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today, hayden's grandma and grandpa skiver picked him up to take him and his cousin malcolm fishing at a friends house in brighton. we made talan stay behind because we figured it would be best for everyone involved if he stayed at home. even though talan is only a day older than malcolm, they are completely different. talan would be off and running in no time and he'd end up either in the water or in howell somewhere.
this was the first time hayden ever went fishing and we hear that he LOVED it. he apparently caught more than 27 fish (after 27, they stopped counting) and i'm sure he would have stayed even longer to catch more if he could have!
i have known about springhill camp for a long time now, and when we were going to oakpointe church i had heard them announcing the springhill day camp. hayden was too young at the time, but then this year i saw that they were bringing the day camp to northridge so i signed him up.
the day camp is put on by spring hill and they travel to a bunch of different churches throughout the summer. the kids then go to the church every day for a week all day for day camp, springhill style. they bring a climbing wall, big water slides, bungee jumping apparatuses and all sorts of other cool things.
each day the kids heard bible stories, saw plays put on by the camp counselors and did different activities. hayden had a GREAT time and already is talking about when he goes back next year! he loved his counselor, melissa, and even made her a little book before their last day, today.
today was their big celebration where we were able to go to their classroom, hear some of the songs they learned, see a slide show filled with pictures from the whole week and be there for their award presentation. the counselor gave an award to each kid that said something about them. hayden received the "encourager" award because he was always encouraging the other kids. one day, a girl in his group was scared to do one of the activities and apparently hayden was there telling her "it's ok! you can do it!" and then when she did it, he yelled to the rest of his class "look, everyone! she did it! great job!"
that is very much hayden. he has such a sweet heart and he does love to encourage others. it's so great to see that he does it outside of our family and when he's on his own!
mom is in grand rapids staying with jenn who is on bedrest, so she couldn't make it to the celebration. dave was at work, so he couldn't come either. but dad came to partake in the fun with me and the kids.
i'm so happy that i signed hayden up and i know he'll be back again next year!
hayden with his group:
hayden after getting his encourager award. he looks thrilled, no?!:
hayden's group teaching us one of their camp songs:
hayden coming into the big group celebration: 
hayden and his counselor, melissa:
today we received the letter from webster elementary telling us that hayden did not make it in, once again this year.
all of his scores were above average, but most were not at the level they require in order to place a student in their school. they require their broad reading, broad math and composite percentile ranks to be in the 96th percentile.
hayden's broad reading score was 85% and his broad math was 98%. he's always been better at math than reading, and his scores last year also reflected this.
his verbal reasoning ability score was 69%
quantitative reasoning ability score was 79%
and his nonverbal reasoning ability score was 84%
the composite score is put together by using the results from the three reasoning ability scores above. his composite score was 79%
i didn't go in to this thinking he was going to get in, as he didn't last year. however, after speaking to one of the ladies that gave him his tests, i raised my hopes a bit.
so i am a bit disappointed that he didn't get in. and not because i want him to go to a "smart kid school" but because i don't want him to be in redford schools much longer.
we do have him on the waiting list for 2 charter schools in canton that i have heard good things about. he won't be able to get in this coming year for 2nd grade but there is a possibility he could get in for 3rd grade.
so for now, he'll be attending stuckey elementary come the fall for his second grade year. now we're just hoping and praying he gets a teacher that challenges him the way his teacher this year did.
i am confident he did not get into webster for a reason and that it will all work out the way it is supposed to.
last year hayden's kindergarten teacher recommended that we have him tested to see if he could get in to livonia's gifted school, webster elementary. they ended up doing testing over spring break for the out of district kids. a little later we received the results telling us that hayden did not get in, he missed the reading portion by about 4 points. but he did pass the math portion of the test. they told us that he could try again next year.
so a bit before spring break i started looking into it again. things were a little different this year and they didn't start testing the out of district kids until the week of may 24th. they told me everything that we would need from hayden's school...report card, benchmark testing scores, etc. and told me the applications would be up on their website starting on may 21st.
i contacted hayden's teacher and let her know what i needed from them. they were SO great and very excited for hayden. they gave hayden as much time as they could to practice his reading and retelling before they gave him the test that i would bring to webster with his scores on it. webster informed me he would need to be reading at the beginning of 3rd grade level.
in all of the tests they said the scores came out and showed he was doing math and reading at just about the beginning of 3rd grade. so we were hoping it was enough that they would give him the opportunity to test for a chance to get in to the school for 2nd grade.
on may 21st i printed off all of the forms and got all of the paperwork together. then on may 24th and went and dropped them all off at the school. they told me they would probably be calling us soon to set up a testing date, as his scores seemed to look good enough.
the paperwork they gave me said that there were only a total of 11 seats for 1st and 2nd graders from out of district. even if he passed the testing he may not get in if more than 11 qualified. at that point, they would do a lottery for the 11 open seats.
i got a call that evening i think and asked if we could bring hayden in for testing on thursday, may 27th at 8:30am. the testing would last between 2 1/2-3 hours and other kids would be there testing as well.
dave dropped him off that morning on his way into work and i went to pick him up around 11:15. there were about 6 kids there but others could have been testing on other days as well. when the kids came out, they told us that if they passed that round of testing they would call us to set up the second round of testing. hayden told me he thought that a lot of it was easy and that he didn't guess at very many of the questions.
i got a call on tuesday, june 1st asking me if there was any way i could bring hayden in for the 2nd round of testing on wednesday morning. this time, the testing was in reading and math and would only be about 1/2 hour. so on june 2nd i took him in for more testing. this time i just stayed there and he was the only one that was tested.
they came out and the lady told me that he worked really hard. she mentioned that he was "always moving" but that he was always paying attention. she also mentioned that he really needs to be challenged in school. she seemed to give a pretty positive vibe. she told me that around june 22nd we would get something in the mail showing us his scores with the percentages and telling us if he was accepted or not. i then asked about the lottery and she said...."well, i know that they put that in the paperwork, but i think there is going to be enough room." so either they didn't have as many kids apply as they thought, or some of the kids that did apply didn't pass the first round of testing.
when we got in the car hayden said that a lot of it was easy once again. he said that he sounded out some of the words and that he got one really hard word right. he said that the teacher told him he was the only kid to get that word right. i asked what the word was and he replied..."i forget."
he also said that the math testing was the exact same math test that the teacher at his current school gave him in order to get the benchmark scores for this testing. so hopefully that's a good thing as it seems like he scored well on it the first time.
dave and i will probably go to an information meeting about the school and their curriculum on june 9th and then we should hopefully hear some good news around june 22nd about him getting in.
the thing i was not looking forward to was the driving. because he doesn't live in livonia, i will have to drive him to and from school every day. but as 2nd grade gets closer, i have realized that his new elementary school in redford is close enough to us that he wouldn't have a bus. so i would have to walk, or drive him every day there as well. and once your in the car, who cares if it's a few extra miles down the road?!
it will be a pain, but it would be a pain to get him to school here in redford too. plus, it's redford. a place we swore we'd be out of by the time "our first gets into kindergarten." haha. so i'm happy to do anything i have to do in order to give hayden the best that he can have. hopefully, for 2nd grade, that will mean the gifted program at webster in livonia.
i just don't want him to get bored in school having to learn things with the rest of the kids that he already knows and has know for awhile. this year his teacher has done a GREAT job working with him so that he is being challenged and not just learning with the rest of the kids. but you just don't know that every teacher will be as great as this one is.
we'll keep you posted as to any news we get.
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