What Are They Learning?

Do you know what our kids are learning in school? Evan and I talk the most when he should be sleeping. Tonight, that was 10 pm. Bad parent, bad, bad. As he was laying in bed, he was telling me about 5 ships in the ocean, "like 20,000 miles, not like a big ocean." He weaved Christopher Columbus into it, so I thought they had talked about Columbus Day coming up, but then he said they were off the coast of Somalia. Ok, Chris wasn't near Somalia, was he? And you do know he's been dead for about 500 years? No, now, not way back then. Wow - current events - social studies - in 1st grade. Not just the cheesy weekly reader magazine. There are plenty of pirates off the coast of Somalia holding boats hostage and getting millions of $$ in ransom to fund the Taliban. I explained the pirates were really bad guys and would kill if they didn't get their ransom, but left the Taliban and Iraq out of it. He knows there's a war and his friend and neighbor's dad is gone until next summer training & fighting in Iraq, but we can save that for 2nd grade. I'm still waiting for the computer lab to be kept up like it should be, a real library in the school and art classes, but at least they are getting real news. He knew about the hurricanes a few weeks ago, too.

It's 1st grade. I can read the readers, I can quiz the spelling words. My kid brings home sounds tests. I'm sure I learned it - I can sound out words in a dictionary - but it's already greek to me. Bring on the math - that I still know. E asked me how to spell "ray" - a middle name. Then he told me all about the sounds the "a-e" combination make. Go to sleep, E. I don' know or care how her parents chose to spell her name.

Colby? 4 accidents today, the first day we ventured out of the house for more than an hour or so. Yesterday? No accidents. Time to do some laundry...

Happy Anniversary, T. I'd do it all again.