No, I’m not talking about the democratic primary season, although allow me to say briefly – Go Obama! And also, although I am deeply sympathetic to the other candidate and how very crushingly disappointing this defeat must be for her, and although I have my own share of disappointment over how things have turned out because I would dearly love for my daughters to not even have to ask the question, “Can a woman ever be president of the United States?”, I am also deeply annoyed that she hasn’t conceded yet. You’re done! Now go away, we have more important work to do than to figure out what happens next to you.
But! I’m not here to talk about that. What I mean by my title is that Kindergarten is over for Mallory. It seemed to pass in the blink of an eye, well, except that I still remember the tedium of each and every handwriting worksheet, and still feel the pain of every morning wake-up (not a morning person, my oldest daughter) – but it’s done, and with this I feel she’s left the very last vestige of babyhood behind. She’s well and truly a big kid now. She can read (some), she has excellent penmanship, she can add and subtract and count by 5’s, she knows about planets and presidents. She loves recess, she groans about PE, she can count to ten in Spanish and she can recite a full litany of Catholic prayers (including “Our Father, who art in Heaven, Howard be thy name.”) She had a few bad days this year and has not, I’m afraid, quite learned how to recover from being reprimanded or corrected; she’s apparently very quiet in class and I suspect that she doesn’t let on how much she can really do. She needs to work on confidence and on following directions, and on NOT consistently being the last child to find page 47 in her workbook, or to get in line for lunch, or to clean up after Art, or to pack up at the end of the day. But overall she did good. And yesterday afternoon she dug right into the stack of worksheets her teacher sent home for summer work, so I think she really enjoys learning. That’s the thing I want most from her school experience, to enjoy the experience of learning new things, so I’m content.
All that said, Mallory had to write a sentence in class yesterday that summed up the year. She wrote: “In kindergarten I learned how to sit on the carpet.” Now that’s tuition money well spent.
But! I’m not here to talk about that. What I mean by my title is that Kindergarten is over for Mallory. It seemed to pass in the blink of an eye, well, except that I still remember the tedium of each and every handwriting worksheet, and still feel the pain of every morning wake-up (not a morning person, my oldest daughter) – but it’s done, and with this I feel she’s left the very last vestige of babyhood behind. She’s well and truly a big kid now. She can read (some), she has excellent penmanship, she can add and subtract and count by 5’s, she knows about planets and presidents. She loves recess, she groans about PE, she can count to ten in Spanish and she can recite a full litany of Catholic prayers (including “Our Father, who art in Heaven, Howard be thy name.”) She had a few bad days this year and has not, I’m afraid, quite learned how to recover from being reprimanded or corrected; she’s apparently very quiet in class and I suspect that she doesn’t let on how much she can really do. She needs to work on confidence and on following directions, and on NOT consistently being the last child to find page 47 in her workbook, or to get in line for lunch, or to clean up after Art, or to pack up at the end of the day. But overall she did good. And yesterday afternoon she dug right into the stack of worksheets her teacher sent home for summer work, so I think she really enjoys learning. That’s the thing I want most from her school experience, to enjoy the experience of learning new things, so I’m content.
All that said, Mallory had to write a sentence in class yesterday that summed up the year. She wrote: “In kindergarten I learned how to sit on the carpet.” Now that’s tuition money well spent.
Comments
Mom
And yay to Mallory for being a 1st grader. It, too, will go so fast you won't believe it.