Handwriting?

Today was J's kindergarten end-of-the-year "celebration." It was cute, with all the kindergarten kids (all four classes) getting up on choir stands and singing some fun songs. One was to the tune of "New York, New York," only the words New York were replaced with "First Grade."

Then the teachers handed out awards. Each child got one, of course, and I wondered what J would get. Some kids got awards for being able to sound out any word put in front of them. Some were for being good at math. Some were for building with Legos. Never in a million years would I have guessed that he'd get an award for "Heavenly Handwriting!"

I think his handwriting is pretty good for a kindergartner, but it's his teacher's previous comments that have me stymied. In our last parent-teacher conference (here's the blog post about it), she referenced his poor hand-writing to prove that he still needed to work on things. As if I thought that 6 months of school would have him ready for the working world ;)

I got the email address of the lady in charge of all things gifted at J's school. I'm trying to figure out the best way to ask for J to be tested early. I'm not too optimistic about that. But in his school district, they don't test until the end of first grade! A friend of mine paid to have her daughter tested after HUGE problems with her in a regular first grade class room. They switched her to a different district, which tests at the end of kindergarten. Oh, I wish I'd known all of this before we bought a house! The other district is only a mile or so East of here!