School Starts!

The girls start preschool tomorrow and Parker starts preK too. I'm not sure how the girls will do. Sometimes I think they will be pros and other times I think they will be too overwhelmed and fall apart. It's a short day tomorrow, so hopefully they will get through it ok.

I met with Parker's teachers today with Parker. They just wanted to get to know him better and let him ask any questions (of which he had none.) They asked if there was anything I wanted to tell them, so I mentioned the math thing. I explained that he was really into numbers a lot and tried to give examples. I also said that he does enjoy them at any level, but it is possible he could give "wrong" answers to number questions to be silly even if he knows the right answer. I said I hoped that he didn't cause any problems with that. They assured me that regardless of how much he liked numbers, a child in last years class liked them more. As an example, they said they had to take away his watch because he would talk about the time all the time and correct the teachers if they weren't on time. I nodded and said, Parker has done that. They said they could deal with that and would challenge him in other ways at his level. As an example of that, they said that they would discuss the number line (that they create by documenting every day of school along the top of the wall) and talk about which numbers were greater than others. Based on that example, it seemed like they weren't getting it. So I told them...Parker can do 2nd and some 3rd grade math, knew his money, dates, time, fractions, his mutliplication tables, etc. They just smiled and nodded. I was getting frustrated and just gave up. It is what it is.

Then Parker said something about Oct 20th. The teacher asked him what happened on that date (Lion's birthday) and how many days it was till then.

Teacher: How many days until Oct 20th?
Parker: I don't know.
Teacher: Well..how many days until the end of September?
Parker: I don't know.
Teacher: Well, there are 30 days and today is the 9th so what is 30-9?
Parker: I don't know.
Teacher: 21. So if there are 21 days and then 20 days in October, what is 21+20?
Parker: I don't know.

Lovely.

After we left, I said to Parker, "Do you know what 21+20 is?" Parker said "41" without skipping a beat. I said "what about 30-9." He said, "21." I said, "How come you didn't say those answers when the teacher asked you?" Parker said, "I don't know."

Perhaps PreK is the right thing for him.