Oh, Kaia!!

I have never met a more brilliant, sweet, beautiful, kind and helpful girl all rolled into one than my little Kaia. I really feel like I don't get to write about her as often as I'd like because she's gone for so much of the day now. Let me assure you though, that she is doing VERY well.

She is SUCH a great older sister, especially to her brother, these days. There have been so many times that she has sat on the floor and played cars or with the Little People Nativity with him.
One time she just looked like a little mom when she had set up the nativity on the kitchen table and was holding him and making him laugh. It was such an endearing moment to me. She really is SUCH a tender little girl.

She is in violin lessons and is working really hard to push herself. We have her for many reasons and all of them are paying off. It keeps her mind focused on something long-term. It's teaching her patience. It is really developing her ear musically and it is an outlet for overactive mind! We have really enjoyed her teacher, Rod Olstad, this year. He plays the fiddle in a country band and really is quite talented. He's much more child oriented than our last teacher who just didn't seem to be able to relate to children. Kaia tells almost everyone she meets that she plays the violin and she'll show it to anyone who comes over.

We recently had report cards. If anyone really knows Kaia, her report card would not surprise them. I was laughing while reading it because it is VERY obvious that her teacher knows her well. At the parent/teacher interview, I was told (as a summary).

"Academically, Kaia is an outstanding student. She is reading at a Grade 5-6 level in English (which she has not yet studied in school) and will most likely be caught up to that level in French before Grade 2. She is able to do all math problems given to her (many of which are at a much higher grade level). She understands concepts that most grade 3-4's are having a hard time understanding. When her French Comprehension matches her English, I would enroll her in some extracurricular activities to keep her mind busy so that she doesn't get bored. This child is an exceptionally bright child!
"However, socially Kaia tends to think she is the boss. It is quite often that her classmates ask me, 'Mme Henry, is this what we are supposed to be doing? Kaia said it was, so we just thought we'd make sure'. Kaia, however, is making HUGE strides in trying to be more patient with her classmates when they aren't as exact in following the rules as she thinks they should be.
"One thing that I really love about Kaia is how she really cares for those who she loves. She really has taken her friend under her wing to help her understand how to read and how to understand the concepts being taught. She even stays in at recess to help her learn and guide her. It has been really touching to see how much she cares and how much she wants to help."

I have never felt so happy as to know that Kaia's teacher is REALLY watching her and REALLY knows her. It was a wonderful event.

Because I found her report card so humorous, I want to share it with you. In every subject, she scored an "Effort Excellent" grade. It was the comments that were priceless.

Personal Development and Skills:
Kaia consistently puts forth her best effort. She enjoys sharing her thoughts and observations. Kaia is eager to answer questions. She speaks in a clear voice that can be heard by all of her classmates. The work in Kaia's duo-tangs is of a very high quality. Her printing is very neat and her drawings are detailed. Kaia is very conscientious about completing assignments. Her work space is always well organized. Kaia is able to work quietly and independently. She is learning to work more cooperatively with her classmates.

French Language Arts:
Curricular focus: Comprehension of oral French; production of oral French; phonics; sight vocabulary; and reading. Kaia successfully uses an excellent base of sight words and an excellent knowledge of phonics (consonant sounds, vowel sounds, and consonant-vowel combinations) to read. Kaia has independently read many short books and demonstrated a very good understanding of their contents. She has a very good understanding of spoken French. She is consistently able to respond to verbal direction, and questioning. Kaia is encouraged to use her existing vocabulaty to speak more French in class. Kaia meets the grade one home reading expectation. Bravo!

Mathematics:
Curricular focus: Recognition and application of whole numbers 0-20. Kaia is able to identify numerals to 20 when represented symbolically. She is able to read number words to 10. She is consistently able to represent a given number up to 20 using manipulatives, including base ten materials. Kaia demonstrates a very good ability to build sets that have more than. fewer than or as many as a given set. She can use French vocabulary to describe sets using comparative words such as plus que - more than, and mois que - less than. Kaia will continue to work to improve her ability to briefly look at an arrangement of objects and identify how many there are without counting.

Science:
Curricular focus: Creating colours and autumn. Kaia is able to name the primary colours - rouge, bleu and jaune, and to identify which are used to create the secondary colours - orange, vert, violet. Using French vocabulary, Kaia is able to compare and contrast colours as lighter htan and darker than. She understands that diluting paint with water makes it thinner and more transparent. Kaia understands that light can be separated into the colours of the rainbow. Kaia demonstrates a good understanding of how aniumals prepare for winter. She is beginning to use French vocabulary to explain the concepts of animals gathering nuts, migration and hivernation.

Social Studies:
Curricular focus: Relations and belonging. Kaia has an excellent understanding of her belonging, as an important member of her family, as a student at Ecole Brander Gardens and as a violin student. Kaia has an excellent understanding of the concept of community. She is able to use French vocabulary to name people, places and things found in communities. Kaia's pride in her work is evidenced by the details in her assignmnets. Kaia is excited to volunteer answers in class.

Physical Education:
Curricular focus: Movement activites and cooperative games. Kaia demonstrates very good body and space awareness when performing space awareness games. She demonstrates good skills when running and dodging. Kaia plays cooperatively and by the rules. Her continuous participation throughout the 30 class, indicates a satisfactory level of fitness.

Health:
Curricular focus: Self-awareness and acceptance; the golden rule; courtesy. Kaia consistently demonstrates a willingness to follow classroom and school rules. She always uses her manners - merci and s'il vous plait. Kaia is demonstrating greater patience with her classmates and peers. She always volunteers to help with classroom chores.

Art:
Curricular focus: Use of art tools and materials; exploring line. Kaia consistently demonstrates excellent drawing, colouring and cutting skills when creating art. She understands the aesthetic quality of art. Kaia has a very good understanding of the use of different kinds of lines (diagonal, vertical, horizontal) in art.

Music:
This term in music Kaia is outstanding at distinguishing between her own speaking and singing voice while responding to tone matching and echo games. She is exceptional at responding to the beat through actions and simple body percussion. Kaia can accurately identify rhythmic patterns including quarter notes (ta), eighth notes (ti-ti) and rests. She is learning the correct care, function and use of pitched and unpitched percussion instruments such as thuthm sticks, egg shakers, xylophones, metallophones, glockenspiels, and drums.

I apologize for the length of the report card, but I needed to have it in soft form too. My favorite moments are in "Personal Development and Skills", "Social Studies" (the violin comment and answering in class), and "Health" (patience).

Kaia reads daily when bored or stressed and writes books complete with pictures whenever possible. She recently took one of her books into her class to read for them and I am really proud of her for the books she has written.

She loves to read the scriptures too and sleeps with a picture of the Saviour every night. She actually gave our FHE lesson tonight and it was SO fun to hear. She really is such a bright girl and has such a strong testimony already that I find it inspiring. I am so proud of my angel girl. She makes me VERY happy so often and I love her SO much.

For FHE, I asked Kaia if she'd like to prepare a lesson. I only said she needs to make it about the gospel and maybe we should talk about Christmas a little bit because it's only a week and a half away. She went off to her room and looked through the scriptures and came up with this 14 minute lesson. I hadn't ever heard it before and all the coaching I gave her is the stuff in the video. I know this video is long, but it's true to Kaia's personality......detailed! Hope you enjoy!

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