Chalk and Cheese Chronicles

My Third Grader's Front Teeth Extraction

Well, my eight-year-old finally has a toothless grin. Our kindly dentist said we could wait no more, it was time for those top two teeth to come out. Prior to today, he'd lost only three teeth, with a whole year going by without a wiggly tooth!

My son and his twin brother did not each get a first tooth until they were ten months old. It was a long time between then and the first tooth lost. I remember seeing kids in kindergarten, all adorably gap-toothed while my boys did not lose a first tooth until second grade!

I heard losing teeth late is a good thing; baby teeth with cavities and fillings can be replaced by permanenet teeth. And supposedly, the longer baby teeth stay in the mouth, the stronger and more cavity resistent they become.

Finally, our pediatric dentist recommended that my son's two top front teeth be pulled. "It's time," he said, showing us the x-rays of still-hidden adult teeth slowly making their way down, behind the baby teeth and never the two shall meet.

Those stubby pearly whites were in there good and solid. No wigglies here!

My son was nervous. I had flashbacks to his recent blood draw, where we sat with him for hours, trying to convince him to be poked. He cried and he fought us all the way. He was afraid of those needles.

But our pediatric dentist is an expert and a familiar, trusted face to my son. He is just the right personality for my boys. We left an expensive pediatric dental office in favor of this one. Gone are the TVs embedded in the ceiling, the Thomas the Train table, the aquarium and in its place, a rather plain office with a miracle worker of a dentist. Having experienced both, I love that our dentist uses his demeanor to calm the kids and not the Cartoon Network. I don't want my boys to think they deserve a Chuck E. Cheese experience for dental care.

My son was anxious, with furrows of worry on his brow as he waited for his name to be called. But he went in alone, without me.

A half hour later, he walked out, on his own, with gauze in his mouth and a "it was no big deal" shrug of the shoulder. I could tell he was proud. I was proud of my big boy.

So now he has that adorable gap-toothed smile and a lisp...and beard stubble.  

Well, no beard stubble just yet, but I was worried he'd be losing his front baby teeth at the same time as he started to shave.

 

 

 

The New Exploratorium Goes Beyond Local Families

 The Exploratorium has always been the haunt of locals with kids. Dads and kids. Moms and kids. Nannies and kids. Families and kids. Local scout troops. Students on field trips. If you were raised in the Bay Area, you likely have at least one memory of having visited the Exploratorium as a child.

That memory probably extends to a stroll around the Palace of Fine Arts with its cast of usual characters ranging from a bridal parties to swans to very angry geese.

The Exploratorium's new home at Pier 15 is a landmark setting. Gone are the brides and the swans and the geese, and in their place, a first class view of the bay, bringing forth an ever-changing cast of characters ranging from sea lions to sailboats.

But the soul of the museum remains the same, like a workshop garage transported in its entirety to a sparkly new home.

I wanted my children to have memories of both locations. So we visited the Exploratorium on January 2nd, 2013, its final day of operation at the Palace of Fine Arts. Then we returned to preview the museum on March 29, 2013.

The move is reminiscent of the before/after experience of the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park. That museum went from ho hum to a world class museum. It feels special in there, like a wing of the Met. The new Exploratorium has the same exciting vibe.

Gone is the old school cafeteria where we'd push our trays past the rotating hot dog grill and forlorne cashiers. The new Exploratorium houses two eateries, one near the front entrance, called the Seismic Joint which will offer take-out sandwiches, salad, coffee and more. Seaglass is an upscale cafeteria at the back.

My children ran from exhibit to exhibit, squeeling in delight at the familiar, while I was more interested in scoping ot the the lay of the inviting new land. While the kids tinkered, I enjoyed the big picture of the space and setting.

 

The museum has a nice flow. Each hall and corridor had a different theme ranging from Seeing and Listening, to Living Systems, to Electricity & Magnetism, Human Phenomena, Creative Experimentation, Time & Motion, Modeling Landscapes, Heat & Temperature, Environmental Exploration and Wind, Water & Waves.

The tactile dome(age 7 and up, reservations required) opens in the summer of 2013.  

The one area of caution for those with children is an installation called The Changing State of Mental Health. While intersting, sensitive children might find some displays disturbing. The exhibit describes the experience of psychiatric patients as they tranferred into state mental hospitals. It's not for the faint at heart. My son climbed into a utica crib (like a caged casket) but he had no idea of its intended use.

Restrooms were plentiful and easy to find, a big improvement over the old location. Restroom users might enjoy the black and white 3D looking tiling in the stalls. It's the little things.

 

 

Future tactile dome

The move to the Pier 15 coincides with the maker movement, which in recent years has been popularized by the Maker Faire (year five for us!). More and more people are making things. They're crafting things. They're tinkering. DIY culture is pervasive. The Exploratorum is the grandfather (or grandmother) of maker culture, having arrived on the scene way back in 1969!

The new and improved Exploratorium is no longer the exclusive playground of local families. The Explotorium is a destination, like a visit to the Golden Gate Bridge. Young, old, local, tourist, passersby will pass through the doors of this world-class, hands-on museum.

 

The Exploratorium opens to the public on April 17th. Expect crowds through summer and beyond.

 

 This is an original post to Chalk and Cheese Chronicles. Apologies for the awful formatting. After 5 years of thinking about it, I really do need to make the mover over to Wordpress.

 

 

"Exclamation Point" is the Perfect Read Aloud Book

By Akemi Bourgeois

I have the wonderful privilege of working in our school library, where one of my happiest moments is spent reading aloud to my son's third grade class.

I have five minutes to present a picture book before the kids scramble off to find their own books to check out. I bring books from our home library because, well, I've curated our library and know our selection well. It's not easy to find just the right book for third graders. Sometimes what I bring to read aloud is a hit and sometimes it receives just a lukewarm reception.

Today, I read, "Exclamation Point," by Amy Krouse Rosenthal & Tom Lichtenheld. It was recommended to me by the ladies who work at San Jose's much loved bookstore, Hicklebees.

"I'm looking for a book for third graders, one that has an edge and isn't too juvenile," I asked, adding, "preferably an unfamiliar title." I want the books I bring to be new to most of the students.

The Hicklebees lady pulled out a bright yellow hard bound picture book. A bold exclamation point smiled from the cover. "They might like this," she suggested.

So I bought it. Yes, I bought a $17.99 picture book that I would spend a brief five minutes reading. I stopped buying picture books for my boys years ago, when they moved on to chapter books. Still, I couldn't resist. I had to share this book with the class! (Sadly, our school librarian will not accept donations of like-new or brand new picture books, even those I've purchased from Hicklbees. She wants cash only.)

My boys read the book in the car on the way home and laughed, saying they thought the class would like it.

They were right on the money!

I felt like a standup comedian this morning waiting for the laughter to settle down, there was so much of it. Heheheheehahahahabwaaaahaheha!

So many smiles, and all due to a book about punctuation!

I wanted more pages to magically appear. I wanted to keep on reading forever.

"Where do you find these funny books?" a girl asked again, as she always does.

Exclamation Point is an excellent read aloud for first through fourth graders, with second and third graders probably appreciating it the most. If they've studied and practiced punctuation, they will love this book. Or in the style of the book, I should say, "They will love this book!"

The text and imagery are simple but highly effective. Kids can easily read this book quietly to themselves, but like the Mo Willems' series, "Don't Let the Pigeon Ride the Bus" series, some books are best read aloud. It's a short funny read.

If you are a librarian, teacher, or parent volunteer (or a wanna be librarian/teacher, like me), this would make an excellent read aloud book to your class.

 

 

 

 

 

This is the Way We Clap Our Hands: The Marshmallow Clap

I'm a veteran of many a school assembly, as is just about anyone who ever went to school. A student gets a well-deserved award, and we clap. A student performs a song, and we clap. The principal announces a fun upcoming event, and we clap. There is much applause at school assemblies. We are rallying that school spirit!

But when is clapping producing so much noise and interference that it detracts from the assembly, rather than be a part of it?

I guess when 500 K-5th graders just can't hold their applause until the end.

So what's a school to do? Bring on the marshmallow clap! Save the real hand-to-hand clapping for the end, but in between, tell the kids to imagine they're holding a giant, puffy marshmallow between their hands and to give it fifty fast paced gentle squeezes from both sides.

The sound of 500 kids clapping is ... silence.

Marshmallow clapping is mellow and quiet, enabling the students to show their appreciation and excitement while allowing what's going on up front to continue without interruption.

Flap, flap, flap. It looks like birds flapping. It also looks a bit spectrum-like.

Is marshmallow flapping becoming a trend, a way to silence the noisy applause of a young audience while not altogether stifling their enthusiasm?

It seems the most unsatisfying way of clapping ever invented. I simply must...make...contact with my other hand. Even polite clapping (as if at the opera) is better, yes?

So, is this trend of silent, no-contact hand clapping here to stay in our schools? Aren't schools able to manage the constant applause in other ways?

 

 

 

Silicon Valley Kids Head to the Tech Museum Summer Camps

 

The Tech Museum of Innovation

 

By Akemi Bourgeois

If it's February, you can bet I'm thinking of rubber chickens. And crazy hair. And water fights. Throw in some dazzling art, a science curriculum and some top notch team leaders and it all adds up to the best summer science camp around, Camp Galileo. My son prefers to say it in a sing-song voice, "Camp Gal-i-lay-oh!"

But this year, it dawned on me that my boys will be rising fourth graders which opens up a few more options for summer camp.

So this year, we are heading to a Camp Galileo partner camp at the Tech Museum of Innovation in downtown San Jose. We affectionately refer to the museum as the orange museum for obvious reasons.

The Tech summer camps are geared toward 4th through 8th graders so my boys are eligible to enroll.

  Check out the class descriptions! Lego Robotics, Kitchen Chemistry, Video Game Design, Mobile App Design, Filmmaking, Photography and Photoshop, Lego Robotics (and a special Lego Robotics for girls), Computer Programming and more.

These are classes that make my modern Silicon Valley based kids salivate. My boys were quick to say they wanted to enroll in the beginning computer programming course. (I know it's because they want to mastermind the next Minecraft.)

One of my boys has been dreaming of learning how to code! He tried out some lessons at the Code Academy but was soon in way over his head. If my husband didn't work startup hours at a non-start up company, he's be happy to teach him. It's been hard to find a basic, beginning programming class for kids that's not solely an online course.

I guess my boys have a few months to perfect their keyboarding skills before The Tech summer camps this summer.

If my boys ever create the a game bigger than Minecraft, I'll say they honed their coding skills at The Tech summer camps!

See you at camp!

Additional information:
The Tech Summer Camps run from June 10 – August 16 (10 full weeks!) 2013. Classes are Monday – Friday from 9:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. and 1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m., with optional extended care available from 8:00 a.m. – 5:30 pm. Camp is open on Thursday, July 4.

Classes are grouped by rising 4th-6th graders and by rising 6th-8th graders.

The Tech Summer Camps are powered by Galileo and held at The Tech Museum of Innovation, at 201 South Market Street in San Jose. Register here.

 
Disclosure: Each of my children will receive a complementary week of The Tech summer camp in exchange for my honest reviews on this blog. The opinions in this post are my own.

 

Yes! Save the Dennis the Menace Train in Monterey!

By Akemi Bourgeois

Dennis the Menace park in Monterey is one of our favorite parks. My boys first visited before they could even walk. I visited a few times when I was a kid. I remember the slides and the rickety suspension bridge. I remember driving by that park on many a road trip to Monterey with my parents, and spotting the playground's curves and linear lines jutting into the skyline, like a mini faux Gaudi.

At first it was difficult to watch my kids there because as soon as I would catch up with them, they would zip over another obstacle, or down another slide or through the bushy maze, away from me. I could never catch up. Eventually, I realized it was far easier to stay in one place and watch the boys from afar.

This park is everything other parks are not, and that is, it has an element of danger. It's one of the few parks that has not been completely encased in molded plastic. It's not same old, same old here. It's good, old-fashioned fun. I've always been eager to go beyond the plastic slide.

But oh, the train. How it beckons. The steam engine train is the first thing visitors see when they enter Dennis the Menace Park. When my boys were younger, we'd shadow our boys, watching their every move, and spotting them like weightlifters as they scrambled about the train, eventually emerging at the tip top, a childhood feat on par with summiting Mt. Everest.

My boys could spend forever and a day on that train.

Sure, there are trains in other playgrounds, like the short wooden pretend one at Oakmeadow Park in Los Gatos, but kids know the difference between real and fake. Ask any kid which they prefer and they'll tell you, they want the real deal.

But the real deal, the steam engine train that seems dangerous and in fact, is dangerous, hasn't been open in years. Every time we've gone, the kids dash over the train, only to discover the whole thing fenced off.

The city of Monterey has been forced to close the train because it's not up to playground safety code. Of course it's not. 

Can't we sign a waiver? (I know, it's far more complex an issue than that.)

We almost want to leave, our hopes dashed. The kids mope a while and then they're off exploring the rest of this fabulous old-style park, but what they want to do most of all is to climb to the roof of the steam engine train.

There is a Save the Train Facebook page dedicated to saving Monterey's much loved train at Dennis the Menace park. Won't you join?

I am so very grateful that my boys had the experience of climbing this train. They have explored it countless times. Was I nervous? Yes, more so than ever before. Did I shout things like, "Hold on!" and "Watch where you're going!" Of course.

The steam engine train is dangerous, yes. It's the reason they don't open the rootops of abandoned buildings and invite kids to dabble in a little par cours. But there has to be a way to let kids be kids, to let them learn to play safely on their own, without being surrounded by boring molded plastic and soft flooring. Our budget strapped cities need more parks where kids can really play on unique play structures.

We will mourn if the steam engine at Dennis the Menace Park is closed off forever. So today, I join Lenore Skenazy of Free Range Kids in hoping that the steam engine remains open for exuberant young climbers to come. Read the Free Range Kids post Are Today’s Kids So Much More Delicate? Save the Dennis the Menace Train! and join the fight to keep this train open.

Hat tip to Nicole Pelton of Not Just a Working Mom

for pointing me to the article.

 

This is an original post to Chalk and Cheese Chronicles.

 

For the Love of Vintage Pyrex

By Akemi Bourgeois

I have a new obsession, one that has been simmering for years but has now boiled over into madness, vintage Pyrex madness!

It started with a bowl, and then another and then another. Pale blue, Pepto pink and pale blue again. So pretty. I love how vintage Pyrex evokes a time gone past, time spent in the kitchen with my mother and grandma.

I stumbled upon vintage Pyrex while shopping about boutique lined streets, a bowl here, a casserole dish there. Antique stores were almost always a sure bet for beautiful vintage Pyrex nesting bowls but prices there were always in the 50-60 dollar range. Then I discovered there was vintage Pyrex to be had at second hand shops, namely Goodwill, at mostly bargain prices!

I started thrifting for Pyrex a bit, casually dropping in on thrift stores as I went about my errands. A quick five minute tour of the kitchen aisle, and I would be back in my car, usually empty handed. But there were a few finds at various thrift stores and once or twice, I scored big time, emerging from a store with more vintage Pyrex than I could carry.

The problem with collecting vintage Pyrex is that it needs to be stored and displayed. No vintage Pyrex should be tucked away in a garage or closet, ever.

I looked around our house for possible display opportunities and zeroed in on a large cabinet with glass doors. What was on display there? Textbooks, four shelves of obsolete engineering textbooks that my husband insists we keep, for all to see. So ugly.

So without asking or notifying my husband, I moved the textbooks into a closet and took over the display case. It's so pretty now, filled with vintage bowls, casserole dishes, baking pans and refigerator dishes, mostly Pyrex but also a bit of vintage Fire King, Inland Glass and Glasbake.

There is vintage Pyrex galore on eBay and Etsy, but I find the thrill of thrifing to be one that can't be had when you buy online. It's about the treasure hunt. I'll turn to eBay and Etsy one day when I need to complete a set or pattern. And there are always garage sales, estate sales and Craigslist, of course.

The best thing about collecting vintage Pyrex is that I use them. I love the feel of Pyrex in my hands. Cookie batter clinging to the bowl? No problem, I'd love to wash it! Then I'll put my little vintage Pyrex bowl back on the shelf and stare at the patterns. I don't feel all that guilty because vintage Pyrex isn't necessarily expensive to acquire. Some of the pieces I've found were just 99 cents.

The pressing question is whether to collect certain patterns only, or whether to collect a hodgepodge, as I seem to be doing because when you're thrifting, you get what you get.

My husband is not impressed with my new hobby. "We have too many bowls," he complains, "How about getting rid of your Comptoir de Famille cherry bowls?" I love my French cherry set of dishware, too, but with active little boys in the household, the cherry dishes have not seen much love. But he has a point, I'm not working so I don't have a shopping budget for things I don't need.(But did I mention the 99 cent pieces I found, all vintage Pyrex? Swoon!)

I do need to put a pause on my Pyrex collecting... after a trip to the Alameda Point Antiques Faire (oh, and maybe the Treasure Island flea market...), that is.

What I've learned is that you can amass a great amount of vintage Pyrex in a short period of time, for not much money. I have enough to fill four shelves and then some. But I know I can always make room for more. Or maybe I should take up collecting vintage Bakelite jewelry, it's more expensive, but easier to store!

 

This is an original post to Chalk and Cheese Chronicles.

Picture Books for Older Children

By Akemi Bourgeois

"Where can we find those books?" The two girls asked, looking up at me.

"Which books?"

"The books you always read to us. The really fun books!" They replied.

Once a week, as a library volunteer, I have ten minutes to read a picture book aloud to my son's third grade classroom. Let me tell you, I was thrilled to have been asked by these girls about the books I read to them!

Note: My son told me not to read with so much expression. He also does not want to be seen with me when I carry my Sprout TV umbrella (it was a freebie!). It sickens me sometimes to see how tween-like he has become, which is why we have banned Wimpy Kid books and the like in our home.

 It's refreshing to be back in the genre of picture books. In second and third grade, reading shifts to chapter books (and Wimpy Kid/Big Nate books, the bane of my existence) and picture books tend to get left by the wayside.

It's not easy to select just the right picture book for third graders. Much of what is on the library shelves is either too preschoolish, too gender specific or has too much text for a ten minute read. Some third graders, like my son, are deep into the tween stage. They are too cool for school.

Anyway, if I can't find what I'm looking for in the school library, I often pull from our library of picture books at home, which I gathered on many a picture book buying spree way back when my boys were between the ages of two and five.

I like books that have an edge, that are not in the realm of the popular books in rotation. I also like classics, such as the Little Match Girl and world literature such as Guji Guji.

Today, I read Interrupting Chicken by David Ezra Stein. I happened to see it on a library shelf and just knew it would appeal to the class because each and every one of us can be an interrupting chicken and also the word chicken is inherently funny.

The kids laughed, they really did!

I don't think anyone can ever be too old for a picture book. There is something just so magical and soothing about picture books. To me, this is childhood, and one that you can go back to time and time again. These books are my happy place. My son, however, is probably thinking "how embarrassing" when I read picture books in front of his friends, but I still see him settling in nicely at home with a pile of picture books from time to time.

I know there are lots of good picture books out there that appeal to third graders read to as a class, but these were/are my book parameters:

- A 10 minute read (no text heavy books)

- Not gender specific

- Not a preschool or kindergarten book

- Beautiful illustrations

- From the school library or home library (I am not buying any more picture books at this point)

- Something slightly different, with an edge, a sad story, a funny story, a twist...

I skipped the classics in favor of newer titles, though if the school year were longer, I'd certainly add in a few. I also skipped the Project Cornerstone type books because, well, books about self-esteem and bullying are the domain of the Cornerstone parents and those books aren't really what I love to read. If you are reading aloud to third graders, most of these been tested and approved by my son and his third grade peers. Enjoy.

 Thank you, Sarah by Larie Halse Anderson This book comes recommended by a first grade teacher, as the perfect pre-Thanksgiving read. I hadn't known to that Sarah is the women who saved Thanksgiving, and neither had any of the third graders, so I think we all appreciated the historical lesson.

The Gift of Nothing by Patrick McDonnell A simple book with a big message and requisite reading before the holidays. I will probably read the class Hug Time around Valentine's Day. I just wish these books were a little larger so that all the kids could see the simple illustrations.

Roxaboxen by Alice McLerran Welcome to the imaginary town of Roxaboxen, where stores are bordered in sticks and rocks and cactus is a jail. My sons and their friends play "forts" every recess and lunch with their peers, which basically means, they build with sticks and leaves, just like the kids of Roxaboxen. What I really wanted to scream to the kids was, "Turn off the Minecraft and go outside and build a Roxaboxen!"

Wild Horse Winter by Tetsuya Honda The wild horses of Japan survive a brutal winter under a blanket of snow and then find freedom at the seashore, where they eat kelp. Beautiful watercolor illustrations draw the reader in. I happened to notice that one of the illustrations almost perfectly matches a page from the Polar Express and left the coincidence for the kids to ponder.

Guji Guji by Chih-Yuan Chen Guji Guji is a crocodile who rolled by happenstance into mother duck's nest, but no matter, he is raised with love just like the other ducklings. Guji Guji is a crocduck! The author of Guji Guji is Taiwanese and this is a tale of adoption.

Kali and the Rat Snack by Zai Whitaker Kali's dad is a rat catcher, a job that makes other kids poke fun at Kali and his tribe, the Irula's. A rat catcher, how yucky! But Kali saves the day when a rat snake decides to slither into his classroom, causing chaos. Even the teacher jumps onto his desk in fear!

Egg Drop by Mini Grey A young egg makes unwise decisions and pays the price. I think older kids sometimes like not-so-happy endings. 

Beware of the Frog by William Bee (not pictured) A protective frog is watching out for sweet little old lady, Mrs. Collywobbles, who lives "on the edge of a big, dark, scary wood." Gobble, Gobble. Kids reacted with "Ewwww followed by nervous laughter."

City Dog, Country Frog by Mo Willems Love Friendship and the cycle of life by the author of the Don't Let the Pigeon series. A dose of reality in this bittersweet story of animal friendship. Simple words but a deep meaning.

The Way Back Home by Oliver Jeffers A boys zooms off to the moon in a toy airplane and gets stuck there. But he befriends an alien, who helps him find his way back home. This is a book I love for the illustrations.

There's Nothing to Do on Mars by Chris Gall I'm bored, there's nothing to do! What child hasn't complained of boredom? Follow bored Davey and his robotic dog as they zoom around the red planet encountering smelly aliens and massive craters.

These are just a few of the books on my list of books I can read aloud in ten minutes to third graders. I just have to remember not to read with so much expression so as not to humiliate my tween wannabe son. I'm thinking that instead, I'll show up in a Barney shirt.

Which picture books do your older children still enjoy?

 This is an original post to Chalk and Cheese Chronicles.

Update: We Did Not Delay Kindergarten

Note: I thought parents deciding whether or not to delay kindergarten (for a typically developing child) might like to read about the experience of my boys. We did not delay kindergarten and here is a look back, from the perspective of third grade.

There are just as many parents who put forth a fall birthday child into kindergarten as choose to delay, but we are not a vocal bunch. Ask around and you'll find them.

By Akemi Bourgeois

The girl standing beside my son during library time towers over him, reaching for top shelf books he might barely grasp on tiptoes. She's a tween already and he, just a boy.

My twin sons, too, are tall. Measured against other children their age, they stand in the 90+th percentile. But next to their older classmates, they're of average height, neither the tallest nor the shortest in the third grade.

The girl is nine, having had a birthday over the summer. My boys are eight, having had a birthday at the end of October. There are just a handful of these young students, particularly boys, who share a fall birthday with my boys.

Most of the class will turn nine between January and August of this year, followed in the fall by the kids who did not redshirt/delay kindergarten. By now, the kids who did redshirt and the December kids who missed the cutoff, are all nine. It seems like my boys will be eight forever.

A 14 month age difference divides the tall girl from my tall-for-his-age son and they do at times seem worlds apart, especially last year in second grade when they were oddly paired desk buddies for a few months.

 When my boys entered kindgarten in 2009, the trend to reshirt fall birthday kindergarteners was still strong. Free transitional kindergarten in California public schools was still just a dream.

My decision to put my typically developing fall birthday twin boys who'd been preemies (a recipe for disasater) in kindergarten early was not arrived at in haste. It was a gut wrenching, stress inducing decision that plagued me from late winter through the start of the school year and beyond. I'd done my research, and quite frankly, could have gone either way.

Ultimately, I made what I feel was the least bad choice.

So here we are, in third grade. Looking back, do the older kids have an advantage? Have my boys always had a disadvantage because they're young? When I look about my boys' third grade classrooms (they are in separate classes), I see what seems to be a normal class distribution of behaviors and achievements. The older, more mature kids are NOT automatically ahead of their peers. The older kids are not consistently at the top of their class. By contrast, the youngest children are not lagging behind academically. It is just a normal spread of kids, with some at the bottom in some areas, and some at the top, regardless of age. There are many factors beyond age now at play.

The advantages held by the redshirted kids does indeed seem to disappear by third (and fourth) grades. I can't tell who spoke big words at age 3 and who was a late walker. I can sometimes spot the older kids because of their size; they are sometimes taller and bigger than their peers. But I can't readily pick out the youngest and the oldest anymore, like I could sometimes do in kindergarten.

So from my view as a parent of two boys who did not redshirt, I'll say that kids who delayed their kindergarten entrance do seem to have an easier in kindergarten and first grade - and then that advantage evens out. The younger classmates eventually catch up.

However, I believe that my boys got MORE out of the experience for having struggled a bit. They had to rise to the occasion, many times. They came from behind the starting line. They benefitted from a year of enrichment, much more than they would have had they been left to play (and play they did, outside of school hours). The neurons in their brains had to have been firing rapidly! In fact, going to kinder early was, in a way, a "gift of a year" contrary to the term being applied to a redshirted year.

The academics for my boys has been fine, as expected, with normal strengths and weaknesses. It's issues with maturity that were the most concerning in the beginning. And fine motor has always been a challenge for my boys which means that now, in third grade, they view the task of writing out a report longhand as daunting. I noticed about a six month lag in fine motor skills with my boys. But they always catch up. I like to remind myself that tney are not behind for their age, but only for their grade and at that, only slightly. I wish schools would sometimes take note of the incredible achievements accomplished by these once four-year-old kindergarteners.

As a mother, I feel that issues my boys have had would have been present whether they came to school as the oldest or the youngest because who they are is so strongly tied to the dispositions with which they were born. They would be the oldest, biggest second graders who still loathed using a pencil.

California is now annually rolling back the the age eligibility for kindgarten month by month from the dreaded December 2 to September 1st, which would then be in line with the most other states. Oh, how I wish they had had this law back when my boys were entering kindergarten. It would have been far less of an anxiety ridden decision if the decision had been made for me!

But I hope rolling back the date to September 1st won't mean that redshirting will continue, with parents then delaying April and May birthday children! I think there should be no more than a 12 month spread for typically developing children. I think teachers ought to be able to handle that spread, even with the pressure of No Child Left Behind. There will always be someone who is 12 months younger than the oldest kid in the class.

So if you are like me, and on the fence about sending your fall birthday child to school this fall (age elegibility is five by October 1, 2013), know that for the most part, by third and fourth grade, the advantages of redshirting even out.

The tall girl from the library likely enjoyed an easier kindergarten and first grade year (with teachers benefitting as well) but as a third grader, she's just like any other kid and not necessarily at the top of the class. Neither are my young sons - or any young kindergartener - doomed to a life at the bottom of the bell curve. They are all just in the mix, in a regular class, filled with regular kids.

 

Cringe Worthy Past: I gave a Petroglyph creation as a wedding gift

Painted by children.

Back in 1996, I rediscovered my inner crafter. Petroglyph had just opened in Palo Alto, the first of its kind. So I gathered up a group of friends (this was before all my friends got married and had kids) and we went, dipping our paint brushes into chalky colors and marveling at the results. This was way before venues like this started hosting birthday parties for kids.

One friend painted a giraffe mug and sent it to his mother in New York. I went big time with my talent, choosing a large bowl as my empty canvas. I had a wedding to attend, and this was going to be my gift!

The bride's name was Yuko and she had exquisite taste. Her favorite color was purple, murasaki.

I carefully painted purple flowers all along the rim of the bowl and proudly admired my work. My latent artistic abilities were literally blossoming! A week later, after the bowl had been glazed and fired, I picked it up.

It was beautiful.

One of the stores at which Yuko had registered was a French store on Grant Avenue, in San Francisco's Union Square. I can't recall that name of the tiny store, but it was filled with only the finest flatware, candlesticks and vases.

The cost of a single fork was fifty dollars.

I imagined my one-of-a-kind Petroglyph bowl as the centerpiece at Yuko's table, flanked by hundred dollar individual flatware settings.

At the wedding, I stood proud, knowing my elegant gift fit right in with Yuko's fine taste.

I went back to Petroglyph many times, feeling like a genuine artist. I painted trivets for my mom and a cup and saucer set for my grandma. I was the artist and Petroglyph, my studio. I was my own Quimper factory.

It wasn't until Petroglyph and its copycat studios started hosting children's birthday parties that I noticed that nearly everyone's pieces looked much improved after glazing.

The pieces my own children painted were on par with my bowl with my murasaki bowl. I guess talent runs in the family!

Or not.

A similar bowl I'd painted for my appreciative mother developed a big crack and was ruined. She threw it out.

As the years went by, I forgot about the Yuko's wedding and the bowl I'd given her on her big day.

Then one day, as I was at Petroglyph with my children, it dawned on me that I'd given something I'd painted at Petroglyph as a wedding present.

Say it ain't do!

The piece probably cracked by now (or possibly tossed out), adding, ahem, character to the drippy droppy splatters I'd inadvertently left before glazing.

I am not an artist. True, I'd painted with loving attention but in my 20/20 vision, my bowl was akin to all the macaroni framed school projects I'd brought home as a child. It was something only a mother or grandmother could love.

And I'd given it to Yuko, the girl with the champagne taste.

To be fair, this was way back in the early days of paint-it-yourself pottery, when it was still a novelty. But still, it makes me cringe.

I recently did the "glass artist of the day" class at a nearby glassworks studio, fusing together stained glass with a torch! My creations were again amazing. I hadn't realized I was a natural at melding glass.

I don't have any wedding invitations arriving soon, but hey, Mother's Day is coming up. I guess my mom will be the proud new owner of a rare and unique glass swizzle stick!

What homemade creations have you given as gifts, only later to cringe because, well, you were not the artist/cook/knitter you thought you were?

 

This is an original post to Chalk and Cheese Chronicles.