First Official Week of School....or NOT

Tuesday was to be our official first day of school, at least that was the plan for the three youngest. (Big Brother has been adding to his class schedule for a few weeks now.)  As prepared as we mommas try to be, catching the awful Yuck that made its way around to all the kiddos and grew in power by the time it hit me was definitely not part of my plan. Sooo, we will "officially" start school next Monday.

I was able to complete Wooly Sheep's Preschool assessment over a couple of days.  Carisa from 1+1+1=1 created this handy assessment.  You can find it here.  I must admit that some of the results surprised me...areas I thought he would be weak at or have no ability were completed with great skill.  And, there were areas I thought he would be stronger in.  I love the fact that I don't have to feel like I have failed my child and he is not up to par with others, but can enjoy the learning and exploring together.  I even thought to take photographs.  Jay Bird and Ladybug were just too curious to stay away.  Unfortunately, they were not able to remain wall flowers and I had to shoo them away.

Wooly Sheep's cutting abilities was one of those shocking moments.  Confession, I have a BIG aversion to children with scissors and teaching children the art of cutting is even farther down on my list of never want to do list.  So far down in fact that it does not even register.  As I am sure you can guess, I do not have them use scissors much...more like EVER!  He did awesome despite his mother's shortcomings.  I was so sure this would be a super weak area that I had ordered Kumon's My First Book of Cutting.  Wooly saw me unpack the book today and has shown everyone all the cutting skills he will achieve by the end of the book. 

He can count up to 12 orally without missing a number and count 1:1 while touching small pom poms.  He wants to skip number 13 and go straight to 14 in both cases.

Wooly Sheep completed an ABAB pattern just fine and was able to do AABB pattern.  I thought I would push it a bit and tried AAB, but he just wanted to make his own patterns at this point.

Locating print on different pages of a book did not prove difficult and he was able to identify all the colors.

The following shapes gave him trouble: oval, rectangle, and diamond.  Wooly Sheep missed 9, 10, 8, and 6 when identifying numbers.  He also missed the following lower case letters: q, y, f, g, h, j, l, b, and h.  When asked to identify capital letters he missed the following: Q, W, J, K, and V.  I was a bit surprised at how many he missed when identifying numbers and letters. 

Wooly Sheep is usually my minute man when it comes to coloring, so I was taken aback at how well he did coloring the white areas on 4 objects.  He asked questions about how to stay in the lines.  This was one of those moments that I just adore and believe was prompted by the fact that there was no competition for my attention. He was free to just talk.  Just look at that determination!  

He can say his first, middle and last name.  I started wondering if it was because I say all 3 together too often.  We will just leave that one alone.

His pencil grip was high, but very good.  Once I directed him to hold it lower on the pencil he did remarkably well tracing the black dotted line from point A to point B.  I tried to photograph his paper, but the pencil lines were too light to register.

I admit, I was a bit leery about trying this assessment while feeling miserable.  However, I am glad I went ahead with it.  Wooly Sheep is excited and has an idea of all that is to come....so is Momma.