The education of little E

At our end-of-year conference with Edith's teacher, he mentioned that one of the things he loves about teaching first grade is that he could hardly keep the kids from learning if he wanted to--their brains are just developing so fast and absorbing so much at this age. We'd been thinking that same thing in a general sort of way but were particularly struck by it when he handed us Edith's assessments from the end of first grade together with those from the beginning of kindergarten. (I'm guessing that over the years they've learned the wow factor inherent in doing that.)

Two free-write assessments, K versus Grade 1:

That's "I looked at American [Girl] dolls with my mom" (L).

And then there was the artistic change. Self-portrait, K versus Grade 1:

Not to mention her awareness of the masterworks and her attempts to copy them. :)