1st Quarter Completed

Jacob and Matthew have completed their 1st quarter of their public school careers. I attended parent teacher conferences and was very impressed with their progress. They are both ahead of most of their peers academically. Jacob has already completed all of his end of the school year goals and Matthew has started the second quarter curriculum at the end of 1st quarter. I am hoping their academic success will continue.

Jacob has started having nightly homework. He brings a simple phonics level book home with beginning sight words that he is suppose to read three times. I know how important reading is to his future academic success so I actually make him read his assigned book and then also read a book of his choice from our home library. I am happy that he is in the top reading group for his class but that doesn't mean he gets to relax now. I want to make sure he is continuing to practice and progress and doesn't begin to slide.

Math is an area that I haven't really started to emphasize too much. As he gets older I may force him to practice it more but right now it doesn't seem to be necessary. His teacher stated math comes very easy to him and every time they introduce a new concept or ask him to do something a little harder, he easily accomplishes it. Last week he started bringing home basic addition worksheets. I will probably have him do extra math problems if he ever starts to have trouble but right now he is accomplishing math skills for the end of kindergarten or the beginning of first grade so I don't want to push him too hard at home.

Matthew also is finding school is very easy. I was told last week that he is getting to his day care in time for their 4K curriculum. That means he is getting the school district curriculum as well as the day care's which is a little more advanced. I am hopeful that it will give him a little bit of a head start for kindergarten next year. He is really excited about learning to read so I am hopeful he can continue to love reading and learning.

So far their school careers are off to a great start just as I am preparing to end mine. I have most of my work done for this semester which means I just have 2 classes, a research project and an internship to go before I graduate in August. It will feel so great to have this degree and work behind me. Now I just have to complete my licensure exams and I will be all set. I plan to send in the paperwork for those tests next week and hope to take the exam in December.