Thursday, November 26, 2015

Thanksgiving

Zack had no interest in getting autographs from the characters....until we had thanksgiving dinner with the princesses. Then he was all over getting autographs and pictures.

Sunday, November 22, 2015

Legoland, Day 2

LL is the best place ever, according to Z. Today he got his driver's license, watched a 4d movie, fought bad guys in a mummy tomb, watched good guys fight off pirates on water skis, and went on a boat ride. At the moment he's building a velociraptor cage.

And yes, that's a life-sized Ford Explorer made out of Legos.

Tomorrow it's onto Disney.

Saturday, November 21, 2015

Legoland, day 1

He may be in heaven.

Thursday, November 12, 2015

Update

We had Zack's parent-teacher conference yesterday, so it seemed like a good time to post an update. 

First, I have to say that his teacher, Ms. Cipollina, is fabulous. Just so sweet and caring--she really wants all the kids to do well. Zack says at least once a week that she's the best teacher ever. 

Zack is doing well. According to the report that he wrote about himself, he likes reading and writing the best, math is ok, science is good, social studies--eh, not so much. He's reading a little above grade level, which reflects changes that I've noticed recently. He's doing well in math, and in everything else, too. He got good marks in all of the social stuff--following the rules, etc. Ms. C said that he gets a long with all of his classmates and everyone seems to like him. She also said that he's probably the most creative kid in the class. 

The "but" is that because he's got so much going on in his head, he sometimes doesn't read the instructions on his worksheets and so doesn't show that he masters all the concepts. He's not inclined to check his work (honestly, I always hated doing that, too). He also needs some help with writing. His teacher said that others that are reading at his level are writing long paragraphs independently, which he's only doing with guidance. To be honest, I think that he can do it (Ms. C thinks so, too), but that it's too much of a bother for him. 

Because of this, Ms Cipollina nominated him to be a part of a new program at school called Rock N Read. He's the only one in his class that gets to do it. It's for kids like Zack, who can read at grade level but need some more work on concepts and writing. Volunteers come in to work one-on-one with the students. He's had two sessions so far and he really seems to love it. He came home all excited and showed me everything thing they'd done. It seems like a win all around. 

As far as everything else goes, he continues to do really well. He has friends coming out of the woodwork. What I love about him (well there are many things, but...) is that his attitude seems to be that there's no reason he can't be friends with everyone. I hope he keeps that. He's always busy at KAH and the counselors there say he's a great kid. He has a couple close friends in the neighborhood that he likes to hang around with. Coby lives across the street and they will often go back and forth between houses on the weekend. His other good friend is Arianna, who lives about a block and a half away. We like to hang out with her parents, so we'll often have impromptu dinners. I love to see that he has no problem being friends with girls, and they get along so well. 


Tuesday, November 03, 2015

Happy Halloween!

In short, we had a great Halloween. Our neighborhood really gets into it, starting with a neighborhood parade that starts on our front yard. Kids come out of the woodwork, I swear. Then trick-or-treating. Then we had a party. The adults went to Paul and Holly's house, while the kids had their own party at our house (childcare was hired, don't worry).

I was Frida Kahlo, Zack was a Knight Terror, and Rob was some sort of Phantom of Doom.

Everyone had a blast.