Romans First Report Card

So, after many months of School the kindergartners finally got their first report card. I opened it with much trepidation and fear. It was basically what I had braced myself for, with a few surprises added in. First of all, I'm not sure I understand the whole grading system. We have been in the school system for a few years now but what ever happened to A, B, C ,D etc ? We now have random letters of numbers, which are different with every report card and require a "key" to decipher.

When reading the comments, I read a bit between the lines, keeping in mind that his teacher is so sweet she is almost positive to a fault. Comments such as "Roman is slowly adapting to a classroom climate." Could be interpreted as Roman is frequently disruptive in a classroom setting but he is starting to learn that we are here for a reason.

Or "He seems to be enjoying school more and is attempting to pay attention in class" . That is a comment I could be proud of but the "attempting" is not all that encouraging.

One of my favorites is " Roman loves stories and will listen intentively when he is interested".....bingo. That about sums it up.

He did do very well in the "Creative Arts development" which includes things like having his own ideas, using props creatively, listening and moving to music, rhythm activities, and singing. All of those are things that he loves so I'm glad that it is showing through at school. He told me " I'm the best singer in the class" I congratulated him and chuckled. I suspect he's the loudest anyway. The teacher commented "Roman enjoys music and loves to sing".

I feel a little guilty as a mother who should have been teaching him the area of basic knowledge of colors, alphabet, phone number, birthday. To say he's never been interested in any of these things is an understatement, and I guess I just didn't bother with the battle. I have tried but gave up too easily maybe. He does finally know his colors though (just details he never cared about enough to try to learn.) ...."except orange". And according to the report card he knows his alphabet up to the letter "p"......well obviously that would be the letter where he stops the song and starts cracking jokes instead. He may never learn the alphabet past "p" in fact. I really do need to work with him on these things and attempt to make them interesting and maybe even fun for him. After all there are a lot more years of learning left to do. Even just doing homework, which he doesn't get unless he misses a day, is painful for both of us. As you can see by the face above. He had to finish a simple coloring activity and it was an hour of drama just to get him to do it. He has been coloring a little more in recent months (before that he never colored) but it can't be in a coloring book. He hates anything that restricts him in anyway, he would rather invent his own pictures....so doing an assignment is tough. I was complaining to his Dad about the trouble with homework and he sympathetically said he remembers feeling the exact same way. He remembers it almost being physically impossible to engage himself and just get it done if it was something he was not interested in....even if it was easy. He is his fathers son , in so many ways. It an attempt to convince him to finish his homework I told him that it was his "quest" he got even more mad and told me "MOM, a quest is something fun like fighting a dragon to save a princess, finding lost treasure, or saving the world from an evil villain!!!....NOT doing coloring!" I stand corrected.


On a more positive note he seems to do well in math, or rather pre-math activities like sorting, patterns etc. So my fingers are still crossed for that. I just feel almost bad for him because I know the structure and bookwork of school goes against everything about his personality. It is something he has to learn and he will have to learn to function in that setting...even if it is a challenge. His teacher did comment that his attention span is improving and his fine motor skills are getting better to , so I'm holding onto that and hoping they continue to get better. Kids change so much in these first few years of school.

I have to admit the other day as he was heading to school and grumbling about it, I told him that he had to pay attention in class and learn what he needed to learn or he would be in kindergarten forever.....a tiny mommy fib. I told him that before he could set out to travel the world he needed to finish all his years of school and it would take even longer if he didn't learn the first time and had to do them over again. That got his attention.

I love this boys creativity, imagination and sense of adventure. I wouldn't change him for anything. I just have a foreboding feeling that the next 12 years might be a bit of a struggle. I'm hoping I'm wrong, and I certainly don't want to give him anything but a confident and positive impression about his schooling experience. Fortunately he can't read or use the computer and get wind of my fears for him. I know that God has great things for this boy and will use all his energy, perseverance, passion and his think outside the box outlook on everything for something special. He may not have a future as a accountant or a librarian but I'm ok with that :) He'd rather be a surfer/ musician/ world traveller anyway. I'm just hoping he's one that knows the color orange.


p.s Roman just said the funniest thing to me....somewhat over the line inappropriate for writing about, I apologize ahead of time if you are offended easily...but its from the mouth of a 5 year old who was perfectly serious at the time. I had a good laugh once I got over the shock.

Roman - (with an air of smugness and pride) " My p#*#s is pretty big for my age....I think its because I exercise a lot"

Me - " gasp, shock.......um, Roman how exactly do you exercise your -----"

well I'll leave the rest to your imagination. Needless to say I laughed so hard tears rolled down my cheeks. Then we had a bit of a talk.


side note: He's really into exercising, running and lifting heavy stuff....so it stands to reason that he wouldn't neglect that part too. Being a mom to boys is quite an adventure.