Good bye Lake Country School!

Ted and I were both happy and proud to celebrate the end of the school year with Louis today. This was a challenging year for him and for us, as we noticed his frustration with his classmates and the lack of challenge for him at school.

We'd been told at the October 2007 conference with his teacher, Mr. Mullin, that at the pace he was working Louis was expected to finish the math and science cirriculum for 1-3rd grade before the end of the year. He did.

The idea that a mixed-age classroom setting would be beneficial to Louis, since he works ahead of his age, was a complete and utter failure. Louis' age peers rarely understood what he was talking about and shared none of his interests and the third graders felt largely intimidated and threatened by him and responded with mocking and teasing.

Because Louis was working so much outside of the class cirriculum, Mr. Mullin and Mr. Dittberner tried to work with Louis one-on-one as often as possible, but he spent a lot of time in the library doing independent research into the Periodic Table, atomic structure and nuclear energy on his own. These are topics that actually take teaching and even with 28 kids and two teachers, there really wasn't time for much of it.

Consequently, it was not a great year for Louis. Academically he did fine, but Ted and I often put in the equivalent of a half-day of home schooling him after school and after dinner, answering questions that he came up with during his day at school. He was bored a lot of the time and spent a great deal of the year reading and drawing.

As a result, Ted and I spent the majority of the winter exploring our options, visiting schools and reading cirricula to find a better home for our precocious child. We settled on moving Louis to Ridgeview Elementary School in Bloomington, MN (a first ring suburb of Minneapolis, about a twenty minute drive from our house. Louis will start there in Fall 2008.

Leaving Lake Country School was not bittersweet for Louis; he made one friend in three years there and was largely an outlier. He said, the day before the last day of school, "I'm tired of sitting in a classroom full of assholes." I guess that sums up his feelings about it.

Louis celebrated his first free day by spending six hours building the LEGO Mars Mission Armored Drilling Unit, an enormous kit that he had been coveting for a long time. It is an amazing six-wheeled vehicle (independent suspension!) that incorporates two other vehicles (a scooter of sorts and a space plane) and has a functional auger, which he demonstrated by digging a hole in the crocus bed.

In the evening our friends the MacAneney's came over for dinner and we made pizzas and banana splits. Sean (5) and Sophia (7) were allowed to join Louis on the garage roof, which was a lot of fun.

This week is a mish mash of care for him: Tuesday home with Mom, Wednesday spending the day with Grandma, Thursday going to MTS with Ted (and using Frontpage!) and then Friday home with Mom and Thành.

Next week Louis will spend three days with his cousin Charlotte (thank you Auntie Jo!) and then will leave for Baltimore, MD with Ted on their great adventure.