Today was Lilah's final day of Kindergarten.
When I look back, it was so obvious that Lilah, from day one, was SO eager to start Kindergarten. She has never once looked behind her, even with the new challenge of EFI (Early French Immersion) this past school year. She's taken on every new challenge with gusto and LOVED every single minute of her two years in Kindergarten. Of course, over the last two years, she has grown in so many ways: socially, emotionally, cognitively, physically, developmentally. She has buckets of confidence and her independence is wayyy more than I care for, as her Mama! She's even to the point now, where she can go into a shop (with money) and buy something (fairly simple).
She is such a great girl and I'm so incredibly proud of her.
The four report cards Lilah has gotten over the past two years, have each mentioned her enthusiasm and how kind and thoughtful she is. That's definitely my Lilah girl. She is all about putting her everything into whatever it is she has been assigned. And her thoughtfulness has grown to an even greater level, since Phebe joined our family. Lilah constantly proclaims her love for her baby sister and genuinely loves to care for her and look out for her. It actually makes my eyes wet, the genuine adoration my girls have for each other. Just tonight, at bed time, Lilah was chatting about our trip to the beach next week and how she wants to play soccer on the beach. She was trying to figure out (in her mind) who would play soccer and who would be in goals - she said to me, "Definitely Phebe can't be in goals, because if we kicked the ball, it might hit her chest!" - I love her compassion.
In September she starts Grade 1.... going from 2.5 hour days to 6.5 hour days. Well, I'm not sure I'm ready for that, and I don't imagine Phebe is either, but that's the way life goes. We're just going to have to make the best of this summer and the time we get to spend together.
after two years, her final walk to kindergarten
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her kindergarten diploma
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♥ we never seem to get through a photo session without these two wanting to hug each other ♥
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I can hardly believe 9 months has passed already, since Lilah started Junior Kindergarten.
I remember my husband and I gushing in our first interview with the teacher about how much Lilah had learned and how much she was growing, even though she had only been in JK for 3 months at that stage. Her teacher, Diane, told us that Lilah's first school year would be a huge 'learning' year, probably the most dramatic year, where we would watch our child grow at an incredible pace.
It's true. Not only intellectually, but socially, emotionally and physically we have watched Lilah grow, alongside her peers. Here are a few things on her report card that jumped out at me, they are so definitely our girl...
: Social Development: Lilah is a very eager student who demonstrates a positive attitude towards learning. She is eager to please. She is exceptionally self-motivated and self-reliant. She occasionally requires reminders about the appropriate times to socialize with her friends! (Ha!) She has very strong opinions. (Oh man!) She independently selects and completes a wide variety of learning tasks with care and attention to detail.
: French: She demonstrates excellent focus and enthusiasm.
: Science: She consistently demonstrates curiosity and a willingness to explore.
: Art: She greatly enjoys creating her own masterpieces.
There was a lot more on the report card, more about the different things she can complete, identify, etc.
Lilah had a pretty tough teacher this year too. We thought she was tough, but Lilah simply adored her and thrived under her style of teaching - even though Lilah is in the public school system, her teacher is somewhat an alternative teacher and puts more emphasis on independence and nurtures the children's strengths. She is a no nonsense teacher and she definitely calls things as they are. So that being what it is, I was pretty thrilled with the report card. I knew there certainly wouldn't be any fluff in it!
Lilah most certainly had a very happy first year of school.
So I had my first parent/teacher interview with Lilah's teacher last Monday evening. Lilah absolutely loves school, she still hasn't come off the 'high' since her first day in September. Her knowledge base, her ability to understand and her memory have grown in a tremendous way this past 3 months and it's getting more and more obvious that this girl is going to go far.
She has an incredible understanding. She sounds out the letters in words now and it is only a matter of time until my little 4 year old is reading. This morning I found her downstairs writing her class friends names down on a page, just by the sound of their names. Unbelievable! She also finds what her teacher calls, 'popcorn words', all over the place, different words that she already knows, like 'it', 'to', 'hello', 'and'...and there's a few more I can't remember right now. She finds them (and points them out to me) in reading books, magazines, her Bible, food packaging, etc. She sits eating her breakfast in the morning, spelling all the letters on the food packaging at the table. She uses bigger words now and different phrases in her sentences and stories, that are sometimes just plain funny!
Like this week I was drawing lines and she said, "Oh, you're making horizontal lines!" Wow. I was amazed that she knew, remembered and completely understood the meaning of that word! Here's a few other things she has said in the past week that have made me grin...
: After accusing Lilah of possibly telling lies one day, her reply was: "I think God is the only one who knows what I'm talking about. He knows that I'm serious!" I found out later (from Baba) that she was indeed telling the truth!
: Telling me about how fast she had eaten her breakfast one morning: "I eat up my porridge SO fast and it was TOTALLY gone!"
: As I was multi tasking one day and trying to remember what I was going to tell her, she said: "Mmm. Maybe it just popped out of your mind!"
: Talking about her French teacher one day: "She fell a long long long time ago, probably when she was a daughter!"
: Baba was being a bit crazy one night while playing a game with Lilah, she was rather affronted with his behaviour, turned to him and said: "Baba, I think we'll play the game when you're feeling calmer!"
: When I asked Lilah why she was hiding one day, she replied: "I'm hibernating, because I'm an animal...and it isn't Spring time yet."
Anyway, I came away very happy after the parent/teacher interview. Sure there are things that she needs to work on, like sharing and helping out with tidy up time, but other than that things are going great. She is a happy girl, she loves to learn and she absolutely adores her friends. The teacher was telling me how her effort is always 110%. In fact, she told me that Lilah was one of a few children she has ever taught, that can block everything and everyone out and work solo without any interaction. She said it was a sign that she would be a very strong learner. I was glowing when she told me, "You have a very special girl, she is very intelligent!"
I was also told that she adores her reading buddy! All the children from the older grade classes comes to kindergarten class once a week and they read their 'personal buddy' some stories. Lilah's teacher was telling me, out of all the children, Lilah asked for and wanted the little Chinese boy to be her reading buddy. The teacher also told me that they are so so happy together, they sit together laughing and reading stories - she promised me a picture of the two of them together, which I can't wait to see! Speaking of her choice of another Chinese child, we just found out this past week that Lilah seems to be able to tell apart other Chinese children. She was walking to school with Colin one day and they passed by two little girls who were down on the ground playing. Lilah remarked "There's two Chinese girls playing." Colin was taken back a little by her remark and inquired how she knew they were Chinese. Her reply: "Because their faces are Chinese!" One of the things I appreciated during my chat with the teacher is how much the teacher wants to celebrate Lilah's heritage. In fact, her words to me were: "I really want Lilah to lead the class in the Chinese New Year celebrations and I want her to feel well represented in our classroom." I was thrilled to hear her say that. She also went on to tell me she's been on the lookout for a Chinese babydoll for the playhouse - I was only too pleased to be able to help her out in that department!
Lilah is also learning French in school. The French teacher comes into her class for 20 minutes every day and Lilah now has a wide array of French songs at the tip of her tongue! She can also count to 10 in French, say hello, my name is..., how are you?, I'm good, thank you, etc. She told me around Halloween time: "If you hear the word bonbon, it actually means candy!" She is constantly telling Baba that he is a garcon and she and I are filles. There are things that come up in our every day chat that she'll tell me the french word for. Like I called something small one day and she said, "Oh, well, you could just call it petite, that's what it means in French!" She gave me a good laugh one day when I'd bought my new camera and it had two manuals included, French and English. She was peering over my arm with curiosity and I told her one of the manuals was in French and she could throw it in the rubbish because I couldn't read it. She opened the little book, flicked through the first couple of pages and said "Well, I can read this, because I speak French!" Haha! She's had it a while now and I see that she's been higlighting parts of it, which makes me laugh! Good thing she enjoys French, because next year she'll be starting the French Immersion program at school.
Lilah got her first school homework assignment from her teacher on Friday, and that assignment was to collect a big bag of colourful Fall leaves to bring into school!
So today, after Lilah's nap, we grabbed her last-years-halloween-candy-bucket and went searching for colourful leaves. Thankfully it wasn't too difficult a task, however with Lilah checking every one of them with a microscope to make sure it passed the "It's SO Beautiful" test, it took a bit longer than it probably should have!
Not to worry though, I kinda needed Lilah to take it slow today as I had a bit of homework to do myself! I bought a new camera (and lens) yesterday, it's the Canon 5D Mark ll along with an 85mm F1.8 lens. It's certainly a huge learning curve and I need lots of practice, but so far I'm loving the camera. Hopefully during this beautiful Fall weather I'll get a bit more practice fitted in - it's definitely my favourite time of the year for taking pictures!
One of the things I'm noticing already is that I don't seem to need to edit my photos as much, or at all really, with this camera. It's making my job a whole lot easier!
So I had a complete déjà vu moment on Wednesday morning when dropping Lilah off at (her second day of) school. I know I should be a better parent and not have snorted to myself when I overheard the teacher saying this to Lilah:
teacher: "So Lilah, today you're going to focus on listening to me and not talking as much to Fiona!"
Oh my, does that sound familiar... only 30 years ago! Ha! (And yes, I absolutely am talking about myself!)
Anyway, this morning (as we were getting ready to walk up to school) we were chatting and it would now seem like Lilah has definitely started listening to her teacher. Our conversation went like this...
me: "Have you done any physical education yet, like running around?"
lilah: (in a shocked voice) "No! We're not allowed to run in school... or push, or talk about poos or farts, or ANYTHING rude."
me: "Oh. Okay. That's good!" (silent snort)
Oh yeah, she's definitely been listening!
Now it's just me that needs to work on my game face! ...you know, the one that desperately wants to grin, but you have to control it, so it doesn't encourage a certain little someone?!
Phew. Parenting. It's pretty awesome!
[ The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows. ~S. Harris ]
My parents used to talk about how time flies when you're older, I would look at them like they were crazy! As a child it seemed the opposite, especially if I was looking forward to something like Christmas or summer holidays or my birthday. Well, I totally get it now...in fact, I've been 'getting it' for a few years now. It seems like time has decided to speed up on me!
Today my beautiful girl started JK - my little 4 year old. She just seems too young and little to be starting JK. It just seems like yesterday that we were in China, rocking her to sleep. On the other hand, this summer seems to have handed her an overdose of independance and maturity, and underneath it all, I know she's SO ready for school. She's been at home with me for almost 3 years now, she's a complete and utter socializer, who can't get enough of being around and playing with her peers.
Yeah, she's ready. But am I? I'm not sure if I'll ever be ready, that's the problem!
So it goes without saying that my favourite part of today was when she came running out of the school doors, (I was kneeling down) and she ran straight into my arms for a big bear hug and kiss. I think it was at that point I teared up, because it just felt so good to have her back in my arms. And also, I could tell how happy she was about school, she couldn't wipe that massive grin off her beautiful face. Seeing her happy makes me the happiest person on earth.
She's been home a few hours now and I've heard many stories about school. She's been role playing 'being the teacher'. She's been drawing and writing. And everything she does, she tells me, "I'm drew this for Diane (her teacher). I'm going to show this to her." It's only her first day, but I can already tell that there is an underlying adoration building for her teacher and that makes me so happy, because I really believe teachers have a huge influence on our children.
One of the funny moments of today was when I asked Lilah what she learned on her first day of school, she immediately said "Bonjour", but it sounded more like bon-joar!! It might be her Northern Irish twang! I asked her what bonjour meant and she said: "It means hello in Quebec!" Haha - priceless! She also started calling me Madame Jill! She told me her French teacher is called Madame Julia. So she's at school for 2.5 hours... and 20 minutes of that time is dedicated to French. They have a French teacher that comes into their class and teaches them French. Our 4 year old will likely know more French than both us parents put together after just one week! I must admit, that part cracks me up!
Another thing she mentioned to me is that she didn't put her cardigan on in class because it was very hot. Her exact words were: "It was 13 DEGREES in the classroom, really exhausting!"
This school talk is very entertaining. I'm pretty sure there'll be many more laughs on the horizon!
The first photo is Lilah with a picture she drew when she got home. She told me it's a picture of herself (with extra long hair to her feet!) skating on the Rideau Canal! On the next page she wrote some letters and told me the teacher said she should write some letters for her Mom. So there they are. Truly, these are the moments I never want to forget.
[ flickr set is here ]
Lilah met her teacher this morning - Diane.
She's wonderful and friendly and sends out weekly updates on email. I love her already! So we had our little meet and greet today and then on Friday Lilah has her first day of Junior Kindergarten. One half of the class goes on Friday and the other half of the class goes on Monday. They will all start together on Tuesday next week.
On the walk home from meeting the teacher Lilah said, "I'm SO excited about going to school!" She simply cannot wait. And as anxious as I feel inside, I'm thrilled and excited for her too!
It's a brand new chapter in her life and she's more than ready for it.
Lilah was so thrilled to get a letter from her teacher in the mail today, inviting her to an open house at school next week. Meet the teacher, see her classroom and hopefully meet some new little friends that will also be in the same Junior Kindergarten class!
She was so thrilled that she spelled out every letter on the front of the envelope!
The day I signed her up for school I was not in the least bit excited about my baby girl heading to school in September, after all, she's just so young and I love spending my days with her. But so many things have changed since that day, just 3 months ago. I know, such a short space of time and so many changes. Lilah turns 4 in another 4 days and her social skills are just going crazy! She always wants to be around people in a social setting, she's definitely our social butterfly! She talks about friends friends friends, *my* friends, ALL THE TIME! She is more than ready for school. And because of that, I'm so excited for her too.
I'm heading back to work in September too, after I get Lilah settled into school. I'll have spent almost 3 years at home with my girl and am returning to work on a part-time schedule, 3 days a week - Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. I'm excited to be going back to work and excited to have the other 4 days off with my girl. We'll both get to enjoy the best of both worlds. I SO can't wait to volunteer in her classroom and enjoy this new stage in her life.
But for now, we're just going to enjoy the rest of our summer together!
Oh and speaking of spelling out her letters, she was eating her cheese at snacktime this morning and turned to me and said, "Oh look, I made the letter I".
This day last week Lilah and I walked hand in hand up to the local school and I signed her up for JK (Junior Kindergarten) - which starts in September.
I teared up and teared up and teared up some more. I couldn't talk about it without more severe chin wobbling and tearing up. Yes, I was that bad. I used to shake my head and think to myself, that'll never happen to me.
Right now she doesn't know exactly what will happen during "school" and she's the type of girl that needs to know EXACTLY what's happening. So because of this, I think she's feeling a little unsure. She's already told me that we can stay at home together, forever! I have no doubts that she is going to LOVE school. She loves loves loves socializing. So did I as a child - the evidence is written all over my report cards!
Anyway, it's going to be great. Eventually. Have I mentioned how much I dislike change?
I'm just so thankful we live two blocks away from school and she doesn't have to take the school bus. Because that. Would scare me silly. Although I know my daughter would disagree with me here. Because the school bus, is quite possibly the only part of "school" that excites her at the moment!
after two years, her final walk to kindergarten
her kindergarten diploma
♥ we never seem to get through a photo session without these two wanting to hug each other ♥
