Well, things have been humming along here, so fast, in fact, that I’m super tardy with the blog updates. Sorry kids! Your mom kicked coffee and kept sleeping through the night!
Anyway, one of the big news items is Cameron’s acceptance into the Dual Immersion program at school! There were only 8 spaces available for this fall’s incoming kindergarten class, so we feel extremely fortunate to have gotten a space!
We did not try to enroll Dylan in this program because we knew so little about it and were concerned that we would not be patient enough for him to “catch up.” But, Cameron has already mastered much of the Kindergarten graduation requirements: she can write her name, she knows the alphabet, she can identify both capitalized and small letters, she knows numbers to 100, etc…She can also read many cvc (consonant-vowel-consonant) words, do some basic arithmetic (given the 3-year age gap between the kids, she has gotten quite good at calculating everyone’s relative age!) and, more recently, she has learned to count by 5’s to 100 and learned the “doubles” rule from Dylan (2+2, 3+3, 4+4…so far, we have quizzed her to 12+12).
Also, since we asked her if she was interested in the program, she’s been practicing her Spanish. She’s asking teachers at school how to say words and she’s practicing her counting. Already she can count to 20 and she has basic colors down as well.
The greatest thing about the program is that it produces students who are academically proficient in both languages–the kids will have to meet Common Core standards in both English and Spanish. In junior high and high school, students who continue on the bilingual track are eligible to earn special certificates of merit for their bilingualism.
It’s a pretty exciting opportunity and we’re looking forward to learning Spanish from Cameron!!
In other, more general, news, on just about every non-rainy day, the girls and I are still heading to the beach for play dates with Kaden and Shane; Cameron is still loving dance (we’ve registered her for another session Pre-ballet with Teacher Jeannie, another session of Int’l Academy of Dance and 3 sessions of IAD summer dance camp!); Dylan is still enjoying piano and his art class at the Tannery Arts Center (this session is Animal Art–he has drawn several lovely birds and an opposum!); and Chloe is still doing Music Together.
Cameron is eager to start piano, Chloe runs around with her arms above her head in imitation of Cameron’s ballet, and Dylan is busy trying to stay one-step ahead of them!!
I’ll try to post more very soon!
