We've been touring kindergartens trying to figure out where to put Kenzie next year. One school has really great class sizes, but might not be a good fit for her in first grade. Another school has "Spectrum" (advanced program) starting in the 1st grade, but the kindergarten isn't such a great fit and we wouldn't want to put her there if she wasn't going to get into Spectrum. Luckily today we had a conference with Ms. Janet, her preschool teacher, who has known Kenzie for two years now.

We asked Ms. Janet for an honest assessment of Kenzie, including her chances of testing into Spectrum. She went to her file cabinet and pulled out a stack of papers. She then described an exercise that they use to test kids, and just recently went through for Kenzie's class. They call it classroom Rubiks. They give an assignment to the class and evaluate their level based on how they respond.

In this case she told them to draw a story about a hospital bed, then asked each kid to describe their picture. Kids at the beginning end of the rubik may not draw anything at all, or may draw something off-topic. The next level up kids draw the object they are asked (a bed). Up from there kids can put themselves in the picture. She pulled out drawings from her pile to illustrate. One of them just had circles in all different colors. Another had a layer of squares and the child had described a hospital bed. Another had a face in a circle with the explanation "me in a bed."

The next level is when they can extrapolate, put it in context and build on a story or an event. She then pulled out Kenzie's picture. It was a hospital bed with a person in the bed with a rounded tummy, a big smile on the face. The bed had two flowers on it, red and green. She had told Ms. Janet that it was "mom in the bed, and I'm in her belly. This is when I was born."

Ms. Janet also described how Kenzie "floors her" with the detail in her writing and drawings, doing things that typical 3rd graders do. She definitely thinks we should pursue Spectrum, or else risk Kenzie being bored...which is possibly the worst thing for her. That is when she gets herself in trouble, AKA "the hitting day" that we had a couple of weeks ago.

She also noted that Kenzie has recently started trying to do other kids work for them when she finishes her own. Ms. Janet called it "mentoring the other kids" - but perhaps that is a bit too generous. She recently was busted helping one of her friends write his name on his paper when he showed signs of struggling.