Monday, June 29, 2009

finish Kindergarten- check!

Seth finished Kindergarten on June 3 (after having to make up 3 snow days).
Last day of Kindergarten.

First Day of Kindergarten, August 2008

Seth had a great school year and truly loved everything about it! He had an awesome art teacher who came in every Friday morning and taught them actual art concepts along with how to cut and paste. He said that was his favorite part of school. He also had great PE and music teachers- those classes alternated everyday. In music, they did a whole unit on Indian music and each kid got to make an instrument- Seth made a tambura.
His best friend, Brennan was in his class all year. And since there are only two classes per grade in their school, they have a 50/50 chance of repeating the fun!
Seth did pretty well in his subjects- but really excelled in reading. His teacher told me that at the end of this school year, his reading level was a whole year ahead (end of first grade). We're determined to keep this ability going but having him read multiple books every day this summer. He's doing great so far. Seth also did well in math- he caught on to the concepts of addition and subtraction quickly. He like to sit and write out math problems for himself or have us write some for him. He can add multiple digit numbers together and carry numbers as well.
His handwriting is pretty poor though, he still writes using capital letters a lot. So we are trying to work on that at home this summer too.
Seth rode the bus to school almost every day. His was the last stop, so when the bus picked him up at the end of our street at 8am, it took him directly to school. I usually picked him up everyday though, otherwise he would have been on the bus for 45 minutes or so after school. He really liked riding the bus.

Seth has started piano lessons this summer and is doing pretty well and not tired of it yet. He has a great teacher who is very patient and jokes a lot- so his lessons are always fun. He's also on a swim team and goes to practice every weekday morning for an hour. Slowly but surely he is getting better and better at swimming. He understands the basic concepts but he is not very strong and his strokes are really wild. I'm hoping that after this summer, he'll be able to swim across the pool without stopping.

He is a good boy and we love him so much!

Saturday, June 27, 2009

my two little boys

could not be more different....
Tonight we were at an outdoor concert ("Blues, Brews and BBQ").  The kids all got their faces painted and a balloon tied to their wrists (both were free- you can tell by the quality of the "baseball" on Jonas's face).  Jon pointed out to the kids a red balloon flying way up high in the sky.  Jonas was fascinated by it, looked at the red balloon tied to his wrist and said "Mommy- I want my balloon go up too!"  (He has suddenly started to speak in complete sentences!)  I spent the next few minutes explaining to him that his balloon was going to go bye-bye.  He seemed excited about it, so I took the balloon off his wrist and he let it go.  He was totally elated and watched the balloon until he couldn't see it anymore yelling "bye-bye balloon" over and over.  Seth and Maryn still had their balloons but Jonas didn't care that he didn't have one anymore. 

In complete contrast to Jonas's excitement- Seth completely fell apart crying and saying "He should have just given his balloon to me!  Can we go back and get him another red balloon?"  He was totally distraught for the rest of the evening, crying and saying things like "I wish balloons would never pop.  How does the helium get out of the balloon anyway?  Is that balloon going to go all the way up to outer space?  Is it going to get to heaven?"

caution and control-----curiosity and adventure

Friday, June 26, 2009

mia

summer is upon us- so much going on- must update blog

- family visited
- swim team
- piano lessons
- princess birthday party
- kindergarten graduate
- toddler speaking in sentences

details and pics coming soon