We have a whole month of kindergarten under our belts, and knock on wood, it seems to be going amazingly well. It is so much fun to watch Scott "big kid" learn. The kid who had no interest in letters or writing or learning his numbers now comes home from school and asks how to spell words and writes them with little to no help. He has so many new interests. When I ask him specifically about school or what he learned he usually doesn't give me much but it comes out in every day life when he tells me "hey mom I just used my sense of smell and touch and sight" or "mom, check out my pattern, a pattern is something that repeats itself. this pattern is an abcbabcb pattern". Wowza.
So far our elementary school has exceeded expectations. Scott LOVES his teacher and she has done such a great job motivating him. I think she's pretty great too.
We have already done so many neat hands on learning projects and taken great field trips.
This past friday we were scheduled to dissect squid. Friday is not my normal workday in the classroom but I asked if I could come in and help anyways, which of course was allowed.
I distinctly remember my first time dissecting, second grade. It was the most amazing learning experience and I really feel like it fueled my love of science. That year I think we dissected at least 5 times. Sadly I don't think that's the norm anywhere anymore. Many parents in Scott's class said that had either never dissected or that dissections were only done by an instructor and projected on a screen.
The hands on learning that we do at our school is one of the reasons I love it so much. And this day was no exception.
We started with a story about a squid and then a more scientific book about squid.
Then we got to it.
Scott finding all the external structures.
Counting legs and tentacles.
Then cutting its body to check out the interior structors.
Examining the ink sac.
Ms. Tori pointing out some structures while Scott gets ready to paint his squid diagram with squid ink.
It was such a fun project and I was so happy to get to be a part of it.
Love our school.
Well that is SO COOL.
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