Learning What It's Like to Parent a Kindergartner

I think we are starting to get used to the new kindergarten routine. Thomas comes home every night with new papers to review and books to read. He completes his homework assignments once a week in addition to his readers. He has learned how to spell a couple of new words and does quite well sounding words out.

Tonight was Meet the Teachers night at school, and Tom's teacher reviewed his curriculum with a class full of parents. She said what used to be first grade curriculum is now kindergarten curriculum, and it does seem that way, but what do I remember? All I know is that, after his first day, his reflection on kindergarten was that it was a lot more "work" than preschool. Of course, by the end of Day Two he was extremely excited and thrilled to go to his new school, and we have been very thankful to be able to send him there, all the while.

Last weekend his homework was to draw a picture of our house and then present it to the class on Monday, and when he did he had to recite his address and phone number. Well, we have taught Tommy a lot about numbers. He already knows his math quite well for his age, I think (having mastered the skills that his teacher said they would "even" get to by the end of the year). He knows all his letters, and we help him learn to read. We have worked on our writing. The one thing that slipped through the cracks? Blame it on the fact that we thought we were going to move, or that we had/have three phone numbers all together (including the cell numbers), or just blame it on us forgetting or just turning into lazy lumps if you want, but while we taught him the town and state we live in, and we tried to remind him of our street name and number, we completely left out our phone number. So Sunday night we made up a little jingle, and Tommy had it down pat in no time. In the morning I asked him if he remembered, and without hesitation he rattled off his entire address and phone number as though he had known it forever. I was pleased and a bit relieved. Well, for whatever reason he forgot part of it when he had to present it to the class the next day. No big deal, right? After all, he had only learned his phone number the night before, and he was able to recite it to us that same night without difficulty. Well... that night after he went to bed he called in for us, and Brian went to see what was up. As it turned out, he was all upset that he couldn't remember his phone number! He said he couldn't sleep! Geez! The pressure at age 5. I didn't know whether to think it was cute, be proud that he wanted so badly to please us, or whether I felt unbearably guilty for having made too a big deal of remembering it that he couldn't sleep at night for fear that he might forget!!! Oh, how I love my little munchkin. (How long can I call him that?) Well, of course he had it all memorized the following day and has yet to forget a single piece of information since. I sure do hope he doesn't always put so much pressure on himself though... or this could be a rough ride!

Anyway, here's to Tommy and kindergarten!