Stellar Report

This post is all about James and his parent-teacher conference. I'm writing this mostly so I can remember. I should have done this immediately after the conference but I didn't so ... better late than never right?

The conferences are only supposed to be 30 minutes and I was there for 1 hour and 15 minutes. We talked about James the whole time. To quote Helena, on behalf of all the teachers, "We just love James."

James is where he needs to be as a 'new guy' in the 3-6 class. He had a rocky start at the beginning of the year. He cried a lot. He didn't want to go in a lot. But, he's gotten so much better. Now he goes in. Without a jacket and even leaves his backpack now right by the door of the classroom. These are big steps. I am proud of him. He has come along way with this. Helena asked me why I thought he had such a hard time with the separation. I told her that I'm at home, we don't have a nanny, we don't have a babysitter, I've just never really left him regularly enough for him to have developed a schema for me leaving and then coming back. He has one for Doug - going to work each day, coming home each day but not me. So this, this dropping off at school and picking up was the first time that he was left for a recurring significant amount of time. But we're there. We did it.

Helena said that James doesn't really interact with the other kids too much in the classroom or on the playground. He likes to be by himself or talk to the other adults. Helena said that in the beginning of the year, he'd go up to the other children and ask what they were doing and try to talk to them about things and they'd just kind of stare at him or keep on going with their work (as is the Montessori method - if you're doing work, you focus on that work and you shouldn't disrupt others). However, if you're working together, you work together from start to finish. So now, he observes them. He stands and watches them do the work. They are usually the older kids - called "kinders" - they are the oldest of the class and teach the younger guys some works too. Helena has invited James to do a work with a Kinder but for now, he's been shy/hesitant.

Helena and I talked about this - James' friends in the building are adults. The average age of people on our floor is probably 50-60. James' other friends are doormen, a property manager, and maintenance men. There are a few kids in the building but they're either older (8 or 9) or way too young for James. There are maybe 2 kids around James' age but they have nannies that don't speak a lot of English (and I don't speak Polish) and I'm just not even sure how I would approach them to play. And to complicate things, I have a tiny little screaming machine that isn't so good on outings as of yet. Like most days, we can't even pull it together to go to the Lobby and get the mail.

Anyway, another reason for this was brought up my Helena. She said James' vocabulary is amazing. The way he speaks is amazing. He uses correct tenses and if he doesn't, he realizes it without anyone correcting him and self-corrects. He speaks in full sentences and asks follow-up questions in conversations that cause the teachers to say, and I quote Helena, "Wait, did James just say that? Yes, yes he did."  He'll go up to the other kids and talk to them and they just kind of stare at him. She said he doesn't speak like a regular 3 year old - he speaks like an adult. In fact, on the playground, he'll talk with the teachers instead of playing. Helena told me that they'll be standing around with the other 3-6 teachers and James will walk up and say, "So, what's going on today?" And then try to participate in their conversations. When it's time to leave at pick-up, James (both Doug and I have seen this) will go around to the other classrooms to say goodbye to the other teachers.

So, there's that.

On the bright side, she said that he's already sight reading a few words, he can recognize letters out of sequence and tell her the sounds the letters make and what objects start with those letters. She's pretty sure he'll be an early reader. I was too. He loves to read. Yesterday we read a book together three times and then when I went to go look after Cillian, he asked Doug to read it to him again. He also loves to trace letters. It wasn't my intention but in this photo of James you can see a work he did where he traced the letters of his name, glued them to paper and then created a sign. We were waiting for the President's motorcade to drive by!

In terms of math, he's beyond age level. James can recognize numbers up to 100, can count with very few mistakes to 100, can recognize and name numbers out of sequence and is beginning to show a rudimentary understanding of addition and subtraction. Helena says that he likes to explore the math works a lot and spends a lot of his day over in this area. This made me so happy - in my former life pre-children, I taught Statistics as a graduate student to undergrads and well, to be perfectly honest, I love math. Have since high school with Mr. Chappelle (shout out to Travis via Trish!). I was one of the only girls in AP Stats. But, enough about me - back to James.

One of the works he loves is taking play-doh and making snakes and shaping it into letters and numbers. He also loves playing "I Spy" - there's a little box full of items and one of the teachers sits with about three of the children and lays the items on a rug and says, "I spy with my little eye, something that starts with the sound "ssssssssss" and one of the items might be a star or a snake or "duh duh" and then one of the items might be a little dog. James also likes a triangle work where you open the triangle shaped box up and there are smaller triangle pieces that can only fit together in certain ways. Helena says he'll stay with this work for a long time doing the puzzle over and again. He also likes the math rods that have lengths that correspond with their value (e.g. the 8 rod is 8 times the size of the 1 rod and 2 times the size of the 4 rod). He lays them out and then places number cards next to the appropriate rod.

James also loves the practical life area of the classroom. This is where the 3 year olds spend most of their time and it's where they learn the basis of all other things. There is a sequence to things, there is an order - James learns that here. He also learns that there are steps for each work and it is here that these skills get defined. What is the first thing I need to do if I want to do this work? I need an apron, I need to take the tray off the shelf, I need to sit down. I need to fill up the bowl with water, I need to pour dish soap into the bowl, I need to mix it with the whisk. I'm making bubbles!! But then, the hard part for James (and the other 3 year olds) clean-up. The bowl needs to be washed out, dried, the whisk needs to be washed and dried and the tray needs to be returned and the apron needs to be hung up. Everything must look the same so the next person can enjoy the work and do it from beginning to end.

There's a baby doll in the classroom that the children can wash and clothe. James loves this work. He told me he does this a lot and Helena told me he does this daily. It's a long and involved work for them. It's basically just like giving a real baby a bath and changing them. The baby is a little boy but Helena said that she's going to change it out for a girl. We'll see how James likes that. As for now though, he loves to help with Cillian now that he's a pro at it at school all the time :)

James also loves snack and preparing snack. They are allowed to use little knives to spread cream cheese, peanut butter or regular butter or jelly. He slices kiwis, bananas, carrots, and loves to use the tongs to serve himself. Then after they do so, they sit down, eat and then clean off their plates or any silverware or cups they've used. I don't think I have to tell you how wonderful it is that these behaviors are starting to infiltrate home life :)

James has thus far declined working with other kids when Helena invites him to do so. We talked about at the conference and came up with some scenarios we think James might be responsive to doing. I've spoken with him about doing work with a Kinder Lydia - he speaks about her all the time to me. I told Helena this - she said that she doesn't think they have ever spoken in class. Helena suggested the two of them walking up to the fourth floor and going to the library to pick out a book for the classroom. I told her that I think James would love to do that. So we've brought it up over the weekend a few times and he seems really excited.

He does just observe so much. James has always been like this. Ever since he was a small baby, people always remarked how alert he was. Always watching and studying. Helena kept saying he's a sponge. He watches and just absorbs everything. I thought he was doing all these things he tells me about and I told Helena what he talks about at home and she told me that he's telling me what he sees the other children doing - he'll watch the Kinders put together the daily calendar and work out what day it is today and what was yesterday and what is tomorrow. They have to work out the weather, the date, the month, etc. I thought James was doing this too - Helena just smiled and said, this is the degree to which he observes them - he watches everything and notes everything.

Speaking of ... he also talks a lot. He talks about what we do at home and in the car and well just about everything. Remember toddler information sharing? It's now in overdrive. For example, he told the teachers, "This morning, Daddy took the edges off my cinnamon toast. Mommy didn't have cinnamon toast but had oatmeal because oatmeal is less points. Mommy doesn't like when people text and drive in the car. It's iwegal and dangerous." This is just a SNIPPET of the things he shares with them.

James loves gym and loves going outside - he really likes the gym teacher Rose. Rose calls her whistle a 'bird' and that it tweets. James lovs this. If we see Rose when we're walking to the car, he'll run over to her and give her a hug and hang out with her for a while. I'm so glad that James enjoys gym. He really didn't care too much for little gym and I was kind of worried about how he'd do here. So far so good. He says he loves running and jumping and playing games in there. Rose is just the nicest lady. She wears her Bears shirts and jerseys after wins or on game days and James has started doing the same to be like Rose. One week he wore both Cutler jerseys he has and his Urlacker jersey. It's an intense appreciation for the Bears around here :)

Helena said that she just loves watching him and listening to him talk. She thinks that he'll be early with reading and with higher level math skills and also noticed that he can discern different sounds and can recognize different sounds and instruments. She suggested that we get him started with the suzuki method of music. I'm not exactly sure what this is, but we'll look into it and see what it's all about. He plays his keyboard and little ukulele around the house and has a lot of lyrics of songs memorized.

She and I also talked about how when he gets to school he's already been in the car for 45 minutes. She tells the other teachers that too - they are so thoughtful to even take this into consideration. I also shared with her that we've been listening to construction since late august and that the end date is sometime in December. So if he seems overtired or agitated, it could be that. Or it could also be that Cillian has just cried the entire length of the car ride to school. It's not easy some days but as you can see, James is just doing wonderfully. I'm so proud of him. He is such an amazing child and I really do feel blessed to be his Mom. James you're doing such a great job big guy! We love you!