Kindergarten

I think Amelia is a bit ambivalent about Kindergarten.  She was so excited this summer to FINALLY be a kindergartner and begin teaching the younger children and doing the kindergarten work.  But now that she's finally arrived, she's having mixed feelings.

The first week she told me Ms. Avril, her beloved teacher since she was 3, made her cry.  This is curious, since Ms. Avril is one of the most peaceful and loving human beings you will ever meet.  As it turns out, Ms. Avril did make her cry --- she told Amelia she had to do some K work and could no longer choose just the "little kid" work as Mia calls it.  It was too much for her to take, leaving the comfort of the familiar.  It was good that she got that little push and she soon began enjoying giving lessons and doing new work with the math.

Today I happened to check the work of a little friend of hers in another class and there were tons of math papers in it.  I asked Amelia if she chose a lot of math work this week.  She immediately said, "Oh sure.  I did.".

Then a pause.  "Well, just a little."

Another pause.  "Perhaps I didn't choose any math work this week"

I love the way she uses Perhaps.  It comes out a lot when she's talking to us and never fails to make us smile.  I'm pretty sure she got it from Ms Avril, who is South African and speaks in a clipped, warm British (to my ears, but actually South African) accent.

Then she showed us the globe she had made instead - push pinning all the continents into shapes, gluing them in the right  place, labeling them (is that really her handwriting so neat already?), stuffing the globe and then finally sewing it after it was laminated so it could be hung.

Perhaps no math, but lots of Kindergarten :)