kendrgeten!

Each year on the first day of school, Griffin will hold a piece of paper on which he has written his grade level for the obligatory annual photo! He didn't even have to ask me how to spell 'kindergarten.'  I think it's adorable.  And he put the hyphen in by himself!

Yes, Griffin is now a kindergartener at Escuela Bilingue Pioneer, Lafayette's public dual immersion elementary school.  Kindergarten!  Both his teacher and her aide--who seem wonderful--are native speakers from Mexico.  Thanks to his year of immersion preschool, he is unfazed by spending 90% of the school day in Spanish--it's the 7.5-hour school day that wearies him (understandably).

However, on the third day of school, his teacher pulled me aside to say that he had been acting out--even pushing the other kids!--because he was getting so bored during their literacy period (which is taught in English).  Normally she pairs up the students who already know how to read; they read books together and do worksheets and projects together.

But Griffin, who's already reading easy chapter books like the Magic Treehouse series, is so far advanced that the teacher can't do that this time.  She tried to arrange for him to go to another grade level class for reading, but it doesn't fit their schedule.  Her solution sounds reasonable to me: he will read nonfiction books on his own, then write about what he learned, how it connects to his life, and so forth.  (She's putting together a little book for him with writing prompts and places to draw pictures about what he reads.)  The teacher and the aide will supervise what he is working on.

I hope that he can handle working independently--while he can spend an hour reading by himself during "quiet time," no problem (and then sometimes turns off his timer so he can stay in his room and finish a book), he does not enjoy being forced to answer questions about what he read or being told what he needs to write about.  (Welcome to school, kid.)

But, ultimately, I'm not too concerned.  He loves books, he's learning in Spanish.  (What I am worried about is the possibility of the Spanish supplanting the French--but I'll save that for another post!)

Gwyneth was less excited than the rest of us.