School's out for the summer... or is it?

And: How your child can embarrass you when you're not even there.

Benjamin managed that by bringing home his slippers last Friday, the last day of school. They were brand new in September; I have proof:

After 9 months of school - really only 7 once you take out the vacations - and they don't wear their slippers every day... they came home looking like THIS.

(What on EARTH do they do in school in their slippers that would bring them to this point of utter destruction??)

Frédéric and I were pretty mortified that he'd been using these at school in this condition - his feet were coming out of the bottoms of them! We told him we would have bought him new ones if he had *told* us the shape they were in... we did already buy him new ones for next year. Hoping they will last longer than these did! 

 As some of you saw on Facebook, I bought Benjamin a summer workbook. (One of those things I would never have imagined myself doing.) This one is mainly about writing, as his handwriting seems to have gone downhill over the past few months. He wasn't thrilled to see the book at first, but when he realized it was a "CP" (1st grade) book, he because very excited AND confident he could do it all. He says he wants to show his work to his teacher in September. 

That's cursive he's working on - they go pretty quickly here from "ronds et batons" ("circles and sticks" - printing) to "attaché" (cursive), so he's been doing cursive all year in kindergarten.

He's already gone through so many pages this week, I told him I'd have to go buy him another one, and he just giggled.

He also likes to play "the game with words" that Claudia Uccello got for him last year:

He is great at the math questions! He kindly leaves the "easy" questions like "What type of animal is Winnie-the-Pooh" for Noah, so he can play, too.