March

Amanda is 6!

On Amanda's birthday the school was doing a fundraiser at Wendy's so we decided to call the friends and invite them to meet us there and we would pay for dinner for everyone. She got to see her teacher at her birthday party and she got to see most of her friends at school. They brought out Wendy and Amanda got to have pictures with her.  She was truly in her element at this party! Kindergarten has become her favorite place to be. It has been nicknamed "Social Hour". Her teacher has nothing but praises to sing about Amanda.  She is struggle with remembering her letters, numbers, and sounds. I hope that she does not struggle with memorizing like her mother. She is so innocent but I am sure going to school she will learn more than she needs and will become enlightened soon enough.  

During Amanda's conference with her teacher she had two stories to tell me about Amanda and her innocence.  The first was from the beginning of school.  The teacher was trying to curb the girls "talking" and so she started a month after school started talking to the class about "work now and play later".  Now being a school teacher in the past I understood where this story was going when she started explaining it but I never expected the outcome that it came to.  It is often easier for younger children to remember lessons when they are shocked and so she said that when the talking was starting to impact the work getting done she spent the whole morning walking behind the girls at Amanda's desk and would say as she walked by "work now and play later or play now and work later". She said that Amanda would just laugh and chant it with the teacher each time. The rest of the class would drop their heads, quiet down, and get to work. Amanda continued to try to talk to her playmates or sing the chant. When it came time for recess all the kids lined up and got ready for recess. When they went to leave the teacher told Amanda that she needed to set back down at her desk. Amanda was very confused but did as her teacher said. When everyone left she asked Amanda what it was that she had chanted to her all morning. Amanda was able to recite the rhyme immediately. Mrs. Bartlett said, this is why she would be loosing her recess. Amanda had a very confused look on her face as if she did not understand.  She did not understand. Mrs. Bartlett asked her what the rhyme meant and Amanda said "I don't know but it sounds great doesn't it?" with the biggest smile on her face.  The teacher realized she really didn't understand and repeated in very slow words and said "if you chose to play first then you had to work when others got to play. If you worked first, then you got to go to recess". All of a sudden she said that she saw the light bulb click in Amanda's head and saw two big fat tears run down her face. She said that Amanda did not say a single  word but just  sat there and cried silently.  Mrs. Bartlett said that she felt so bad that Amanda had not understood all morning what she had said that she almost let her go out.  The next day Amanda was talking again and Mrs. Bartlett said the same rhyme and Amanda once again sang it and acted like she had never heard it before. Mrs. Bartlett then pulled Amanda aside and asked her if she understood what she was saying and reminded her of yesterday and what had happened when she talked during class time. She said suddenly Amanda went quiet and realized what it was that the teacher was saying.  The teacher said that it took many more times of reminding her but that Amanda had the best attitude that it was very hard to squash her excitement about everything that they did.   The other story was about how the teacher felt that Amanda had a heart of pure gold.  The teacher explained that she had a girl in the class that was a little "snobby" to the other girls in the class. It had created lots of heartache all year long. The girl showed no remorse for any of the things she had done wrong in the classroom all year long. In March the teacher was finally tired of it and had ridden the student  for two whole months and finally worked her down to where she was crying. The teacher was finally to a point that she thought she might be able to make a breakthrough. Hoping that she might be able to talk to the girl about her behavior and how it made others feel.  Amanda saw how upset the girl had gotten and walked over to her before the teacher was able to pull the girl aside. She said instantly she was in shock when she saw Amanda wrap her arms around the girls back and said, "don't worry, no one should ever talk mean to you or anyone". Mrs. Bartlett said the girl immediately looked at Amanda and got a big smile on her face and cried no more. The teacher said she couldn't believe it "two months of work down the drain with just one sentence from Amanda".  Needless to say the girl did not change her ways. No lesson was learned and Amanda had no idea what she had done.  At 6 Amanda can't decide if she wants to be tomboy or girly girl.  One day she will have dresses on and be playing house and fixing her hair, makeup, nails and an hour later I will find her outside in the middle of the dirt with the water hose on to make mud pies with her brother.  She is so good to Jake and tries hard to take care of him. I think she babies him more than the older girls do. I hope that as she grows older she is able to learn from her mistakes, become knowledgeable, but keep that innocence that she has.

Easter

 Aunt Jeanie sent lots of stuff from the Easter Bunny.  They loved it all.  After they got done with all the baskets they got to go outside and hunt Easter eggs. We used fake eggs for Jake to hunt and the others were for the bigger kids. Not being able to touch eggs for Jake is interesting.  He has learned to use gloves to color eggs and even to hunt if needed.  Jake preferred the fake eggs anyway, they had candy in them!