Little Update

In the past week, T has sprung 2 new teeth- giving him the top two and the bottom two. He's sooo close to walking. He barely hangs on when he walks, but he's not yet confident he can do it alone. Natalee, his little buddy, will be walking before him, haha.

T's bday invite:

Emmy told me today that she doesn't like homonyms anymore, she likes doing synonyms more. Little info like this reaffirms that the their tuition is the money we spend best every month. Cal's learning the continents, is solid in her upper and lowercase letters and almost all of the cursive lowercase letters. She's forming words at school and reading little books at home.

I had primary orientation today at school and the head of school was impressive in the things she said would happen in Elementary when Emmy moves up. She said that she'll learn her math facts very quickly, that she'll start working more on spelling, but not as traditional schools would teach- she'll write a report and the teacher will pick words out to put in her spelling book as words she needs to learn, so the theory is that since it's her work, she'll care more that it's right. She also said that socializing isn't just the 10 minutes at recess and 1/2 hr at lunch- Montessori really embraces and recognizes how social this age is and realizes that it is very important. They will work in small groups and large groups, much as they do now. Emmy and Callie have their best friends at school- they work with them side by side most of the day.

There's another school that's close and it's new and a big part of what they believe is shortening the school day without shortening the time for instruction (so they take away social time) and I guess Montessori is very close to being the opposite- they are fostering their social lives and encouraging them to learn in groups, learn how to work w/ people who are at different levels, etc. The other school claims that htey have a shortened school day so the kids can spend quality time at home- Montessori believes that too, they just do it by not giving hours and hours of worksheets to do at home. Lucky kids- they won't have homework.

So anyway, there are moments when I start to doubt the alternative educational thing we're going on, but as for this moment, I'm a true believer again :) I still remember the day Caryn and I read about Montessori in a college sociology class- we both called our mothers and wanted to know why they hadn't put us in montessori..... Puuuurty soon Auntie Caryn will have little chillins of her own in a fun little montessori school :) HIP HIP HOORAY TO THAT THOUGHT!