According to the school calendar, summer begins today. It’s been an interesting year, as the parent of a first grader. The benefit of having a child in school, to me, is relearning everything myself. For example, did you know the Sun is really a nearby star made of mostly gas? I did, but it was interesting to hear it from my daughter, who spent the second half of the year falling in love with science.
Already, some of the math that comes home perplexes me. There is some kind of exercise they do, where a number goes in one spot, gets transitioned and comes out in another spot. Too many times, I just want to write the problem out the way I did it in school instead of messing with these “new” learning methods. Sometimes, I just feel old, in a “what is a pencil and paper?” sort of way.
Our goal to work on over the summer is reading, reading, and some more reading, mixed in with some math facts.
If you send your kids to school expecting the school to take care of every learning need, unless you’ve got an exceptionally Einstein kid, you’re in for some sad-looking report cards, in my opinion. In first grade, not only is the learning graded, but so are the social skills. Mine kept running like a crazy person down the hallway, according to teacher reports (stay in line and listen to instructions) and kept running into people in the classroom (be aware of your personal space and avoid running into others).
Apparently, no matter what, she is always in a hurry to get from Spot A to Spot B.
Kindergarten, it turns out, was a holiday compared to first grade. I’m looking forward to all of the wonderful things we’ll learn in second grade. Just please spare me the geometry. 
Lisa
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