runway." It was so adorable to hear Maddie's cute little recorded voice saying, "I am a lion. I live in Africa. I weigh 500 pounds. My enemies are: buffalos. Something special about me is: I only live in Africa." She had her face lightly painted and a posterboard lion placard that she had painted and decorated hanging from her neck. Some of her friends were frogs, panda bears, tigers, etc. and they were all just adorable.
After the fashion show was over, the kids sang some songs and then we headed to the tent for refreshments and socializing. It was a very nice end to what has been a great year. It's amazing the difference that a great school can make... Madelyn has truly flourished this year in Miss Kate's class, and has so thoroughly enjoyed it that I really wish I could send her every single day, just because it makes her so happy to go. The amount of things she has learned in one year just amazes me, and she's had such a nice opportunity to grow her leadership skills and to make some good friends with the other two girls in her class. Her end of year report indicated we should continue to provide her with opportunities to do higher order math (addition, subtraction, word problems, etc.) and to sound out words, etc. These are things she loves to work on -- she amazes me with her ability to do math in her head at age 4! If you ask her what 7 minus 5 is, for example, she can usually answer without hesitation and get it right. I think she has inherited her daddy's mathematical mind -- because it surely does NOT come from me. The thing about Maddie is that we're never trying to encourage her to learn this kind of thing - I'm all for kids being kids, knowing they'll spend plenty of time over the years in school, etc., etc. But Maddie usually begs for this kind of exercise and just really has fun doing it. So we figure we might as well encourage it. She probably won't enjoy word problems and homework forever!
I give it max 2 weeks before Madelyn is begging to go back to Miss Kate's. One thing is certain, she will definitely get bored around the house this summer with a less structured weekly schedule, so I need to find some ideas for Rachael. Bored kids = trouble for everyone around!
No comments:
Post a Comment