Just turned 2yo has been cheering on the Olympics. Her favorite is women’s gymnastics (does not surprise me, she loves to tumble, going on swings, etc.). She call gymnastics “jumping”.
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Had brunch with D’s family on Sunday. SIL reported that they had been watching gymnastics with 4 year old who took weekly gymnastics during last school year. She reportedly looked at Simone doing a stunt and said “I haven’t learned to do that. yet.” 
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My 3.5 yr GD said, “Whoa,” after Bile’s performance.
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My 3.5 year old GD was bored and wanted to go outside to play. We were surprised that she wasn’t interested. Maybe she will take after me & get excited about track events.
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That’s interesting. Our state just switched from Dec 31 to Sept 1.
Being positive and upbeat about school will definitely help the transition to K…as it does for all kids!
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Congratulations, rockymtnhigh2, to you and your family. Little boys are so much fun! Wishing you all good health and happiness!
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But not very different! All are a joy!!
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Ms. Precocious, Twin A, hit a new milestone early. Two weeks ago she started making various letters of the alphabet, producing the letter if you asked her to. Today, I got a video of her writing out her own name–completely unprompted-- on her chalkboard, erasing it, then writing her twins’a name, then erasing that, and writing her little brother’s name.
I think she’s going be an early reader.
She’s 3 1/2. (Her nanny told D that Twin A needs to go the “special school” this fall.)
P.S. It’s a little early yet but D2 and her husband are expecting their first baby in February.
Grand child #4 is on the way. (This baby is especially special since D2 is a breast cancer survivor who had double mastectomy when she was just 24.)
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Local GD started Kindergarten on Thursday. I have a short phone conversation with her yesterday, but all she told me was there was a girl in her class that was in her group at a drama camp this summer.
Today I asked my daughter had GD’s day was; the only response my D got was, “It was fine.” I said if she is already giving short answers like “Fine” now at 5, I can only imagine her replies at 13! My daughter said, yep, we are screwed! Hopefully she will be more chatty this weekend when I see her.
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If you ask, “what did you do at school today?” You will very likely get a VERY short answer, if any. Try more specific questions.
- What book did your teacher read today?
- What did you do at recess time?
- Who did you play with? What did you do?
- Did your teacher read a book today? (If yes ). What was it about?
- What is your favorite thing to do outside at school? Inside?
Things like that (I’m a speech language pathologist) and helped parents get their kids to talk to them.
I loved what our K teachers did. They sent home an “Ask Me” note every day. It gave questions…”ask me about Brown Bear Brown Bear”. “Ask me about the new game we learned together”. Ask me about whatever. The teachers now send these via email. They tell me it’s really no big deal. They do a draft based on their plans, and simply tweak it before hitting the send button.
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So much depends on the kid. My S was very very terse in conversations & still is. Younger D is much more chatty. She always has been. I still learned a ton by listening when transporting the kids—to the kids and any friends or peers in the car.
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- Was anyone missing from school today?
- Did anyone get into trouble? (they loved this one)
- What did you have for snack (in K they shared snack, D hated it because the answer was always Gogurt and she didn’t like that at all)
- What special did you have today (music, art, gym)
- Which parent was the guest reader.
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While I agree about the directed questions above, and know they work for most, when this child doesn’t want to be grilled, she doesn’t answer. So if you ask a question she doesn’t feel like answering, she will reply, “I forgot,” which she absolutely did not!
Now at bedtime if she wants to stall, she will be Chatty Cathy!
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Maybe that’s the time to chat about school.
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School is starting again for the older grands. The 3 yo doesn’t talk much about it but the 6 yo will talk about her friends, her art projects, etc
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I am so surprised that school is already back in session for the fall semester! Why so early this year?
I’m always taken by surprise how early it starts in some parts of the country. Always after Labor Day in NJ, just as when I was a kid. But I can see it’s changed in other places.
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In Denver it changed many years ago because of testing. They wanted to get 2 more weeks of instruction in before the tests were given in April/May.
I was surprised when we moved about 25 years ago and learned that not only did school start very early but that every school in the state, even the private schools, took off the same week in the spring. I hate it.
Being older than dirt (or at least feeling that way today), I remember when my elementary school started on the day after Labor Day. Anything earlier feels as if we’ve been robbed of summer.
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In the South, school has usually started back the first half of August; they also get out the Friday before Memorial Day for the summer. There are so many breaks during the year, it seems the start date has gotten earlier and earlier each year.
For example, my GD started August 1st, she then has a week off in October, a week at Thanksgiving, almost 3 weeks at Christmas, a week in February, and a week in April. Of course there are the Federal holidays, plus teacher work days or conference day thrown in there also.
Each county/city within the metro area has a different schedule, so not all have the October and February break, or they might just have a day or two.