Kayla gets to go to a week long science camp away from home this year which is different and exciting for her. She remains a strong reader and mathematician, still working a grade level above. She is excelling with her music as well. We have seen so much improvement over the last few years as she masters the piano and flute. She is at grade level in her spelling, social studies and art. This is the same as she has been the last couple of years. Kayla is able to concentrate longer on tasks than at age 8.
Kayla had a serious fight with her best friend at the beginning of fifth grade and has not made up. She has been moody lately. Kayla is hanging out with a different group of friends at school, and there is some taunting going on between the two sides in the quarrel. Otherwise, Kayla gets along very well with most people, she is popular with other kids, and has a lot of social and other after-school activities. Kayla can be kind of a tomboy sometimes, and says she wants to ride her bike to the school grounds after school. She also wants to go on weekends and hang out there with one or two friends. She likes to play whiffle ball or basketball with the neighborhood boys and one or two other girl-friends. Overall she seems to be doing well socially and we try to encourage good friendships and play time on the weekends.
Since preschool we have slowly tried to give Kayla more responsibilities at home and she is doing well with it. It seems to be helping her mature so quickly sometimes I find myself wondering where my little girl has gone. In the book it talks about how reasoning with children at this stage is more effective and that communication between parent and child and joint decision making can help positive growth and learning of life skills. We provide praise when Kayla sticks with a chore or completes the homework in one sitting. Her teacher says she consistently works independently, listens attentively, and follows directions and classroom rules at school.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Monday, October 20, 2008
Kayla 8 years, 11 months
Kayla continues developing into a wonderful girl. She does very well in reading and language arts at school. Also, she is in the 4th grade math group even though she is in 3rd grade and seems quick with computations. Her favorite subject is still science and so she has joined an after-school science camp right on the school campus. Kayla also enjoys drawing and designing things like houses, cars, airplanes, and likes to work with her hands building models or things out of clay, papier mache, or blocks. Sometimes she and her sister will come up with these elaborate creations out of basic household items like cardboard boxes and toilet paper tubes, and I enjoy saving items for them to create with. Kayla has also been taking piano for the last two years and now wants to be part of the instrumental music program at school so she chose a flute at the music store for her to try. She is still singing in the choir, busy girl but she chooses to be so involved in these activities and still gets her homework done. We had a psychologist interview her and do some intelligence tests on her over the summer. She was quiet and reserved with the examiner, and did not offer a lot of information spontaneously. She seemed a little nervous during the testing, particularly on the harder items, but remained cooperative and hard-working throughout the IQ and achievement testing. We found out that she is average and above average in word reading, reading fluency, phonological awareness and spelling. Kayla's scores on the Verbal portion of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (where 7 is one standard deviation below the mean, 10 is the mean and 13 is one standard deviation above the mean): Information (9), Vocabulary (10), Similarities (10), Comprehension (11). Her scores on the math concepts, math application problems, and math computation tests were well above average. The psychologist said that she should clearly be placed in 7th grade math, and possibly in a gifted math program, but he recommended further testing
We have noticed some of Kayla’s behavior fall into typical American gender role socialization like how well she ‘mothers’ her little sister or helps with the chores around the house. She likes to help me in the kitchen too. But she has some girlfriends that come over from time to time and I have noticed that most of her friends tend to be somewhat tomboyish although two of the girls do have older brothers. Kayla enjoys playing sports with the brothers, and sometimes Kayla will also play sports with some of the neighborhood boys. I think this is ok because she seems to be well balanced and it is the same way I was raised.
Kayla has been participating in softball and soccer and we finally got that puppy she has been asking for. She has a real sense of what is expected of her at home and at school, and follows the rules quite well. She gets along well with Mom, Dad and sister, and seems to have good friends at school, in after-school activities and other situations. Kayla's best friend is also a real likeable kid so we figured this was the right time for the enjoyment and responsibility of a pet. We got Max from the neighborhood animal shelter! It's a poodle/terrier mix and we are all having a lot of fun with him. We took Max to obedience school, and Kayla participates and proudly shows off the dog's tricks to anyone who will watch. Kayla and her sister love taking Max to the park. Even though it is still the middle of summer, we went shopping for school supplies and some school clothes. It will also be Kayla's 9th birthday in a couple of weeks and we have been preparing for a party of a dozen kids at a family fun center that has go-karts, video games, prizes, and expensive pizza. We remind Kayla how lucky she is to be raised in a family that can provide her with so many opportunities and that our socioeconomic status (our education, jobs, and income) provide her with these opportunities. We aren’t affluent by any means but can allow our children access to extra programs and athletics that have helped them develop into well rounded successful children. The U.S. has the highest percentage of extremely poor children (Berk, 49) and we just wanted our children to know that they are lucky to not be in that category and to continue to do well in school and their activities so they can be successful as well.
We have noticed some of Kayla’s behavior fall into typical American gender role socialization like how well she ‘mothers’ her little sister or helps with the chores around the house. She likes to help me in the kitchen too. But she has some girlfriends that come over from time to time and I have noticed that most of her friends tend to be somewhat tomboyish although two of the girls do have older brothers. Kayla enjoys playing sports with the brothers, and sometimes Kayla will also play sports with some of the neighborhood boys. I think this is ok because she seems to be well balanced and it is the same way I was raised.
Kayla has been participating in softball and soccer and we finally got that puppy she has been asking for. She has a real sense of what is expected of her at home and at school, and follows the rules quite well. She gets along well with Mom, Dad and sister, and seems to have good friends at school, in after-school activities and other situations. Kayla's best friend is also a real likeable kid so we figured this was the right time for the enjoyment and responsibility of a pet. We got Max from the neighborhood animal shelter! It's a poodle/terrier mix and we are all having a lot of fun with him. We took Max to obedience school, and Kayla participates and proudly shows off the dog's tricks to anyone who will watch. Kayla and her sister love taking Max to the park. Even though it is still the middle of summer, we went shopping for school supplies and some school clothes. It will also be Kayla's 9th birthday in a couple of weeks and we have been preparing for a party of a dozen kids at a family fun center that has go-karts, video games, prizes, and expensive pizza. We remind Kayla how lucky she is to be raised in a family that can provide her with so many opportunities and that our socioeconomic status (our education, jobs, and income) provide her with these opportunities. We aren’t affluent by any means but can allow our children access to extra programs and athletics that have helped them develop into well rounded successful children. The U.S. has the highest percentage of extremely poor children (Berk, 49) and we just wanted our children to know that they are lucky to not be in that category and to continue to do well in school and their activities so they can be successful as well.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Kayla 6 years 11 months
Kayla loved kindergarten. Now she is in first grade and her baby sister is in preschool. Kayla had a really good friend she since we have been in the neighborhood move away and that was a tragedy for her. She tried to tell us she has no friends at school but we didn’t believe her and her teacher says she has many friends she plays with. I had the opportunity to work in her classroom and watch the children at recess. One thing I noticed during recess is that the boys were doing physical activities in fairly large groups and keeping the girls out. The girls were in small-groups or even just one-on-one. What little contact there was between the boys and girls was usually teasing or chasing. Kayla was able to play with both boys and girls, but mostly plays with girls. She is one of the most popular kids in her class and gets invitations to other children's homes for parties and other activities. She really has a good group of friends both at school and in the neighborhood and she gets along well with them. We have tried to encourage these friendships with more play dates at home on the weekends. Sometimes we will even go on an outing and allow her to bring a friend along. The only issue that has really come up with Kayla’s behavior is at school sometimes she will over-react to stressful situation and can become anxious, moody or slightly depressed. With encouragement, she usually seems to come out of it before the day end. We don’t see this really at home so we are just keeping an open line of communication with her teacher and trying to keep on top of it if the issue comes up. Kayla continues to be a big help with her sister. She models such good behavior for her and we are so proud of her.
Kayla continues to excel with her reading and language skills. She is able to hold her own in conversations with adults, and uses some surprisingly difficult words in her speech. She also is beginning to use this vocabulary in her writing for school Kayla learned the letters and their sounds very quickly in kindergarten, and started to read some easy rhyming books in the latter half of the year. In first grade, she really seems to be taking off, and is reading first and even second grade books. We continue to go on outings to museums, cultural centers, nature centers, etc. Sometimes, if Kayla has a particular interest in something, we'll buy a book from the museum shop to bring home and read it aloud together. Since Kayla already has good phonological awareness and has learned to decode, we figure the best thing would be to find fun and challenging new books for her to read with our help. Kayla is doing above average with first grade math - learning and understanding mathematical problem solving, understanding of data and number concepts - but her favorite subject seems to be science. We are so pleased with how well she is doing in school and so we will just continue to do what we are doing now, it seems to be working so why ruin a good thing.
Howard Gardner's multiple intelligences approach has additional domains such as musical ability. Kayla has always enjoyed listening to and making music and singing from a young age. Around 3ish we got an electronic keyboard and ever since she has played on it. We found a neighbor who teaches piano and so we have Kayla going to see her once a week for lessons. We like this teacher because she is teaching Kayla to read music, to use correct fingering on the piano as well as to sing some of the songs by sight reading of the notes. Piano and voice lessons all rolled into one - and best of all- Kayla seems to love it! We feel it is important to encourage this behavior as she enjoyed it at a young age and it just seemed a great age to take it to the next level. Sometimes Kayla cheats at games when she can get away with it. Sometimes when she gets caught, she gets upset and doesn't want to keep playing the game. We realize that Kayla hasn't developed a strong sense of morality at this age yet. We figure games are a good place to begin learning right and wrong, so we don't get upset, but we generally call her on the cheating and insist on playing by the rules.
Kayla continues to excel with her reading and language skills. She is able to hold her own in conversations with adults, and uses some surprisingly difficult words in her speech. She also is beginning to use this vocabulary in her writing for school Kayla learned the letters and their sounds very quickly in kindergarten, and started to read some easy rhyming books in the latter half of the year. In first grade, she really seems to be taking off, and is reading first and even second grade books. We continue to go on outings to museums, cultural centers, nature centers, etc. Sometimes, if Kayla has a particular interest in something, we'll buy a book from the museum shop to bring home and read it aloud together. Since Kayla already has good phonological awareness and has learned to decode, we figure the best thing would be to find fun and challenging new books for her to read with our help. Kayla is doing above average with first grade math - learning and understanding mathematical problem solving, understanding of data and number concepts - but her favorite subject seems to be science. We are so pleased with how well she is doing in school and so we will just continue to do what we are doing now, it seems to be working so why ruin a good thing.
Howard Gardner's multiple intelligences approach has additional domains such as musical ability. Kayla has always enjoyed listening to and making music and singing from a young age. Around 3ish we got an electronic keyboard and ever since she has played on it. We found a neighbor who teaches piano and so we have Kayla going to see her once a week for lessons. We like this teacher because she is teaching Kayla to read music, to use correct fingering on the piano as well as to sing some of the songs by sight reading of the notes. Piano and voice lessons all rolled into one - and best of all- Kayla seems to love it! We feel it is important to encourage this behavior as she enjoyed it at a young age and it just seemed a great age to take it to the next level. Sometimes Kayla cheats at games when she can get away with it. Sometimes when she gets caught, she gets upset and doesn't want to keep playing the game. We realize that Kayla hasn't developed a strong sense of morality at this age yet. We figure games are a good place to begin learning right and wrong, so we don't get upset, but we generally call her on the cheating and insist on playing by the rules.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Kayla 4 years 10 months
Kayla is developing into a little girl so quickly. With caring for the new baby we have noticed that our parenting styles differ between the two girls in regards to their ages. On top of the basic daily needs which they both have, there is so much we are working on to help Kayla develop to her best potential. We take her on outings to the zoo, park, or museum. We go for bike rides, walks around the block, or to the park to kick or throw the ball around. We read together all the time or Kayla will even look through her books on her own. One of her favorite things to do is play make believe with her dolls and the scenarios she comes up with are starting to get more complicated and intricate. She is amazing with the little games she comes up with when she is playing with her friends too. Kayla is getting so much better behaved in the restaurant setting. The rewarding for good behavior is working so we have started fading them out, but we still remind her about the rules and expectations of behavior we have and praise her about how wonderful she was. We may even try a long restaurant soon instead of just the quick ones. When Kayla misbehaves we let her know it is not appropriate and ask her if she knows what she did wrong and if she knows why it is wrong. She is usually does and is pretty compliant, but every once in a while we have to put her in a time out or have to take away what ever caused the problem. The other day, my partner was really stressed from work and lashed out at Kayla and even spanked her pretty hard for a really minor incident. Spanking isn’t something we typically do and so I had to have a talk with him and we worked things out, he even apologized to Kayla. We aren’t really working on any of these with the baby so because we have the two to compare we have really noticed the difference. I think a lot of our parenting styles come from our background of how we both grew up, we seem to model a lot of the same things we remember our parents doing and it is working so far, although balancing everything is still a daily challenge.
A few examples of Kayla’s cognitive growth from birth to now are her ability to read a few short words and write her name. She can name most of the letters on sight and shows an age-appropriate understanding of phonological awareness (like deciding whether two words started with the same sound, picking out the two words that rhymed from a list of three words). She also shows advanced ability to count, use numbers, understand quantitative relationships and classify objects. These are all things she was not doing as an infant.
Kayla’s personality is definitely blooming each day. She seems to be happy and overall pretty resilient. Her preschool teacher told us that she plays cooperatively with her friends, follows and understands playground and classroom rules, and seems to be able to avoid conflicts and arguments with peers. Sometimes she is reluctant to join in a game with children she doesn’t know. She also told us that Kayla is usually in a positive mood, and seemed to take ups and downs during the day in stride. Occasionally though she got upset by negative events or overly excited by positive events and rambunctious and needed to be calmed down by the teacher. She also said that Kayla works well independently which is a good skill for Kindergarten. That will be coming up soon; I can’t believe we are already at that point.
A few examples of Kayla’s cognitive growth from birth to now are her ability to read a few short words and write her name. She can name most of the letters on sight and shows an age-appropriate understanding of phonological awareness (like deciding whether two words started with the same sound, picking out the two words that rhymed from a list of three words). She also shows advanced ability to count, use numbers, understand quantitative relationships and classify objects. These are all things she was not doing as an infant.
Kayla’s personality is definitely blooming each day. She seems to be happy and overall pretty resilient. Her preschool teacher told us that she plays cooperatively with her friends, follows and understands playground and classroom rules, and seems to be able to avoid conflicts and arguments with peers. Sometimes she is reluctant to join in a game with children she doesn’t know. She also told us that Kayla is usually in a positive mood, and seemed to take ups and downs during the day in stride. Occasionally though she got upset by negative events or overly excited by positive events and rambunctious and needed to be calmed down by the teacher. She also said that Kayla works well independently which is a good skill for Kindergarten. That will be coming up soon; I can’t believe we are already at that point.
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