School Daze!

I may have mentioned before that Maddison is a kindergartener this year. It has been a long time since my children were in elementary school. I am amazed at how much more advanced the curriculum is in kg than it was when my children were there. During the first week of school, Maddie brought home "popcorn" words to study. Formerly know as "sight" words, the popcorn words were something my children were briefly exposed to during the last month of kindergarten. Reading was saved for first grade. Last weekend, Maddison surprised me by telling me the difference between fiction and non-fiction, what quotation marks meant, and how to use an exclamation point. I thought maybe this was something they were just introduced to that she happened to remember. I soon found out that she actually understood what those things meant and could use them appropriately.
Maddison wanted me to help her write a book during Mason's nap time. She stapled together 6 sheets of paper and got out two crayons. To back up a little, I have to share that Maddison, Mason and I love the "Llama, Llama" books which are picture books about the adventures of baby llama and his mama. We have all three Llama series books and really enjoy sharing them together. Well, Maddison decided that we needed to write a 4th book in the series. So we brain stormed and decided that this book would be titled; "Llama, llama at the Hair-O-Rama". (Her mother is in cosmetology school). Maddison designed the cover and wrote the title out with a little spelling help from me. Then I wrote the story, as dictated by her, about baby llama getting in trouble at the hair shop while waiting for mama to get her hair done. She told me when and why we needed to use quotation marks. Then she would insist that she punctuate the really dynamic sentences with an exclamation mark. I was truely amazed at her knowledge of a story and specific elements of writing. The book is definitely a keeper. I have to admit, that education isn't what it used to be. . . but in this case it is more!