Wednesday morning I met with Joshua's preschool teacher, Mrs. Dearborn, to go over Joshua's progress this year. She gave me a packet of information and showed me some examples of things they were working on to show me how he was doing. She started by saying that Joshua is kind, considerate, sweet and gentle. He plays well with the other children, and even if something happens to him, he responds well. She gave the example of how the kids were all getting silly in the rice, and he got a cup of it dumped over his head. She said he simply shook it off and said something to the extent of "I'm going to play somewhere else if that's how you're playing with the rice." She praised and praised him for how sweet he is, noting she'd love to just scoop him up and put him in her pocket (an expression that made me smile). He relates well to the other children, interacts well and even initiates obedience by saying things like "Come on, guys, let's all work together to clean up!" She said we can be very proud as parents. Once again, I smiled. I tend to think of pride as a sneaky little sin that comes into our lives. Well, I am proud of Joshua, I'm not proud because I think I deserve any credit. Instead, I'm so thankful that he's doing well and I attribute his successes to God's work in his heart and life. Mrs. Dearborn commented that she already sees the character that Joshua has and is developing, and those things are far more important than numbers and letters when it comes to living this life. What a blessing! I praise God for His leading Joshua already at this young age.
Next she showed me the paperwork and gave me things he's doing well by saying "everything with a '1' next to it" are things that he has mastered. As I scanned the page, they were pretty much all "1's." He interacts well with children and adults, knows his address, can write his name and recognizes letters and numbers (she said that she didn't test the entire class on lowercase letters but did with him because he knew the capitals and he got most of the lowercase correct as well). [With the numbers, he did miss 15 in the numbers, calling it "five-teen" and then saying he knew that wasn't right but couldn't think of it, and called twenty "two-teen" even though he said the rest of his 20s right up through 30. Silly boy! He knows them, but may have struggled to think of it that day. He still got a "1" for the category as they only have to get a certain percentage correct.] He can run, jump, catch a ball, hop on one foot, toss a ball, etc. He follows directions, listens, obeys, plays independently and in a group, listens at story time and can retell the story or his understanding of it, etc. I don't remember everything that was on the sheet, but 99.9% of it, he was doing really well with.
The couple of things we needed to work on were: using scissors (since he's a lefty, he really struggles with holding them the right way and cutting), drawing pictures that someone else can recognize (they're asked a question and he has to draw a picture to represent his answer), alternating his feet on stairs every time he goes up and down them, and zipping his own jacket (which, in his defense, the zipper gets stuck a lot so I always ask him just to let me do it to save time, not realizing that I was hindering him in doing so!). She also said that Daddy should work with him on using a urinal in the fact that he doesn't need to completely undress to use the potty since he's a boy. I laughed and thanked her for bringing it to my attention, since I would have NEVER thought about it otherwise.
She said he was ready to move on, but then she asked when his birthday is. I said that he just barely misses the cutoff with his September birthday. She smiled and said that she thinks it's great that he'll have another year at home/preschool. Waiting a year gives him all sorts of advantages, especially being a boy. He'll be taller, he'll be older, he'll drive before his classmates, etc. She said that you never regret waiting to send your child to kindergarten. I'm glad that the school district has the cutoff age because hearing that he's ready makes me think that we may have sent him otherwise. We got our answer, though. So, I'm grateful he's doing well and I'm grateful to have him home with me another year. :) He'll go back to preschool three days next year as well, and hopefully that reinforces the concepts we're working on, it will help him in his drawing (although neither his daddy nor I are artists by any stretch of the imagination!), and hopefully he will get more Bible lessons in that time.
Way to go, Joshua! I am blessed to have you for a son! May God continue to work in your life, in your heart and in your mind. May you grow to be like Him!
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