2017-18 End of Year Assessment: Beowulf

Hurrah!  Hurrah!  Hurrah!  Beowulf is potty-trained!!!!!!!

Day-time, night-time, all the time!

This is such a huge deal for us . . . I'm not sure why because we kept deciding not to make it an issue and just let him use pull-ups as long as he needed to, but after almost 2 full weeks of being dry day and night and wearing underwear successfully for 5 days  and 3 nights straight, we're just whooping it up as his best accomplishment of the year!

He must have just grown into it when he was good and ready, because 2 weeks ago, he was not, but now he is!

Hurrah for Beowulf!

Last fall I wrote the following:

" He cannot grip a pencil or crayon with even a vaguely appropriate grip (and I've learned to not be fussy about how kids grip their pencils!).  He grabs writing implements from the top with his whole fist, and even if I help him position his hand in a reasonable grip, if he puts that crayon or pencil down, he cannot pick it back up the same way.  The same is true of using pencil grips--he cannot get his fingers onto the grip without help."

I am grateful to write that this is no longer true.  He will sometimes get confused about how to hold a pencil or crayon, but 90+% of the time, he can get it right.  He can write his own name, even if he sometimes gets it backwards--sometimes with the letters facing forward but printed from right to left and sometimes with the letters mirror perfect.  I don't think he's dyslexic because he gets it right more often than he doesn't, and if I simply tap the left side of the page as a cue, he'll write in the right direction.

Last fall--needing a pencil grip and much direction to hold the pencil

Early spring--he is awkward, but he can pick up and manage a writing tool all on his own!

Much of this positive change came with dietary changes.  Removing dairy and gluten products from his diet has seemed to open his mind and body up to learning and self-control.

Self-control has been one of our biggest goals for our little Beowulf.  Since the diet changes, he's been a new kid, and he's aware of it, smiling broadly as he announces, "I didn't get no time outs today!"   However, he's human, and he does get upset sometimes.  We're practicing calming mantras to use when we're (and I do mean all of us in the family--parents, teens, medium kids, and littles) feeling angry, out of control, and/or just plain upset.  The mantras don't work very well with Beowulf until after he's had a chance to scream things out on the front porch, but once he works things out physically, he's able to repeat the mantras with us.  Sir Walter Scott and I are hoping that eventually he'll be able to handle the mantras before the tantrum, avoiding them altogether someday.

(Actually, that's also my goal for myself!)

He's still very toddler-ish in his coping mechanisms--throwing a toy when it won't work the way he wants it to (often successfully targeting a person in the room), hitting a person with whom he is angry, kicking and screaming when he doesn't get his way.  We try to remember where he is in his personal growth, but even though he's a little fellow, he's strong, and he's bigger than a 2 or 3 year old.  He can cause pretty serious damage when he's upset.  We're hoping for continued growth in his self-control, but if it doesn't come, we're going to have to look into ways to protect the rest of the family from his behaviors.

Beowulf's narration skills don't seem to have grown much since last fall.  He still wants to contribute to family narrations, and he can tell a coherent story about an experience he's had, but he can't tell very much about what he hears me read.  We've practiced all year with him saying a word or two about what he remembers, me turning that word into a sentence, and then him repeating the sentence.  There are a few days that he's been able to share a complete narrative thought during Academy, but not often.

Perhaps kinesthetic learning is a more powerful tool than listening for Beowulf.

Good thing we have and encourage lots of kinesthetic experiences. :)

 He loved "doing school" with me.

He got to have daily time at the table using various Memoria Press, Rod and Staff, and Kumon preschool workbooks.  He is very, very interested in learning to read--often pointing to letters, saying their names, trying their sounds, and seeing if he can put them together.  We did start Eclectic Foundations Language Arts A, and he was so happy doing it.  I remember his face when he sounded out the word "man" for the first time.  I'm wracking my brain (and my blog records) for why we stopped working with it, and I can't find a reason.  We seemed to have simply lost momentum.

I think other kids' emotional issues took center stage for a season.

It's also coming to my mind that as Brother was hitting walls with Eclectic Foundations, I began to have reservations about following that same path for Beowulf.

He loves to be read to, and he will pick up a book to look at the pictures and identify letters he knows.  Reading is not his first choice activity, but if it is the activity of the hour, he is quite happy to settle into it.  His favorite books are by Ezra Jack Keats, Robert McCloskey, and Maurice Sendak and anything that includes engines and/or wheels. 

His fine motor skills are developing quite nicely through Lego and other kinds of play, buttoning his own pants and church shirts, and simply allowing time to pass and natural growth to take place.  This year, he did lots and lots of cutting with scissors; that was actually his favorite part of school each day.  He can now pick up scissors correctly and use them with reasonable accuracy.

He's a mathematical thinker; numbers and patterns come very easily to him.

Memorizing does not.  He has a hard time remembering things, but he has successfully memorized songs and dances for performances, scriptures for Morning Meeting, poems, his address, and my phone number for Academy, so I'm not worried.  Given enough time, he does memorize information, and he can call it up when needed.

And while he can't carry a tune to save his life, he so loves music!  He sings at the top of his voice when he knows the words to a favorite song.  People often comment about how much joy he exudes when singing.

Beowulf knows how to share, and he shows a preschool-level ability to share when needed--meaning sometimes he shares pleasantly, sometimes he takes what he wants without asking then runs and hides.  I feel he is slowly growing in his ability to communicate his needs and to understand the needs of others.

He plays pretend reasonably well.  He'll rarely initiate a make-believe game--preferring to lose himself in toy cars or building play--but if someone else suggests a theme, he can join in and contribute to the story line.  He likes to put on costumes and be silly.

His gross-motor skills are awesome.  Oddly, though he seems to have poor core strength.  The muscles in the backs of his legs are very tight, and we work at stretching them daily.  He thinks he's standing straight when his little bottom is pushed out to the back and his torso is tipped slightly forward.  If I try to help push his spine into alignment while explaining how to stand up straight, he freaks out and jerks his body into a harsh arch and cries.

I don't do it very often.

He's a toe-walker.  (But the PT we saw a couple of years ago said it would just make him a fast runner and not to worry too much about it.)  He is a very fast runner.

Beowulf has grown in various social, emotional, cognitive, and physical skills.  He'll be Kindergarten age this fall, and he loves school at our dining room table.  I look forward to school with him.