Its August and the start to Lodi Unified's school year, oh-so-crazy-early. Caleb just started First Grade and Landon is doing Transitional Kindergarten, or 'TK'. For those unfamiliar, they explain it as year one of a two year kindergarten program, designed for the kids with birthdays between September 1 and December 1 who don't make the cut off to start Kindergarten yet. We've heard nothing but good things from friends whose kids who have done it, and for Landon it felt like a natural progression and great fit. He is watching Caleb do school work, read to us, practice sight words, etc., and is wanting to do those things, too. So we are excited about his year of learning and fun - not to mention it's FIVE days a week and free! :)
Caleb is at Vinewood Elementary
Landon is going to Lakewood Elementary, right in Papa Jack and Nana Dee's backyard. Only three schools in Lodi currently offer this program, and this was the one whose start times coordinated to allow me enough time to drop both boys off in the mornings.
Caleb's class lining up on the first day, with their teacher, Mrs. Quesada (who happens to be our neighbor!).
According to his hat, Caleb is "O-Fish-ally a First Grader" (with his side-kick Landon making his best fish face)
Box conversion into imaginary play :)
This night the boys were so wound up and being super silly, and they were all about crazy poses for the camera...
At the beginning of the summer, with Caleb now able to read, he was asking us about signing up for Upwards Soccer. First grade is the minimum age to play with them, so we thought we would give it a try. He seems to enjoy it, though he likes games a lot more than practicing, and it has been good to introduce him to a new sport.
(L to R): Marshall, Caleb E., Takeo, Mason, Caleb, Ben, and Grant in the front
Take a close look at Landon's apple... this is what happens when you have no front teeth and bite in. (Smiley face)
I just had to include some pictures of this adorable baby girl - this is Jude, Tameem and Deanna's daughter. This is her new thing, the scrunched up nose with the big gummy grin. So stinkin' cute.
Landon's TK teacher, Mrs. DeValle, began using ClassDojo this year. It is an app for teachers and parents to communicate with one another. She will sometimes send a picture of Landon at school, which is so nice to receive and see what they're up to! This little girl with him is Leilani.
TK recess fun
Our puzzle man. He took a break for a few months and wasn't too into them, but now he's back at it. He has a really good eye for knowing if a piece will fit or not, and picking the right ones out of the pile
This has pretty much become a given when we go to the shoppe now - Landon has to make his "lemon water" (aka. lemonade to most people) with Candace. He surprised me one day at home over the summer when he told me he needed to 'level' the scoop of sugar. Didn't even know he knew that word.
August 16th marked my one-year Jazzerversary, as it is called - one year that I have been teaching Jazzercise. It has definitely flown by. I am still loving it, and look forward to teaching my three classes each week. It has gotten significantly easier as the year has gone by, learning routines more quickly all the time (the stack of notes from what I've learned in a year is pretty impressive), and more comfortable with my classes each time I teach. Never imagined that I would be 'teaching' in this way!
Happy to have my Amy in class with me that day!
I ended up teaching back-to-back classes on my Jazzerversary. This was my 3:15 crew!
As part of the common core math techniques being taught now, Caleb is learning about number 'partners' - all sorts of ways to make 10. He came home with this upside-down rainbow to help them practice and I thought it was pretty cool because I had never looked at the number relationship this way - the 'rainbow' lines connect the numbers together as partners to make ten with each set.
Landon won't begin homework until second quarter this year, but he is bringing home letter and writing classwork practice, they work on identifying upper and lower case letters, identifying their name among other names that start with the same letter, and they have also learned about patterns, which is fun to hear him explain to me. He has also brought home some drawings, too...
This is supposed to be a self-portrait, but he told me he decided to draw daddy - with really big early, seven hearts, and ladder legs so he can climb on him.
Here is one of himself. with four eyes.
During the Olympics we thought it would be fun to teach the boys what a javelin throw was, using two pool noodle light sabers taped together. They very quickly turned it into who could get them stuck up in the trees game
It's been a long time since we've done any painting. Love to see what they come up with.
Lunch with a Loved One at Vinewood - lucky for Caleb, Jimmy happened to be in Lodi that day so we all four got to have lunch together
Later the same night, we got to attend the One-Eighty Teen Center's annual dinner fundraiser. This year it was held at Wine and Roses. Care Lodi, which many of you know I am involved in, falls under the umbrella of activities and organizations that make up the Teen Center
Had to snap a picture of our sunflower. Lots of planted seeds or beans come home from preschool, church, and other grades of school, but not many live long enough to see them grow to maturity. This was the sunflower that Caleb started inside a ziploc with a wet paper towel last Spring in Mr. Drouin's class!
Tidbits:
Neither of the boys are into sleeping with their stuffed animals at the moment - Landon still loves having a big soft blanket to wrap up in, and Caleb still sleeps with no pjs on top of the covers most nights.
LANDON IS STARTING TO READ! Mr.Brown Can Moo. Can You? We have this book checked out from the library right now, and he picked it up one night toward the end of the month, and started sounding out the words. I was blown away. He is 4 1/2 and I didn't expect reading to happen any time soon, but he is totally into it, and in the two weeks from then until writing this, he is eager to read new books that are his level from our neighbor, Mrs. Walton, who is the reading specialist at Vinewood. We are so fortunate to have her for a neighbor!
