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The month of May never fails to be packed full of various end-of-school-year activities.  This week we were treated to Austin’s language arts program.  The program featured songs that demonstrated all of the wonderful things the kids learned this year.  These second graders know vocabulary words most adults don’t know.  The kids sang the words to Dr. King’s I Have A Dream speech, to Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken, and chanted multiple poems by Shel Silverstein.  It was a wonderful program…everything written by the amazing Mrs. Jones…Austin’s very talented teacher.  Austin has grown so much this school year and we can’t thank Mrs. Jones enough for her hard work on behalf of Austin and many other second grade students.

Today was Olivia’s kindergarten graduation.  It was charming to watch all of the kids sing their little hearts out.  Olivia is so sophisticated and mature these days.  Olivia was awarded the Caramello award for being sweet , kind, never complaining, and mello!  The award came complete with a Carmello candy bar.  Her teacher Mrs. Lund is fantastic!  Olivia has learned to read this year and she is so excited about this.  She is a little unsure about having to go to school full day next year when she becomes a first grader.  It’s such a hard adjustment, but I know she’s ready to be a big kid!

A side note on Olivia…after a very lengthy trial period for her hearing aids, Olivia has decided not to continue wearing them.  I kind of sensed that something happened at school to trigger her decision.  One morning, I fixed Olivia’s hair into two pony tails and she freaked out because she was worried that someone would see her hearing aids.  I quickly changed her hairstyle and she went to school with her hearing aids on.  The next day, she refused to wear them.  She went from very excited about wearing them to not wanting to wear them at all.  With the hearing aids on, Olivia tested in the normal hearing range for both ears.

Now, we are going to have to work very closely with her first grade teacher to make some necessary modifications so that Olivia isn’t missing anything.  We are fortunate that Eastwood is equipped with the Front Row speaker system, which is a fantastic thing.  The teacher wears a microphone necklace around his/her neck and their voice is amplified around the entire room.  Olivia would most likely have problems hearing subtle differenced in words like if a spelling word was pot, she might hear pop.  The audiologist with the district has been wonderful and very supportive, so we hope to work through things together.  Maybe in the future when Olivia is presented with more challenging listening situations, she may want to try hearing aids again.  We’ll just have to wait and see!