Last 2 days of jumpstart

We've been pretty busy and I fell behind on the blog front LOL!

Braedon's last 2 days of jumpstart went fairly well. He was able to stay on green most of the day. He had a couple mishaps that put him on yellow but with the "threat" of red hanging over him, he shaped up to get back on green. I was very happy with how this week went and am hoping the jumpstart program got all the wiggles out and we won't have any problems when the school year starts. On Thursday, when I was dropping Braedon off, a little boy-I say little because he was much smaller than Braedon-came up to me and said "your son 'bees' mean to me". It kind of took me by surprise but I turned to Braedon and he admitted it so I took it as an opportunity for a life lesson on being nice. It turns out, Braedon seems to be the bully. If someone has something he wants, he takes it away without asking and if they don't give it to him, he hits them. This little boy was beyond his years and kept telling Braedon that he needs to be nice to everyone and not take things away, to share, and to not hit. I talked to Braedon about being nice and making friends with everyone. It's better to have lots of friends than to be the kid that is mean. He said he wanted to be this kids friend so I told him he needed to appologize and ask if they can be friends. I couldn't have seen what was coming next. Braedon went over and asked him if they can be friends and he said "NO"..oh my-so much for a life lesson right? Good thing I'm quick on my feet because Braedon just looked at me like what now? I told him that he doesn't want to be his friend because he was mean to him and he needed to make an effort to show him he would be nice. Meanwhile, this kid kept saying "you need to be nice to EVERYONE, not just me". Hmmm..pretty smart this little kid is. I asked Braedon to work on being nice to everyone and have a good day. He was anxious to get to play and run before school started. This kid wasn't in his class so I don't know what happened or if he will be in his class for the year. I guess we'll have to see. Braedon also showed what a big boy he could be and rode the bus home the last 2 days. I was nervous about it but I figured it would be good for him to get the experience and this way if I ever needed him to take the bus home for anything, he already knows how to do it. Since it was just kinder during the jumpstart, there was only 1 bus and his stop is the first one. I talked to Ms. Jimenez about how it works to help me feel more at ease about the situation. If I had my way, I would've drove up to the school and followed the bus until he was dropped off. Anyway, the bus drivers have a list of the kiddo's and their addresses so they know where they should be dropped off at. They also won't let them off the bus unless there is an adult (that they know) at the bus stop. If there isn't, they will make them stay on the bus and take them back to the school after everyone else is dropped off. To top it off, the kindergartners have bright orange bracelets that get put on and the first graders have bright green ones so the bus drivers know they are little one's-not that it wouldn't be obvious by their size LOL! Oh and the teachers walk all the kids out to the bus and make sure they get on the right bus. That made me feel a lot better about the situation so I sucked it up and let him take the bus the last 2 days. He did great and LOVED it. According to Chris it was because he felt "liberated". He went somewhere without Mommy or Daddy and did it all on his own.

Now for pictures :-)

Wednesday-waiting for the bus:


Here it comes:


Such a big boy!


I didn't take a pic before school so here is after:


Thursday-waiting for the bus:


The bus driver saw me trying to take a pic Wed so he posed for me :-)


And again-after school-can't remember why he took his shoes off:


On Wednesday night, there was a "make and take" night at Braedon's school. We didn't have a lot of information going into it but we were told that we would be making things that would help the kiddo's practice what they learn at school, at home. Does that make sense? Ok so we went up there and the kinder teachers had typed out everyone's name in dot letters on laminated paper so he could practice writing his name. He's known how to do that for quite some time but now he needs to practice writing smaller. We also got a sheet with the letters of the alphabet along with their "characters" like W is worm-can't remember his name and Z is zebra-again, can't remember the name along with magnetic letters and activities we can do with the letters to help him learn to spell words, recognize letters, etc. We also made flashcards with numbers 0-20 for number recognition and for counting purposes. He can count to 100 so we are going to make more flashcards counting higher. He gets a little confused on number recognition when it comes to double digits. It is "1 and a 0" rather than "10" but when counting outloud, he does fine.

Pics from that night: