Kids come home at 2:22 p.m. (except early out on Wednesdays). They unpack their lunch bags and deploy paperwork, hang up backpacks, have a snack, practice piano (in an ideal world), do "homework." This year, Talmage is learning the ins and outs of a day planner. The teacher provided them for his students and a parent needs to initial daily. I get to see what Talmage does every day. Sort of. It helps me ask pertinent questions ("How'd you do on your spelling pretest?" was the question of today. He missed "doubt". No doubt. Actually, Talmage spells really well.).
Sydney's teacher assigns homework on a quarterly basis. She got a sheet of paper that lists the activities she can do at home for the quarter in different subjects and then she turns in the paper at the end of the quarter with the things she did checked off. As if daily work is going to happen with that set up (She'd read all afternoon if she could get away with it, so I'm not concerned in that department ... but math ... yeah, right).
Clara's school experience... well, let's have her speak for herself. She'll throw out random comments from day to day like, "Esperanza and me, we bothed talked when we weren't supposed to talk and my teacher putted me up front." Regarding other classmates, "Abdullahee. He's bad. He tells the other kids names, like pooh-face. He says 'Poooh." On the playground, "I play with Sydney. Sometimes I want to hug her but she doesn't want me to hug her." When I gave her 50 cents to buy milk, "My teacher didn't give it to the lunch person. I didn't even want some milk!" Today, she brought home her handwriting worksheet with some beautiful penmanship. Clara confessed, "The six-year-old Ariana did it [as opposed to the 6th grader Ariana]. Because I didn't know how to do the small letters." In music class ... , Today I asked her what she did and she started singing, "Here's the drum and here's the bell, 'Listen, listen, here I come, someone special gets the drum.'"
Extra-curricular activities this fall include gymnastics on Monday and Thursday, 4-8 p.m. for Sydney; soccer on Tuesday and Thursday, 6-7 p.m. for Talmage, as well as piano lessons about 3x/month. Clara isn't doing anything extra right now. Miles goes to a rockin' playgroup Tuesday and Thursday mornings, 9-12 p.m. Things are pretty simple and that's how I like it.
