I get an e-mail from Great Schools that lists what I can expect my child to do at the end of the school year. So how are Chunguita and Pulguito measuring up?

By the end of 3rd Grade, you can expect Chunguita to:

1. Work cooperatively and productively with other children in small groups to complete projects Yes
   
2. Understand how choices affect consequences Usually
   
3. Become more organized and logical in her thinking processes Yes
   
4. Build stronger friendships Yes
   
5. Be helpful, cheerful and pleasant, as well as rude, bossy, selfish and impatient Yes
   
6. Be more influenced by peer pressure because friends are very important at this stage Yes
   
7. Like immediate rewards for behavior Yes
   
8. Be able to copy from a chalk board Yes
   
9. Be able to write neatly in cursive because the small muscles of the hand have developed vYes
   
10. Read longer stories and chapter books with expression and comprehension Yes
    
11. Use prefixes, suffixes and root words and other strategies to identify unfamiliar words Yes
    
12. Multiply single- and multi-digit numbers (3 x 4,652) Yes
    
13. Divide multi-digit numbers by one-digit numbers (165 / 5) Yes
    
14. Tell time to the half-hour, quarter-hour, five minutes and one minute Yes
    

By the end of Kindergarten, you can expect your child to:

1. Follow class rules Well, he can do this. Whether or not he does it, that is another question.
   
2. Separate from parent/caregiver with ease Yes
   
3. Take turns Sometimes
   
4. Cut on a line with scissors Yes
   
5. Establish left or right hand dominance Yes
   
6. Understand time concepts like yesterday, today and tomorrow He knows the days of the week and understands the concept behind them.
7. Stand quietly in a line Pulguito cannot do this.
   
8. Follow directions agreeably and easily Sometimes
   
9. Pay attention for 15 to 20 minutes Yes
   
10. Hold a crayon and pencil correctly Yes
    
11. Share materials such as crayons and blocks Sometimes
    
12. Know all of the eight basic colors — red, yellow, blue, green, orange, black, white and pink Isn’t this a preschool thing?
    
13. Recognize and write all of the letters of the alphabet in upper and lowercase forms Yes
    
14. Know the relationship between the letters and the sounds they make Yes, he’s reading very well for a kindergartner.
    
15. Recognize sight words such as “the” and read simple sentences Yes
    
16. Spell his first and last name Yes
    
17. Write consonant-vowel-consonant words such as bat and fan Yes
    
18. Retell a story that has been read aloud Yes
    
19. Identify numbers up to 20 Up to 1000.
    
20. Count by ones, fives and 10s to 100 Yes by ones and 10s. I don’t know about the fives.
    
21. Know the basic shapes such as a square, triangle, rectangle and circle Isn’t this a preschool thing?
    
22. Know her address and phone number not really