Summer Bucket List

It's time for our annual summer bucket list! Keeping it simple and sweet again this year.

Kip made a little bucket list at school too. Apparently he's eager to eat a fish! Not sure he realizes fish sticks and tuna are indeed fish (he loves both). He's hoping to go fishing and eat his catch. He also wants to learn how to set the table, practice adding numbers, and go to the beach.

Aunt Jess arrives tonight! City yard sale this weekend. And then we leave Monday for the beach with a pit stop at Storybook Land along the way! Sunshine, we're just waiting on you!

That's A Wrap

Kip's Kindergarten year is complete!

He absolutely blew us away with how much he learned and progressed this year. Mandy, Dan and I do not apply academic pressure in any way. Why? Because it does NOT work for Kip. When Kip is ready to master a skill, he will take the initiative. When he's not ready he will dig in his heels and throw down everything he can to avoid it. We learned this the hard way during 2020 when we tried to semi-home school Kip and discovered he would absolutely not learn the alphabet if we had any say in it. So we stopped forcing it. It was just not worth the fights and stress on our relationships with him to demand that he learn letter recognition. So we've taken a passive approach. We read to him nightly, encourage him to explore all sorts of interests, and take him places where he can learn without us sitting him down and drilling facts. And honestly, he's learned a lot from TV as well (as much as people like to frown upon it). Otherwise, we've handed over the formal academic instruction to the experts and the teachers at his school have somehow unlocked the learning. 

Despite missing over 10% of school days for sick absences, by the end of this year, Kip can not only read but he was in the top the reading group and fluently reading beyond a first grade reading level. His teacher told us he tested the highest in his class for math, working out problems he was never even taught. What does this mean? I have no idea. All I can say is he is doing really well and we are SO proud of his progress but we take absolutely NO credit for it. 

Here is a little side by side of his self portrait from the first day of school:

Compared to the end of the year:

This summer, our hope is Kip continues to read regularly both by listening to us read to him and having him read to us. We also have a summer bridge workbook for him to do but it might be a struggle for us to get him to do it at home. Like I said, he does not respond well to pressure from us so we will need to get creative about how he does it. Continued practice writing his name and helping him explore all the creative ideas bouncing around in his head should keep him on track for first grade. 

It was a great year and he had the BEST teachers. For the last day of school I helped with an epic glow party they surprised the kids with. It was a blast.

Every year I'm going to have Kip help me complete a little Last Day Interview. Here is Kindergarten:

And I don't think I ever shared Pre-K: 

Happy Summer!

Kindy Creations

More and more papers came home for the end of the year clean-out which means more and more sorting and filing. See my tips for managing sentimental hoarding here.

Apparently there is a National Unicorn Day

And of course Star Wars Day

Kip was inspired by Star Wars Day and worked with Dan to make his own R2-D2 out of boxes.

RD-2D helped do some yard work!

And Earth Day!

They did a Pete the Cat series at school.

And some other random creations...

At some point this summer I will go through everything I saved in Kip's bin and make my final selection of Kindergarten creations for file storage. I'm really happy with the system I'm using and sharing his creations here has helped me let go of some of the paper as well.

Weekending it

Happy Tuesday feels like Monday. Kip has a half day of school today and another half day tomorrow but we are all already in summer mode. 

Here's what we did with our long weekend.

Kip had a soccer game on Saturday morning.

And then we had a play date with a school friend at the park in the afternoon.

On Father's Day we let Dad sleep in and brought him breakfast in bed with cards and gifts.

After church we went to a waterfront park to play.

The kids tried mini golf for the first time and had fun (they didn't follow any of the typical rules). 

And a bit of scootering. 

Yesterday Kip was off school and I was off of work as well. Mandy and I took the kids to Walmart and Barnes & Noble to finish getting end-of-the-year stuff. Kip had me take loads of photos of things he wants for his birthday.

This week, events are winding down. I've got one more big push to get through the class party. We have a garage sale this weekend and then family arriving and a beach vacation next week!

Hello SUMMER!!!