School Days: PK3 Months Five and Six

Starting today, Riley is off of school for one week. And I figured it was high time for another update on what he’s been doing since the start of the second semester.

Their themes for the past two months were “Using My Imagination,” “Tools We Use,” “Things We Build,” “Art That Other People Created,” “My Senses,” “How to Be Healthy,” “Eating Well and How to Take Care of Ourselves,” and “Staying Safe.”

They studied the letters “M” through “S.” (Riley talked about Rory when it was “R” week.) They learned about numbers, counting, patterns, building structures, comparing areas of shapes, shape puzzles, comparing capacity, graphs, and strategies to divide and share. In religion, they studied forgiveness, prayer, Jesus Son of God, Jesus’ miracles, how to follow Jesus, faith, and trust. They also learned about addresses and phone numbers.

 

They celebrated King’s Day on January 6 with a kingcake party, and they’ve had a kingcake treat every week since then.

They made mudpies for “M” week, nine-noodle necklaces for “N” week, and vegetable soup for “S” week. (Riley apparently tasted the soup but said he didn’t like it.)

 

They created paper plate art projects to celebrate Catholic Schools Week. They made shape mosaics. They learned how to solved puzzles by becoming life-sized shapes. (Riley and Sarah made a rectangle together.)

 

They participated in a special Valentine’s art project and a special Mardi Gras art project. They created puppets so they could have a puppet play and practice ways to stay safe. They also created safety sashes and learned about calling 9-1-1.

They had a very special mystery reader on January 16: me! Since they were learning about tools that week, I brought in Monkey with a Toolbelt to read and hammer-shaped sugar cookies in the school colors for a treat.

They also started doing journals every week. They sit down and color a picture and then dictate to one of the teachers about what they just drew. Amanda showed us a couple of Riley’s entries, but she said she wants us to be surprised about the majority of them when we get his journal at the end of the year. I cannot wait.

Riley is apparently quotable at school, too. So much so that Amanda wrote down one of his quotes for me at the bottom of one of his papers. Too funny.

We had our second parent/teacher conference with Ms. Amanda on January 31. Riley is doing great with counting, sorting, patterns, and his letters. He is also starting to trace letters, including his name! (See his awesomeness at this below.) His biggest problem is holding his pencil correctly, but Amanda is working on that with him.

Amanda also told us he is great on the computer, which is funny because we don’t do anything with him on the computer at home. He is still not hugely excited about art projects, but he participates more than he did in the beginning of the year. They are also working on cutting paper with scissors. A tough skill, but they will supposedly master it by the end of the year.

Amanda also said that Riley and his partner Claire are the big personalities in the class. Whenever she is having a bad day, she can always count on them to make it better. This is especially funny since Riley came home last week saying that Claire called him mean. Come to find out, Riley apparently chases Claire sometimes, which she doesn’t like. No wonder she’s calling him mean! He ultimately gets along with Claire just fine, but his best friend is most definitely Alcee. She’s the one we hear about the most.

He’s off this whole week for Mardi Gras break. There was a little parade at school on Friday afternoon; the PK4 students ride in wagons and throw beads to the other kids. (So we’ll have that to look forward to next year: decorating and tricking out our own wagon for Riley-bean to ride in.) Rory and I joined in the fun, and all of Riley’s school friends loved seeing his baby brother.

 

 

The parade made a loop around campus twice, but Riley lost interest halfway through their first pass. He contented himself by picking the long leaves off of a plant next to the breezeway. Then he started waving them around and calling them his stingers. Wonk potatoes.

  

 

 

We’ve been to our fair share of parades this Carnival season, and I will have recaps of those fun times a little later this week. In the meantime, I will enjoy having him home with Rory and me this week. And when school starts again on March 10, Rory will turn ONE four days later (!) and Riley will have only TWO more months until his first year of preschool officially ends and his THREE months of vacation begin.

Summer is going to be here before I know it. And it’s gonna be fun.