Starting school!

Christopher has been fantastically excited about starting school. Last week I ordered some 'learning games', and he was so excited about it! Every time we got one in the mail he did a little happy dance.

We started 'school' on Monday. The first thing he wanted to do was one of the learning games. He picked the math one (of course). The first game he picked, it started by asking him "How many of ___ are there?" Christopher raised an eyebrow and deftly clicked the right answer. Again. And again.

"This is kinda easy for you, isn't it Christopher?"
"Uh, yeah."
"Well, it's supposed to be for first through third grade, so maybe the other stuff is harder."
"Mom, this is like no grade."

HAHA! Just because YOU'RE smart you smartypants doesn't make it no grade! I laughed. Thankfully, we found the little ladder in the lower edge of the screen that lets you ramp up the difficulty. Although it was my turn to raise a questioning eyebrow when he ramped it up to fractions and he still wasn't flinching. And then in another of the games he thought pennies, nickles, and dimes just weren't enough, so he turned up the difficulty to include quarters and dollars, and still was bored with the ease of it. I'm a little pleased and a little nervous that I'll probably have to get the 4th-6th grade software...

On the other hand, Christopher has never liked letters, and man oh man, he still doesn't. The first day we had a bit of a tiff because he really would not cooperate with me on reading and writing. I set him in time out (he NEVER gets time outs), cooled myself off, and came back. I explained that if he refused to learn at home, he would have to go to regular school like all the other kids, and that would mean from 8-3 five days a week. He burst into tears. He absolutely hates to be away from me, and doesn't even like to leave the house if he can help it. (I blame Bryan for this tendency.) He was thereafter very agreeable. I know he doesn't like it, but at least he is obviously trying to work with it.

Today was much better. I have a few basic words (things like: the, or, and, so) that he's supposed to memorize by sight. Instead of refusing to even look at them, he tried a lot harder today, and I used pictures to build sentences for him, which seemed to help his comprehension a LOT. And he did better on his writing, which is another thing he's always hated. But I'm glad to see him trying, and we were both happy with his success (we made it to O!).

Now, of course, this is three days in, and there's still hundreds of days to go. And obviously, this is kindergarten; it's not like I'm planning for him to go to college next year. So of course these are just little things to be happy about, but I'm hopeful that they are good omens of lots of good learning to come. I know that we'll both bumble along together, seeing what works for him, and hopefully enjoying the process of learning together. I'm glad I have the opportunity to be home with him, and that he has the opportunity to learn at his own pace.