Thursday, September 18, 2014

Maybe the Folder Fairy can teach you to spell "elephant"/pack a lunch my 7 year old will eat/speak German

Because my 5 year old has the same teacher for kindergarten that my older 3 children had, my other 3 children think they are the expert on all things related to this particular kindergarten class.  But sometimes things change from year to year, the teacher does something new.  I tell them these things but they are still firm that they know it all.  On Tuesday, Little Girl came home talking about how the "Folder Fairy" was going to visit some time at school and check to see if they had a neat folder.  Well, my 9 year old was adamant that there was no "Folder Fairy" in kindergarten and no matter how much her little sister tried to convince her, the 9 year old just believed her little sister was the one who was wrong.

Well, on Wednesday this came home in Little Girl's folder:

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I've spent all week helping my 2nd grader with his spelling words, spelling words that literally are a challenge for even my husband and me!  I have a trick for Wednesday, you know say it like Wed-nes-day and then it's obvious how to spell it, but elephant?  I have no idea how to help him remember how to spell elephant!  On the pretest he spelled it, "elfint".  Do you see how far we have to come from Monday to Friday?  Really, with 20 words to deal with on his list, I've written off "elephant", he'll just miss that one, and we're focusing our energies on other words like "calendar", "lettuce" and "celery".  Honestly, 2nd grade is not what it used to be!

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My 7 year old let me know as we walked out of school one day this week that he likes bagel with cream cheese for lunch only on weekends and in the summer but not packed in his school lunch like I had done that day. 

It's one of those comments that can really irritate you as a parent considering the effort you put into the homemade, hand-packed lunch at 7am.  But, I've been trying a tactic lately with my kids and it's really helping.  I repeat back to them whatever they just said to me that sounded unreasonable.  "So, let me get this straight, you like bagel and cream cheese for lunch on the weekends and in the summertime, but not on school days?"

And really just the repeating of the crazy thing they've just told me typically allows me to find the amusing quality in it all and refrain from an irritated reply like, "Fine, then pack your own lunch!"

I told him that I worried his list of things he does like packed for lunch is getting too small.  He assured me there were lots of things he liked for lunch, but only proceeded to think of 3 -- cheese quesadillas, pizza, and peanut butter and crackers.  Considering the prep. involved in the pizza and quesadilla options, those are only happening once, maybe twice a week, so the kid is going to be eating a lot of peanut butter crackers!

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My 6th grader is taking German right now and he keeps talking to me in German and I have no idea what he is saying!  Actually it is amazing how much German he's learned in just 4 weeks now!  But, I'm quick to let Mr. Middle School know he is not beyond bringing in my recycling bins:

Happy Friday, Friends!


Half-Past Kissin' Time

3 comments:

  1. My grandchildren are also fussy about what they eat and of course I keep making treats instead.

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  2. I enjoyed reading your fragments, especially the part about the 'Folder Fairy' :)

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  3. Yay for the folder fairy! We have a 2nd grader, too and we have written off a couple of the spelling words more than once. And finding mutually acceptable lunches is an ongoing struggle in our home. Congrats to the 6th grader on the german - very cool.
    :-)
    Traci

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