The Disciplined, the Explorer and the Charmer

If any of my children holds true to the birth order chart, it's my Karson.  She is a take-charge, loads of confidence, incredibly disciplined, natural born leader.  Here is Karson's weekly schedule as a 10-year old (by choice):  7:30 a.m. Monday and Tuesday morning quick recall practice along with a Thursday afternoon practice.  She typically has 1-2 basketball practices a week along with quick recall matches at other schools and basketball games every Saturday morning.  The girl stays busy, and we are constantly chauffeuring her everywhere. What's even cooler is that I never hear her complain.  If anything, she's trying her best to boost confidence in herself talking about ways her teams both academically and athletically can improve.  Her report card came home this week--straight A's--100's in five subject areas.  She recently won her class spelling bee and participated in the school-wide one.  She told me she almost beat the third runner up but missed the word "ditto".  Her drive and passion for family, friends, church and school are what make me admire this child, not only because she is my daughter, but simply because she is one cool kid.

Is it possible that my 2nd grader is actually smarter than me at age 35, sometimes I wonder? Isaac loves reading my mom's world book encyclopedias and devours anything non-fiction. I emailed his teacher today because he hasn't been keeping up with his daily reading log.  I thought it was time I wrote her and told her why I don't push reading on him constantly.  Isaac is not only a talented artist but also a writer.  He carefully crafts books on a daily basis, lots of them he considers chapter books and has multiple series on the same characters.  I can't keep enough paper in the house to accommodate his desire to write.  His teacher wrote back and stated the he is the strongest reader in the class and "As long as he is reading a book now and again for inspiration I feel that he will continue to get stronger, it is just important that he is reading on his instructional level so that he can continue to grow.  With gifted students such as Isaac, everything comes easy - however, we still want them to grow.  Each time we take the STAR Literacy Assessment we look at a growth score.  Even though Isaac scores high, we want to make sure his growth score increases as well."

 Isaac had a PR score of 98 which means he reads at a greater level than 98% of other students nationally in the same grade.  He also tested at 80% proficiency in reading fourth grade words and books.  His math scores were just as high with a PR score of 99%.  Although Isaac doesn't have many interests outside of his iPod touch and ping pong, I am confident he will do some amazing things with his life.  He begins the Junior Naturalist Program at Lost River Cave this weekend.  This program has meetings every other month and is all about discovery and adventure.  This Saturday he will learn about habitats, water cycles, organism relationships and begin a nature journal.  We're proud of sweet, middle, care-free child!

Yep, this picture pretty much sums up Miles's -- CHARMING!  Miles is Mr. Popular.  None of my children were invited to the amount of birthday parties in their kindergarten year(s) as Miles has been.   In fact, I got an email from a friend last week, who's child attended preschool with Miles and told me her son's only request for his birthday party was that Miles would be there.  He has one incredible personality and is super cute (and has two girlfriends).  I am shocked by how much he loves going to school.  I am convinced it has nothing to do with the academic part, my little socialite, although he thoroughly enjoys doing homework and rarely gets a warning stick.  Miles is working at grade level for his age and quickly becoming a more advanced reader.  Shoot, with that smile and his stellar personality, I imagine he'll be in politics.