Zoe’s pretty darn smart.

She’s known her letters for quite some time, and has been able to recognize, write and sound them out (thank you, LeapFrog Letter Factory) for a long time, too.

However, she simply hasn’t trusted her dear old parents to teach her to read. First, she was waiting for kindergarten. Then, Bart found a reading class. She literally told us she was glad to learn to read, from a professional, NOT from us.

We assured her we KNOW how to read (as evidenced by the fact that we’ve been reading to her every single night since she was very small). She had none of it.

The reading class was a bust – she apparently was not interested in a professional opinion after all – which made us a little concerned about how Kindergarten was going to go. Well, we worried for nothing. Our kid can READ!

In fact, she can write, draw, tell a story, learn science and history and calendars, and do math. What she can’t do? Sit criss-cross-applesauce when she’s supposed to or remember to NOT blurt out answers or stop talking to friends during learning time… The talking took much part apparently her father also struggled with when he was small.

At Zoe’s school they use “faces” to help the kids manage their behavior:

• Blue Face = making good choices!
• Green Face = making not-so-good choices…
• Red Face = making BAD choices.

In general, we think we have a Blue Face kid, and on the whole, we do. However, as the year progressed, and the daily Face reports were 1-2 Green Faces pretty often, Zoe had a great idea: Let’s Play School!

And so we did. Most often I’m the teacher, Daddy is a bad student, Zoe is a model student, and Ella giggles or demands to color on the board. We practiced raising our hands (vs. blurting), and Zoe made a sophisticated “color face” system (Dad got a lot of red faces).

What we didn’t practice? Criss-cross-applesauce, which continues to be a Green Face problem. So we will.

In the meantime, Zoe is excelling at DramaManiacs and Chess (two “after school – at school” programs). In fact, she can kick her Dad’s butt in Chess. This is an actual game:

So we think there’s a still a chance she’ll actually graduate high school and go to college, so she can get married ;) Just ask her about that one.

Oh, and make no mistake, she’s already a sassy pants teenager, so we hope she’s getting that out of her system early, right????