Shea's school progress

For family that hasn't seen any new updates for a while I thought I would clue you in on how Shea is doing in First Grade. First of all, he really enjoys school, although for some reason he will tell you that he liked kindergarten better...while his behavior tells a far different story. What he doesn't like about school is getting up in the morning. Yes, his mom and dad managed to pass along the "despise getting out of bed" trait that will serve him so well throughout his life. He had a brief infatuation with his new alarm clock, but that novelty wore off in one day.

Anyways, Shea was recently selected to participate in the Math Enrichment program at his school (basically they give students with a higher math proficiency the opportunity to do some extra activities). It was through this program that I have talked with school personnel about doing a Game Night. Might be time to revisit that. Also they just completed another round of DRA (a standardized reading test) to gauge progress. Shea scored a 30. They hope to have all the kids score over 16 at the end of 1st grade. 30 is the target they have established for kids entering 3rd grade. Shea still thinks of reading as "work"...hasn't crossed that barrier yet to where he will voluntarily pick up a book to read. Which is understandable...the books he's able to read right now aren't exactly riveting fiction.

Funny story, and I'm pretty sure it reflects poorly on me as a parent, but oh well. I was taking Shea home the other night, and he couldn't wait to get home so he could work on his "big drawing." He had glued together 4 big sheets of paper so he could make one really big piece. So when we got home, he put his Metallica CD (xmas gift from Uncle Jeff...Enter Sandman has been his favorite song for some time) onto his new CD/MP3 boombox and proceded to draw an epic battle scene. You remember the stick figure warriors with swords and bows, with the dotted line arrow paths. He was very cognicant of placing the archers on the "high ground", I'm assuming that was based on his Heroscape experience (as all great Generals know, you get an extra attack die for that). So anyways, how proud should I be watching my six year old son rocking out to Metallica while he's drawing an arrow sticking out of some dude's chest? Brings a tear to your eye doesn't it.