One Thousand Words

Today isn’t just the first day of school in Chicago, it’s Niko’s first ever day of school. He’s starting preschool at our neighborhood school. Since Chicago is so big, there’s a bunch of little (and medium and large, his school is actually pretty large) school buildings and you default into a specific school based on your address. But there’s also Selective schools that, for higher grades, are Gifted or STEM or International Baccalaureate or various flavor of Charter or what have you. It’s incredibly hard to get into Selective schools in Chicago. Like, there’s literally hundreds more kids who qualify for and want to get into separate Gifted programs than there are available slots (Niko’s school has a Gifted track, but I don’t think all neighborhood schools do). We are going to have to do some serious thinking while Niko is in kindergarten about what kind of school we want him to go to for first grade and on, because generally speaking if you don’t get into your first choice school in first grade (or 6th or freshman year or whenever the school’s lowest grade is) you’re never going to get in. There’s just so much competition, so many students waiting to get in. Which means a lot of kids start really specific types of schooling (STEM, Classical, IB, a school with a fantastic music program, a school with an emphasis on physical education, etc) when they’re like 6… which is ridiculously early to make those kinds of decisions. So we might just go with the flow and keep him at his neighborhood school and supplement at home and with museum memberships and stuff. But then if he’s at a neighborhood school, will he get into a competitive high school and then college? I kind of resent that I’m feeling pressure NOW, when he’s FOUR, to do everything right so he has a successful adult academic career (which, I mean, that assumes he even WILL go to college and not just, like, become an auto mechanic or electrician or something else he’d go to a trade school and apprentice for).

I have an Anxiety Disorder and tend to spiral into alternate universes of WHAT IFs at the drop of a hat, so I’m trying really hard to just… Let Go and focus on the important thing right now, which is to shepherd Niko through preschool. The school is being less than helpful by waiting until super late to send out official notices (including school supply lists, nearly creating a financial issue for us), and not telling us ahead of time which door in a building the size of a full city block we should enter for his first day of school. I mean, if they’d just included the notice “Use door X which is on street Y” we wouldn’t have started the first day of school literally soaking with sweat and flushed from walking 4 additional blocks, quickly, in 90 degree heat. I’m also a little peeved that I signed him up for morning classes and they plunked him into afternoon, which take place riiiiight when he’s normally taking a nap. But there were too many kids signed up for AM so whatever.

But now we know what door to go to and what to do if he wants to eat lunch in the cafeteria first and we plan to have donuts or ice cream every Monday after school, and we know for sure which class he’s going to be in and which time, and that he’s going to have 3 field trips this year (the zoo, the Shedd Aquarium, Navy Pier). He’s got his own cubby and he’s met most of his class mates (and WOW there is a girl in his class who is a future Homecoming Queen/Lady President) and he’s gone on record as saying he won’t cry tomorrow when I drop him off and leave him there. So we’ll see how it goes.

School is a half mile away so unless I hang out up there (at the school? at Dunkin Donuts down the street?) I’ll be walking 2 miles a day to drop off/pick up. I’m not looking forward to doing that come winter. But we’ll survive.

Technorati Tags: 4 year old, chicago, chicago public school system, parenting, preschool, school, toddler

Mirrored from Now Showing!.

Just a post for myself, both some things Niko is currently doing and some school readiness notes for myself. Brace yourselves for an upcoming post about how the Chicago Public Schools system works. (spoiler: not well.)

Niko consistently names the colors “red” and “blue” (“weh” and “beeeyuuuu”) although sometimes he automatically adds “tar” (car) or “tootoo” (train) after the color name, because he’s usually talking about red cars or blue trains or whatever.

He sometimes says “pink” (“bih”), “purple” (“burrpuh”) and “orange” (“ourah”) but doesn’t seem comfortable saying the words.

He can identify red, blue, pink, orange, green, yellow, purple, black, and white. He will point to or fetch the appropriately colored item (block, car, sock) or shake his head no/yes to indicate what color something is (is the shirt green? no? yellow? no? red? no? orange? yes!).

He recently learned to say peekaboo (pee-ka-BOO) and is all about hiding and popping out now. He also plays peekaboo: he hides his face, and says “where da baby?” and “where da mama?” then “PEE KA BOO!”

He loves exclamations like A-HA!, dances when he sees a penguin (I guess that’s what penguins do? they dance?), picked up the word “wiggle” (WIIIGUH!), and apparently cheers himself on with the phrase “good job!” when he’s at my in-laws (it’s a phrase I use when he accomplishes something; I never hear him use it at home).

Nesko was in the bathroom the other day and Niko went looking for him. “Where tata? Where cu bee? (where could he be?)” At my in-laws, he phrases the same questions in Serbian. “To baba?”

He describes things by color (if he has the color name) and by descriptor. A truck is a “bit tah!” (big car). A toy car is a “baby tah!” “Beeyuuuuu baby tah!”

He also describes things by what they are NOT. The back of a book we have features photos of other books in the series: a book about a tractor, a bulldozer, and a fire engine. Niko is always excited to see these machines (flipping to the back cover is part of the story time experience with that book), and he is quick to point out that they are not trains, and are not cars.

He calls his pacifier, which we (Nesko and I, and Nesko’s family… basically every single person he encounters) consistently call a susula, a “nyu nyu.” He manages to make a sucking/suckling sound when saying that. Nesko’s able to replicate it, I’m not.

He calls Nesko’s mom “baba” and Nesko’s dad “not baba.” I think it’s because he has a hard time saying “djedo,” although he’s said it before when he fell in some snow and his hands got cold and wet. He was hesitant to start walking until he was comfortable doing so, confident that he wouldn’t fall over. I think he could have started walking weeks or more before he actually let go. New words seem to have the same caution. He can say “orange” and “purple” and “pink,” but he can’t say them well, so he doesn’t say them often… when, ironically, saying them more frequently would lead to saying them better. Obviously, I need to keep working with him on colors and encourage him to say these words.

He’s really starting to echo phrases we use (“good job,” “where could he be?”) as a way of conversing, but is also putting words together on his own… sometimes delightedly (“beyuuu tootoo. bih too too. Bih beyuuu tootoo!” (blue train. big train. big blue train.)). He likes certain verbal sounds (which reminds me of Crusty the Clown talking about funny words… “mukluk” is funny. Some words are just inherently funny; Niko agrees.) and picks up some words very quickly… pickle, wiggle, goofball.

He consistently recognizes the letter “o.” He can pick out lower case p, b, and d as being similar, and tends to call them all “b,” but will correct himself if prompted. He calls “m’s” myom myom because he eats M&Ms (myom myom is food). He recognizes other letters as being distinct shapes… He kept pointing to two Ys that were on the same item, in different fonts and colors.

His interest in counting consists mostly of tapping/pointing at things while I count aloud. If I ask him the color of something and he knows it but can’t/won’t say it, he does a similar tapping then nods when I name the color. So I’m hoping actual verbal counting comes soon, he’s just holding himself back. He “counts” on his own, tapping things and saying “dah dah dah” at each tap.

He calls circles and ovals “Ohhhhs.” I need to work with him on other shape names. He’s got a shapes puzzle I need to pull out so we can name shapes together.

I know there are parents who use flash cards. I’m not sure how interested Niko would be in flash cards. I’m thinking of making an alphabet book of our own… also thinking of working with Nesko to do one in Serbian, both in Latin and Cyrillic. It would be educational for me, that’s for sure. I practice counting 1-10 in both English and Serbian with Niko, but the words are only in English when we read counting books. I might do a Serbian counting book as well.

Niko got 3 wooden train sets for his birthday (spoiled much? yes. yes, he is.) and he’s been playing with them pretty much non stop. Two of them have bridges that involve a curved (not curved like a quarter circle, curved like a rocking S shape) track. These curved tracks frustrate him because they don’t lie FLAT, they need supports, they’re easily knocked over, etc. I put all four curved pieces away so he wouldn’t encounter them and get frustrated/angry/upset. He found them, dragged them back down, and… connected them into a sinuous shape, wedging blocks under them for support, and basically treated them like a roller coaster track for his trains. “Whee,” he said. “whee!” They’re still a frustrating thing because the way they are curved they don’t connect flat with the other pieces (one end connects with the normal flat track, the other end curves up into the air) so the trains can get hung up on the connectors. But he found a cool way to play with them anyway. He is good at solving problems.

Pre-K gifted program tests include questions about the days of the week, months of the year, and seasons. We haven’t touched on that at all. At all, at all.

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Mirrored from Now Showing!.