We said goodbye to Kindergarten today. Well, technically Andrew's last day is on Tuesday, but today we sifted through all of his school work and art projects. I didn't have the heart to throw anything away during the school year - each piece of paper showed his progress and made me so proud. I threw all of his papers and artwork into a drawer - we had quite the collection! Andrew and I worked together to sort each piece into a "recycle," "keep," and "take a picture, then throw it away," pile. I'm planning to make a book out of the pictures we took. Randy was the one that had to throw everything away, though, it broke my heart a little.
When Andrew first started school, he was generally the last kid to finish his work. While his classmates were busy doing their work, he was staring off into La-La land. He wasn't distracting to the other kids, but it took him awhile to get going. The other kids got "free choosing" time after they completed their work, and Andrew rarely did. I was in his class every other week and it was frustrating for me to watch! But after a couple of months, something just clicked in his brain and he just got it. He did his work and had enough time for free choosing. His handwriting, cutting & coloring improved. He rarely needed help from me when he did homework at home - and often, he'd ask for more homework and so I had to make things up for him. His reading skills improved a ton and he read over 100 books with me!
I don't think we could have received a better Kindergarten experience. Mrs. McDonald is amazing - she is one of those that everything she touches turns to gold. She is a perfectionist and very thorough - she was able to accomplish so much in a short time. She also taught them silly songs and poems and was so kind and gentle. I also grew to love her aid, Miss Alisha. At first, I wasn't so sure about her. I think she thought I was a crazy, overprotective parent (I was), but I think our first impressions of each other changed by the end of the year.
2 comments:
you are so nice. I thought I would have that problem with Ammie's pre-school stuff, but it wasn't too hard for me to throw away. There are still a couple things I have hanging on the fridge (which I swore I would never do) that I can't get rid of. Maybe in kindergarten there projects are a little more than scribbles, which would make them harder to get rid of.
I did this same thing--almost exactly! That is so funny. And the whole time I figured I was crazy for holding on to Tyler's stuff for the entire school year. But then it was really fun to go through it with him and point out how he'd grown and learned and changed. We took some pictures of things too. :) I'm so glad they got to be in the same fantastic class.
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