How many 6 year olds know what a rhombus is?

With Parker's Kindergarten graduation rapidly approaching, it's hard for me not to reflect on the amount that our young man has learned this school year. His progression over the last 10 months has been nothing short of remarkable.  Entering school in August, he was just learning how to really speak English and count to 10. Today he is reading, writing, and grasping addition and subtraction more each day.

The kid is smart. He is beyond smart when it comes to certain things.

He loves math. He loves shapes.

Take a look at this drawing he made the other day.

Translation:

putgn = pentagon

rubs = rhombus

scwir = square

trpsoy = trapezoid

What's even more impressive to me than him just knowing what a trapezoid and rhombus are, is that he often thinks about each shape and which ones make up the things he sees and uses everyday.  As he was riding in the car with Sara the other day, he described what shapes he would have to use to draw a shoe (he would start with a rhombus, then draw a rectangle with a smaller rectangle on top of that one, etc).  Do many other 6 year olds think like this? 

Since the time we met him, he has been intrigued by shapes and math.  Before he could count to 20, he was picking out octagons, hexagons, and other shapes that I had to Google to see what they were. 

I must say, last August I wasn't sure how he was going to do in school.  We were still in the midst of some major behavioral issues that I feared were going to show up in school, his English wasn't great, and his social skills were lacking, but he has done GREAT. He is learning every day.  He has behaved beautifully (all greens) and he has really enjoyed every aspect of being in school.  I think the social aspect of school took awhile to develop as he was pretty tough to understand until recently, but that part of school has come along well over the past 2 months.  He was invited to his first birthday party this week and it was so enjoyable watching him playing with all of his buddies.

Parker's Kindergarten year has been great for all of us (except for the part where he became a huge UK fan).