Summer School

This is it, the last week of summer school. I can hardly believe that it is has been a month of kindergarten for the twins. We prayed that they would get Mrs Calhoun after we were told she is the teacher that "pushes hardest" and we were thrilled when they told us she would be their teacher for the summer. McKenna hates school. She usually cries during drop-off, doesn't eat a lot at lunch, doesn't eat much at snack, and doesn't talk or play with other kids in the class. The twins don't sit next to each other in class because the teacher did assigned seating. That actually isn't a bad thing because this way they have each other if they are nervous or scared but they don't depend too much on each other this way. Although McKenna isn't a fan of school, she has participated. She brings home her worksheets and they usually are completed and she has tried to do the work. She has learned to write a few lower cases letters in a different/easier way. She has even started counting clear to 36, and occasionally remembers to say the number 13, which is the number she has always missed since she started counting. Before summer school, McKenna was able to identify all of her letters and write nearly all of her capital letters and most of her lower case letters. It is exciting to see that in the past three weeks she has improved what she already knew and has added to her tank of knowledge. She is talking more and seems to be more energetic at home. She has a great imagination and loves to make up stories while "reading" and has really been doing that more the past few weeks. She plays "teacher" and sings songs she learns at school and pretends to put kids in time-out and discipline them. She brings her stuffed kitty to school daily and when she comes home he usually needs spankings or discipline of some kind. It's adorable to watch. Keaton already knows the academic side of summer school academics. He went into summer school already knowing his letters and being able to write them and writing words. He knows phonics and can sound out a great deal of words and is doing well reading 1st grade level books. He can count to 100 and can add and subtract numbers 1-10. This week he came home and wrote 4+4+4=12. He amazes me with his ability to learn and to retain information so quickly. He is very competitive and all it takes is a challenge and he will try his hardest. The first week of school was tough for Keaton. He wanted to play with a little boy named Kyler that didn't want to have anything to do with Keaton. Keaton asked him to be his friend and the kid said no. The boy told Keaton his coloring was gross and his name was gross. Of course mommy bear came out and I wanted to talk to the teacher, but instead I told Keaton to tell the boy that hurt his feelings and to not talk to him that way. The next day he did just that and the kid didn't apologize but doesn't seem to be causing problems for Keaton anymore. At recess, Keaton plays with Marco, a twin in our neighborhood. They seem to be getting along great and having a lot of fun. Usually when I pick up the twins from school Keaton is asking to go swimming so he can see Marco, who he just said bye to five seconds earlier. So this is our last week of school and Keaton missed Monday and is missing today, Tuesday. I am praying they can go to school tomorrow and Thursday but we will just have to see how they are feeling.