Whoosh! That's the sound of this past school year flying by. Felix finished up his Kindergarten year on 6/4. I took a day and a half off last week to spend some good goof-off time with him before he started summer club.
I took a day off recently to be a chaperone on the Kindergarten end-of-year trip to Pizza Hut and a dairy farm. It was nice to share the experience with him - he was a bit nervous about getting too close to the cows, but as you can see from the picture, he handled it well. :o)
A few reflections on the school year:
- It's amazing how much he grew this year (physically and mentally).
- His behavior started off a bit rough (found a number of like-personality kids who couldn't quite figure out how to play with each other), but got progressively better.
- His report card showed improvement in all areas from math and English to keeping on task from the first quarter to the end (yay!).
- He's gotten into reading. Though reading books on his own still overwhelms him, having read him Harry Potter at the end of the year got him hooked on longer books with complicated storylines. And he's starting to realize that he can sound out words all around him.
- He tells fantastic tales with his drawings and the stories he writes on them. I loved seeing the "draw a picture and tell a story" schoolwork he brought home.
- He has most recently expressed interest in being a train driver, a chef, and a writer.
- We're hoping that it's only a matter of time that his listening skills improve like everything else.
- He tends to police Iris, even though we're in the same room. He's like an overzealous sheepdog.
Felix played in rec soccer for the first time in May and enjoyed it. He seems to have a defensive mind, which we can try to nurture if he decides he wants to do it again in the fall. The kids played in five games over the course of the month, and during the last, a very rainy affair, Felix scored his first goal. It was a very proud moment for us. Go Purple Beetles!
It was a pretty quiet month for the rest of us. Iris has been her delightful, headstrong, chatty, daredevil self. She's starting to play pretend, which I've been anticipating for a while. Either Duplos or trains - it's nice to hear her making up her own little worlds. I picked up a little bicycle for her, which I assumed we'd put away until next year. Nope. She saw it and had to ride it NOW, even though she just learned how to pedal her trike a few weeks earlier. We can't get her off it now, and have to make sure she doesn't try to emulate Felix and cruise down the street instead of staying in the driveways.
Nick and I took a little getaway to Door County for our 7th anniversary over Memorial Day weekend. Left the kids in GB, went to Egg Harbor, enjoyed uninterrupted sleep, took a trolley tour to four wineries, and sampled wines galore. Every so often, it's nice to not have to be constantly vigilant or picking out a dinner based on a five-year-old palate.
We hope you have a great summer!
Felix: 5.5 yrs & Iris: 2.5 yrs
