Nicole's Journal April, 1999 Age: 5 Last Update:  4/30/1999

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E-Mail Home Nicole Christopher Picture Index Journal Index Nicole's Art Christopher's Art Kid's Height & Weight Chart Family Photo Cube Nicole's Birthday E-Mail Me Credits Slide Show Kid's Archives Games Galveston Vacation	Sweet Nicole (4/26/1999)
	Nicole's Activities: <scroll to bottom>
	04/09/99, Friday - Cousins Visit (Nicole's age: 5 years, 1 month, 22 days) This last week my brother and sister and their families came to visit. They both live hundreds of miles away in opposite directions, so we don't get to see them very often. My brother has a girl a little older than Christopher and my sister has a girl a little younger than Nicole and another the same age as Christopher. It was a house full of kids. The kids have really been playing well together, considering the number. They all love to swing and so there have been some arguments over the three swings in our back yard. The kids enjoyed two Easter egg hunts. Christopher and Nicole have actually had a couple more that happened before the cousins arrived. The hunt the ladies put on in our yard was cleverly organized. Each child was assigned a color of plastic egg for which to look. That way they all ended up with the same number of eggs and we could customize some of the egg contents to the particular child. It was a lot of fun to watch. You would also hear the occational shout like "Nicole, here's one of your eggs!" from one of the kids. 04/15/99, Thursday - Nicole Reads! (Nicole's age: 5 years, 1 month, 28 days) Tuesday night (4/13) was exciting. After putting Christopher to bed, I walked into the livingroom to find Nicole reading to Tina! She was reading Dr. Suess' "Green Eggs and Ham" and only getting minor occational help from Tina. Yes, I did get it on video tape. 04/23/99, Friday - Nicole's Kindergarten (Nicole's age: 5 years, 2 months, 5 days) We've been looking into what Kindergarten to put Nicole into. We're deciding between a Magnet school and our local public school. Tina and Nicole went to visit the Magnet on Tuesday. Tina was not that impressed. She's asked about test scores and they aren't any better than the regular schools. There seemed to be nothing exceptional about the teachers or the principle. The only difference seemed to be the uniforms. The curriculum is basically the same with a little more emphasis on language arts. Also, the Kindergarten is all day (8-3). That, to us, is a negative. It may be good for working parents, but for us it means that Nicole will be going from 6 hours a week this year to 6 hours a day of school. We don't think we want that much school influence yet. We asked Nicole which school she liked. She told us that she likes both of them and wants to go to both. I guess she'll be easy to satisfy. She really does like school. Anyway, that's a very long way to say we've decided to put Nicole in our local grade school. We still have one more week to decide, but that's basically it. Next Thursday is the pajama Kindergarten Roundup for the local school. That's when I get to go because it's in the evening. Nicole gets to go in her pajamas. Yesterday was also Nicole's parent-teacher conference at her pre-school. What a glowing report we received. Her papers were covered with comments and smiley faces from the teacher. Actually, her teacher is pretty wonderful herself and deserves much of the credit for how well Nicole did. She has really structured her class as a preparation for Kindergarten. It has different centers for learning like art, science, etc. Nicole likes all the centers and obeys the teacher well when told to change. It's just been a really good experience. Nicole on a real pony at school! (4/15/1999) 04/26/99, Monday - Physical Milestone - Light Rope (Nicole's age: 5 years, 2 months, 8 days) Last night Nicole had a friend over and we were all playing in the back yard. Our swing set has monkey bars across the top and both Christopher and Nicole like having help to navigate it. Last night, Nicole was able to cross the monkey bars all by herself. We did spot her, of course, but she did all the work. She (and we as well) was very proud. Nicole is also learning more about the world around her. I saw here staring at the night light the other day and asked her what she was looking at. She said she saw a rope inside the bulb. I explained that it was a filament and that it glowed when electricity flowed through it. She then wanted to turn on the light so she could see for herself. She did and replied "It really does glow!" Our science project for the day. 04/30/99, Friday - Kindergarten Roundup (Nicole's age: 5 years, 2 months, 12 days) Last night was the final "Kindergarten Roundup" for Nicole's school. It was fun because the kids all dressed in their pajamas and had story time while they presented to the parents. After the presentation we all got to explore the Kindergarten room and the kids got a snack. We met the teacher and the principle. The principle was very personable and called all the kids by name. They really made all the kids feel very compfortable. The teacher was unreal. She's very friendly and energetic and gave a nice overview of how she teaches and what they'll learn. She seems very excited about the class and I think Nicole will really like her. On the way home Nicole said "I like it there. I want to go back". That's a good sign. The room itself was packed with activities divided by activity centers (science, art, reading, etc.) There were four computers in the room. One new Compaq and three much older Apple machines. Even though the other machines were very old, they looked like they had nice software packages that the kids will enjoy. Nicole played a couple of them really well and the principle played with her on one. <scroll to top> <--Earlier Journal Next Journal--> Christopher's Journal 1999 Index