November 15th - Conferences

There's a kitty on my keyboard, following every word that I'm typing across the screen. He loves to play with the mouse icon, too, following it and batting at the monitor. Crazy cat.

But anyway. (or is that anyways... I'm never sure)

This is just going to be a brain dump about the school conferences meeting we had tonight for Abby (Ethan is too young for conferences yet). There was nothing surprising that came out of it, really. The teacher and preschool director have observed that Abby is very good at playing independently, but struggles a bit with joining in games. She can initiate activities and follow others, and really enjoys art. She needs to work on attentiveness during circle time, following directions and following class rules. [can you tell I'm copying these categories off of our progress report sheet?]

We talked for quite awhile about Abby's temperament, and the challenges that we as caretakers face to help her fit better into the classroom environment. It was obvious that we're all observing the same behaviors, so she is consistent. Now we're going to work to be consistent from school to home to help Abby be the best she can be.

Since preschool started 2 months ago, I have noticed that Abby has made some progress on circle time because I sometimes listen from the hallway after I drop Ethan off in his room. She is actually sitting on the circle rug now and sometimes participating in the activity, which is improvement that I'm very happy about. She does need to pay more attention and participate more, but we are happy with any improvement.

The biggest differences I've noticed in Abby since preschool are social. She wants to play with other kids during freetime before class starts. She talks about other kids once we get home. And just today she greeted Mrs. Sandy with a big smile and, "Hi, Mrs. Sandy! I've got my brown!" because today was wear-brown day. She wouldn't acknowledge Mrs. Sandy when she walked into class a month ago. I'm very glad that she's feeling more comfortable now in her new environment. With comfort, the real changes can happen.

Now we know which areas to work on through the year. We got some good ideas from the conference about how to strengthen some of the necessary skills. We'll be putting them to good use soon.

I'm very glad that Abby is enrolled in preschool this year, and that she'll have another year before kindergarten. She will benefit from the social skills that two years of preschool will bring. She will benefit from the structure that preschool will bring. And as of now, she loves it and looks forward to it.

It's a good thing.