Elementary school is hard, y'all

                                         Elementary school ain’t no joke

          I must say that I remember kindergarten as being a time of coloring, playing, snacking, napping, and MAYBE learning the alphabet.  It was a simpler time, when you could play the morning away before your mom came to get you around noon.  That’s right, back in my day kindergarten was only half a day.  I have a kindergartener and a first-grader now, and they spend from 8:45 am to 3:45 pm in school every day.

          As for playing in school, or spending all day coloring- forget it! The kindergarten teacher has a color-coded behavior system: red means bad, yellow means the kid was sorta bad, and green is good.  Now let’s talk about Cougar, my kindergartener.  He is the class clown, as described by his teacher.  You can probably imagine that he brings home lots of yellows and reds.  The reasons are sometimes written in his folder, and sometimes not.  The written ones from last week’s red days said, “playing and throwing his hat around” and “howling during the 2^nd grade play.”  During the last parent-teacher conference, the teacher told me that all the kids love Cougar, and Cougar loves all the kids.  He gives everyone hugs and plays with everybody.  He’s very inclusive.  HOWEVER, being the class clown means that he is forever getting into trouble for not following directions or for not listening.  As far as his schoolwork goes, he doesn’t care too much about it yet.  He has only learned 50 out of the 100+ sight words he is expected to learn, and he can’t really read yet.  He knows his alphabet and can count to 100, but that’s about it for him.  He can write his name and some easy words, but again, that’s it.  He has homework twice a week.  That’s right- my KINDERGARTENER has to do homework.  Wednesday is always reading homework because he is expected to be able to read with some fluency by the time he hits first grade!  I can’t believe this myself. I think kindergarten should be more about learning through play, and NOT about pressuring these poor kids to read before they are ready.  I didn’t even begin learning to read until first grade.

          Now don’t get me started on first grade! I’m super lucky to have my smartypants son Tyger in first grade right now, because first grade is TOUGH now. They do not have a color-coded behavior system, and they don’t have snack time.   They are expected to have learned to read in kindergarten, so they start right away with spelling words, reading tests, and math problems.  Tyger usually has spelling, reading, and math homework every week.  I don’t have to worry so much about Tyger, because he’s been reading since he was 2, and he does multiplication tables for fun while the other kids are still adding and subtracting.  He goes to a special smartypants class every Thursday called ACE, where hopefully his brain is stretched, but in reality he says he just plays on computers.  Tyger has been described by his teachers as quiet and reserved, with just a few friends. He is super smart, so the classwork is boring him, but his teacher assures me that 2^nd grade will be a bigger challenge for him.