Calder Update
It has been a while since I blogged, and to get back into the swing of things (hopefully!) I am going to start with some posts that are closet to my heart. You get the update on Calder first!
One of Calder's favourite things to do these days is bike ride. We recently got him a new bike. Hugh was certain the one he had was too small, so he upped the anti - a lot. Calder now has the largest bike of anyone his age or a couple years older on our crescent! His toes just graze the ground when he is sitting down, but he loves it. It goes FAST. This isn't shocking as the circumference of the wheels is almost double that of his old bike. Calder is happy to go for multiple rides a day and when we aren't taring up the town, he will be doing laps around our driveway and our neighbours and taking the odd excursion to the end of our crescent.
Calder still is a great eater. He is becoming more assertive telling us he doesn't like certain foods (like potato salad or tomatoes, for instance), but we still make him try one bite (and he is totally fine with it - he knows the rules :-). Calder loves corn on the cob and has been devouring baby potatoes smothered in butter and Hellagood sour cream. Calder's favourite meat is pork. On the weekend he had three helpings of my dad's pork roast. He rarely has 2nd helpings of anything and if he does 9/10 times it is pasta. The following day he ate an entire pork sandwich. He weighs 43 pounds. That was a lot to stuff back!
Calder is addicted to the "Red Truck Game" in the van (counting the number of red trucks we see). Hugh and I are getting tired of it, but he loves it, so we play a lot. We occasionally try to get him to play on his own, but it just isn't as much fun.
We have been spending lots of time at my parent's cabin. It has been fantastic. We have been out in the boat quite a bit. Calder still isn't quite sure of tubing or skiing (we have a learn-to-ski tube thingy, which I totally recommend). It seems like he doesn't want to be behind the boat on his own. Often he will go in the tube if Hugh sits with him or on the skis if Hugh tubes beside him. On the weekend it was quite windy and there were significant waves. Calder got bucked right off of Hugh's lap on the tube. His feet went over his head and he did a back flip into the lake. It was hilarious. If you weren't Calder. Hugh was laughing so hard in the tube, I had to yell at him from the boat to jump in (Calder doesn't like to be out there by himself). Ever since then he has been a little gun shy.
We continue to work on reading with Calder. Most days he reads 1 - 2 books, but we have been slacking at the lake. Bedtime gets so much later there and it is hard to read when a guy is tired! At the start of June, Hugh brought home the kit to test Calder's reading level (teachers, right?!). Calder tested somewhere between grade 2.5 and 3. Hugh didn't actually finish the test with him, because Calder had already read 3 books and we don't normally read many (we never want him to feel like reading is work - if we can help it). This is why it is somewhere between 2.5 and 3. Hugh thinks it would have been grade 3 had we finished the test. Let's just say we are pretty proud of our boy! Calder also continues to love math. I think one of my proudest moments this year was when we were driving in the van shortly after he turned 5 in March. He had gotten $20 from his great grandma and we were headed to Walmart to spend it. Calder decided he wanted Monster Trucks and asked how much we cost. I told him they were $5 a piece. He began counting by 5's to 20 and immediately spewed out that he could buy 4 trucks. I was fist pumping in the front! Calder just divided! We continue to work on his skip counting (he can do 2s, 3s, 5s, 10s, and has almost mastered 4s), but I was so excited to see him applying it! He is great at adding one digit numbers to 1 - 5 and has started some multiplication (we say, "How much is 3 groups of 2" for 3 x 2). Calder loves numbers and continues to ask us lots of questions about them.
Calder continues to push our limits, but since we have figured out he is strong willed and know the best way to work with him, our lives have gotten easier. There is definitely more cooperation now - and when there isn't cooperation, we know how to get Calder back on track! He is 5. He is not perfect, but he is AWESOME.
Top: Calder and Emery using the hose in our sandbox. Emery's legs were fairly dirty, but the difference between boys and girls is quite apparent in their faces!
Bottom: Calder has a dragonfly on his hand. It must have been half dead, because it sat there so long he named it, "Sweater" That was a month ago. . . He remembered the name when I asked him what it was for this post! Ask him what we did yesterday, though, and he will have NO clue!
Happy Tuesday!
One of Calder's favourite things to do these days is bike ride. We recently got him a new bike. Hugh was certain the one he had was too small, so he upped the anti - a lot. Calder now has the largest bike of anyone his age or a couple years older on our crescent! His toes just graze the ground when he is sitting down, but he loves it. It goes FAST. This isn't shocking as the circumference of the wheels is almost double that of his old bike. Calder is happy to go for multiple rides a day and when we aren't taring up the town, he will be doing laps around our driveway and our neighbours and taking the odd excursion to the end of our crescent.
Calder still is a great eater. He is becoming more assertive telling us he doesn't like certain foods (like potato salad or tomatoes, for instance), but we still make him try one bite (and he is totally fine with it - he knows the rules :-). Calder loves corn on the cob and has been devouring baby potatoes smothered in butter and Hellagood sour cream. Calder's favourite meat is pork. On the weekend he had three helpings of my dad's pork roast. He rarely has 2nd helpings of anything and if he does 9/10 times it is pasta. The following day he ate an entire pork sandwich. He weighs 43 pounds. That was a lot to stuff back!Calder is addicted to the "Red Truck Game" in the van (counting the number of red trucks we see). Hugh and I are getting tired of it, but he loves it, so we play a lot. We occasionally try to get him to play on his own, but it just isn't as much fun.
We have been spending lots of time at my parent's cabin. It has been fantastic. We have been out in the boat quite a bit. Calder still isn't quite sure of tubing or skiing (we have a learn-to-ski tube thingy, which I totally recommend). It seems like he doesn't want to be behind the boat on his own. Often he will go in the tube if Hugh sits with him or on the skis if Hugh tubes beside him. On the weekend it was quite windy and there were significant waves. Calder got bucked right off of Hugh's lap on the tube. His feet went over his head and he did a back flip into the lake. It was hilarious. If you weren't Calder. Hugh was laughing so hard in the tube, I had to yell at him from the boat to jump in (Calder doesn't like to be out there by himself). Ever since then he has been a little gun shy.
We continue to work on reading with Calder. Most days he reads 1 - 2 books, but we have been slacking at the lake. Bedtime gets so much later there and it is hard to read when a guy is tired! At the start of June, Hugh brought home the kit to test Calder's reading level (teachers, right?!). Calder tested somewhere between grade 2.5 and 3. Hugh didn't actually finish the test with him, because Calder had already read 3 books and we don't normally read many (we never want him to feel like reading is work - if we can help it). This is why it is somewhere between 2.5 and 3. Hugh thinks it would have been grade 3 had we finished the test. Let's just say we are pretty proud of our boy! Calder also continues to love math. I think one of my proudest moments this year was when we were driving in the van shortly after he turned 5 in March. He had gotten $20 from his great grandma and we were headed to Walmart to spend it. Calder decided he wanted Monster Trucks and asked how much we cost. I told him they were $5 a piece. He began counting by 5's to 20 and immediately spewed out that he could buy 4 trucks. I was fist pumping in the front! Calder just divided! We continue to work on his skip counting (he can do 2s, 3s, 5s, 10s, and has almost mastered 4s), but I was so excited to see him applying it! He is great at adding one digit numbers to 1 - 5 and has started some multiplication (we say, "How much is 3 groups of 2" for 3 x 2). Calder loves numbers and continues to ask us lots of questions about them.
Calder continues to push our limits, but since we have figured out he is strong willed and know the best way to work with him, our lives have gotten easier. There is definitely more cooperation now - and when there isn't cooperation, we know how to get Calder back on track! He is 5. He is not perfect, but he is AWESOME.
Bottom: Calder has a dragonfly on his hand. It must have been half dead, because it sat there so long he named it, "Sweater" That was a month ago. . . He remembered the name when I asked him what it was for this post! Ask him what we did yesterday, though, and he will have NO clue!
Happy Tuesday!
Wow~ I think Calder might find school a bit boring! What will grade 1 be like when all the other kids are learning simple phonics and just learning to sound out some 'dick and jane' type books and Calder is into Harry Potter already! HAHA.
ReplyDeleteThis is how Jaiden was and still is. He is a reader and has gotten in trouble a few times for being up late at night reading when he should be sleeping! He found school super boring but over time his math kind of leveled out to where other kids were but the reading just kept accelerating to the point that he would finish a book intended for one week in an hour. It was ridiculous! He is going back to public school this year and he has already read all the high school curriculum novels, so hoping they can challenge him somehow.
Things could change though, my nephew started reading at 3 and now at age 10 it is hard to get him near a book. Emme didn't learn until she was 6 and at age 10 she reads faster than I do and has developed a deep passion for books and reads WAY above her grade level. I remember her cousin reading to her when they were 4 and 5 and thinking how crazy it was that he could read so well and she didn't even know all her alphabet...and now she is the one who is a book LOVER, and he just wants to play and watch hockey 24/7. I guess every kid finds what they love in their own time:)
He looks like Calder is having a really good summer:) I don't blame him for being a tad scared behind the boat! I still feel that way and I am an adult (though in my defense I had a horrible wakeboarding experience off the coast of Africa when I was 17 and I am still a bit scared from it...lol).
Excited for Boone's update!
What a great kid! The fact that he can APPLY his skip counting to divide 20 is awesome. Like... awe-some. I'm amazed! If only all 10 year olds understood what they were doing with numbers when skip counting!
ReplyDeleteWay to go Calder! :) Keep growing big and having fun! :)
he's seriously adorable! That blonde curly hair... love it!
ReplyDeleteHe also sounds like quite the little genius!
Kelly, Calder is doing French-Immersion, so I am confident there will be lots to learn. They don't teach them to read in English until Grade 3!
ReplyDeleteDani, I agree . . . I want to teach some of my grade 9's to skip count!
Shaunacey, we LOVE his hair too! Boone didn't get quite as much curl ;-)