Homework Time

Here is Paige doing her first ever homework assignment. She is decorating a flower to hang up on the "Kinder Garden" wall. She is loving kindergarten and is happy to go every day.

She is getting the occasional homework, which has already resulted in a "bad parent" moment for me. Every Friday, the kids have a color show-and-tell day, which means that on red day the kids bring something from home that is red, on blue day bring something blue, etc. Well, we did okay on week one, but I completely forgot last Friday. Paige told me she had to use something in the classroom. She didn't seem bothered that we had forgotten, but I told her I would try hard to remember next Friday and she just said, "Yeah, mom you should try a little harder to remember." I wrote it on the calendar.

I also have to smile at Paige's reaction to the discipline program in the classroom. Basically, you start each day on green, if you are "put on" yellow it's a warning and a red is a short time-out. Well, obviously this made an impression on her because she came home the first day of school to tell me that, "two kids were on yellow today!" A couple days later, I told her to ask her teacher about something or other and she said, "okay," then thought about it for a minute and said, "I don't think I should ask her, she might put me on yellow." This was followed by another incident at home when I gave her warning for something and I told her if she did it again, she was going to have to sit in time-out, to which she responded, "does this mean I'm on yellow?"

All this led to a little talk about how in kindergarten we learn to follow the rules, but we can ask our teachers questions and that even if we "get on red" mom isn't going to get really mad at you because that just means we have to try a little harder next time. I was worried she was taking this all a little too seriously.

Of course, after week two we aren't talking as much about being put on red, now we are onto, "mom, my friend Addie has a boyfriend. It's true!"

Mom's response: "you don't have boyfriends in kindergarten."

Paige: "I know mom, but Addie doesn't know that. So it's okay."