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!
