School Daze

Under three months until I have completed my Associate of Arts in Communications. I am reminded because all three of my advisors - financial, academic, and general - called me within minutes of each other yesterday. Good news on that front; my student loans are approved for the next quarter (they always are, but it's nice to get the call).

But mostly I wanted to talk about Lizzy's school. Like most children, she behaves differently for other adults than she does for parents; overall her behavior is better there (or possibly simply more appropriate for the setting; it is child-centric after all). She's also smart as a whip, a bit scattered, and very, very busy. In my experience as her mother. And her teachers seem to agree, although there are some skills she uses at school but not at home, and vice-versa.

Scissors, for instance. I am very uncomfortable with her using scissors at home, even the little school scissors. She uses them every day at school, however, and according to her teachers, she uses them very well for her age. She's in the early stages of reading (and like most children, recognizes half the words she reads by the typeface - so she reads dozens of logos and only twenty or so words), and is working steadily on addition, with little forays into subtraction. She apparently has impressive fine motor skills with a crayon, a pencil, and flatware.

She gets along well with other kids, she is well-spoken in things like show-and-tell, and (like her sister Abby and her mother and her mother before her) never shuts up in the classroom. Her diction is improving; the Elmer-Fudd-itis is now usually restricted to the letter R in the middle of words, when paired with another consonant (example: she says the Rs in berry, but the R in straw is still a W - giving us stwawberry). She's willing to tackle any subject, her teachers tell me, from insects to Doctor Who (the latter of which is getting a workout this week, as they are studying the solar system). She is insistent that Pluto is still a planet, by the way, but a small one. Take that!

She has "a scientific bent" (we knew that; she is her father's daughter (and her engineer grandfather's granddaughter) in many ways), is always happy in the art room or when given an instrument to play for music time. She occasionally has to be reminded to take turns nicely (she's five), or to sit down and listen (ditto). So in general, my little perpetual motion machine is likewise one at school, gets along well with others, is right on track or maybe a little ahead in academics for pre-K, and is apparently enjoyable to have in class. A parent can't really ask for more.