6.5 year old life and daily routine. Learn about her daily schedule and how to handle things that come up with six year olds. Learn about helping a child with anxiety about tests, handling a child lying to you, and good extracurricular activities.
This is a summary for Kaitlyn from 6.25 years to 6.5 years old.
Post Contents
EATING
Eating is improving. She is getting more concerned about eating “healthy” foods. She isn’t fully there–but I am eagerly anticipating the unit on nutrition they do in first grade. Love that thing. The children all seem to take it very seriously.
SLEEPING
Sleeping is great!
PLAYING
Kaitlyn is very content to play on her own.
When she has friends over, I have noticed she has a limit on how long she really enjoys having someone here. It seems to be about two hours. I am wondering if this indicates that she is an introvert.
SCHOOL
She is doing great in school! She has adjusted well to being at school full day (we have half-day Kindergarten). You might remember in Kindergarten we had the “Kindertude”–there is nothing like that in first grade. She is an extreme perfectionist. She really doesn’t want to make a mistake at anything.
>>>Read: Kindertude: How To Combat Bad Attitude in your Kindergartner
Kaitlyn has also had some test anxiety. Anytime she was told “test,” she really got super concerned and nervous.
At the beginning of the year, they “tested” reading ability and split them up into reading groups. She started coming home with reading books she read in the middle of Kindergarten….I talked to her teacher and they reevaluated and moved her up where she should be (well, she should be working alone because she is far ahead, but I didn’t want her in her own reading group by herself. So they put her in the top one and we are working on just offering challenges at home for reading).
>>>Read: Test Anxiety Tips for Children
Before her first spelling test, she was really getting concerned. I happened to be talking to Brayden’s teacher and mentioned it. She gave me a couple of simple techniques to have her do to calm herself down.
One is deep breathing. She also said to have her visualize something she loves to do (we chose drawing). We have her close her eyes and envision herself drawing. This helps her heart rate slow down.
Brayden’s teacher also told me that, really unfortunately, children are tested so much these days that they pretty quickly get over fear of tests.
Kaitlyn was positive she would fail her first spelling test. We assured her that even if that happened, it would be okay. I then asked her what she thought “fail” meant and she thought it was getting less than 100%. So I explained what it would take to actually fail a test. Then we did several practice tests replicating what a test is like.
She is doing so much better! After that first spelling test (which she got 100% on), her confidence really went up. She hasn’t been worried about tests since. She also has an awesome teacher. Really a great and amazing teacher. She recognizes Kaitlyn’s perfectionism and stress and helps her realize it is okay to make a mistake.
So far, Kaitlyn has gotten everything right on every test and every homework sheet, so her teacher is trying to mentally prepare her for that first mistake. I just love teachers!
EXTRACURRICULAR
Kaitlyn is doing piano lessons, dance, and gymnastics. I never intended her to be in gymnastics, but she wanted to try it and I honestly thought she would do it for a month and realize it isn’t for her. She isn’t very strong in her upper body naturally.
But she has loved it! And I have heard such positive things from people who have their children do gymnastics and she is getting much stronger in her upper body as she does it.
I feel like gymnastics is great for all kids to do even if just for a short time. It helps them get comfortable moving and can help with other sports.
DISHONESTY
Kaitlyn is about as easy as a child can be. She is sweet, obedient, calm, helpful, kind…but we all have our challenges.
Right now, Kaitlyn is still facing challenges with honesty. She finds it so funny and is actually proud of herself if she “tricks” me into believing a lie. They can be very innocent lies.
I am not sure why she feels a sense of accomplishment for me believing her without question. We talk to her about it. I am still hoping it is some developmental phase she is going through, but if it continues longer, I will have to start doing some research on the topic.
>>>Read: Why Kids Lie (and what to do about it)
BOY CRAZY
The second challenge I feel we are facing is Kaitlyn is boy crazy. She has lots of boys who are good friends with no strangeness about it. But she has a crush on one of Brayden’s friends. She seems young to me to be having crushes. It makes me think we will need to be diligent about something in this area–something I need to do research on! It won’t help that she has an older brother just two years older with lots of cute friends. Maybe it is a good thing she has only one crush instead of having a crush on every boy out there.
Some initial thoughts I have is that we need to make sure her “love languages” are filled at home so she doesn’t feel the need to seek love elsewhere.
And worries like this are just the tip of the iceberg on why a baby is so easy :). And maybe I am stressing about this more than I need to.
SCHEDULE
Here is our typical school day schedule.
7:00–wake up. Eat breakfast. Get Ready. Practice piano. Chores.
Go to school.
Come home from school.
4:00–Homework. Free play until dinner.
5-5:30–dinner. Family time
7:00–start getting ready for bed
8:30–in bed
GOOD BOOKS
- On Becoming Childwise
- Love and Logic Magic
- The Five Love Languages of Children
- Parenting With Love And Logic (Updated and Expanded Edition)
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DD1 is a few months older than Kaitlyn so i love to read these. That is interesting about kaitlyn's testing anxiety. Thankfully we don't seem to have that and i'm glad as I think they do a lot of testing and things way early on. And with all the new stuff coming out i think it will get more and more. Glad to hear all-day is a breeze. We had all-day kinder last year the first year and that was an adjustment but then going to 1st was easy as pie! I do think for playdates 2 hrs is good. I don't know if that's more my length or what but that's about all i like to handle with silly girls who can get loud and hyper when all together, lol. But i find they start to get bored or I think DD2 gets a bit OS. 3 hrs is max for sure or it needs to be structured….i have found it goes way better if there is some structure (loose of coures). if it's total free play, less is better i have found. But i do think mine is introverted. She loves being around others but needs some down time too. And i must say i laughed about the boys! Thankfully don't have that yet! Whenever one says they played with X (a boy) DH always asks "Is that your boyfriend?" in a teasing voice (while i shoot him a look!) They don't even get it. I am so glad!!!
Elle had her first crush this summer. She is 5 now and I also thought it was young. However, be assured that someone even younger than Kaitlyn has crushes!!
I am reading "Bringing Up Girls" by James Dobson – he has SUCH great advice. I highly recommend it. Now that I think about it, I may have recommended it before on here. 🙂
Nice read! I like the tips.
My niece is such a girly girl herself, and she has been boy crazy for a while. She's 7 now, but I am almost positive this started at 5. So many things little girls watch and see(fairy tales) pushes that I think. Is Kaitlyn a girly girl? I think that maybe a tomboy type girl wouldn't care so much. I was a tomboy and don't recall caring about boys until about 11.
Enjoy reading these post!! I am wondering how or what strategies you used to teach Kaitlyn to read?
Yvonne keep the evil looks going! HA! We haven't ever teased about it. I always thought that would plant seeds…she doesn't need seeds planted apparently. Just taken care of!
Mollie I am glad she isn't the only one 🙂
Renee I will check that out. And the Bringing Up Boys one. Thanks!
Stephanie she isn't a girly girl. She isn't a tomboy, either, though. She likes to dress up and look pretty but she doesn't mind getting dirty and she is pretty tough.
Aswo,Nothing big. We have always read to her each day. We do a lot of reading. I do SSR (I have a post on that). We also learned on Bob Books.
exactly! i don't even want to plant the seeds!:)