Teacher Conference.

Tonight I met with Harrisons Pre-school teacher for our first teacher conference.

I have to say, I'm so proud :)

He got a glowing report, and he's come a long way in such a short space of time.

Here are the main points while I remember them.

He is friends with everyone in his class. Makes friends easily and likes everyone equally. This is important in his role as "peer" to treat both average kids and special needs the same.

He is keen to be a leader and thrives in the role.

He listens and follows directions.

He has awesome scissor skills! This is funny to me because his daddy could not cut ;)

He has a huge imagination, loves to do imaginative play, role play, and make up stories. Miss Kellie said he is particularly strong in this area.

They do lots of "tests" every month. These tests are just to gauge progress, and vary. So for example they are asked to write their name, draw a picture of themselves, count things and so on.

His progress in such a short amount of time is astounding to me. He was SO ready for is learning!

The picture he drew of himself changed, from a typical circle body and head, to one with with a square body, which now also had hands a feet. Drawing and writing are an area he needs to work on, so this improvement has been awesome.

He knows all his shapes but struggled with rectangle.

He can count to 13, and recognize numbers to 10. 11 became one and one and so on.

He knew 18 of his alphabet, this was at the beginning of the year and hasn't been retested. I think he would get almost all of them now.

He knew all his colors, and brown and purple where his favorite :) it used to be green!

He can sequence items, he got up to 6.

His letter and name writing have improved hugely! This is one of two areas he needs work on, his fine motor skills have lacked, mostly due to confidence not ability. He can write his name, and is now keep to improve and do better. Before he wouldn't even try, I'm so happy his teachers have been able to build this confidence in him.

The other area that needs help is his independence. Even though he has the ability to put on his own coat, shoes, or do things for himself, he often still asks for help.

I'm trying to remember these things as they come to me so excuse the rambling!

They said he was above average in all areas, about 70%. He will be more than ready for kindergarten!

Yikes!

Were so happy and proud of out baby. He has grown so much, and is the sweetest boy. I'm so glad this school is such a good fit for him, he is growing and prospering in all areas and we couldn't be happier :)

 

 

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Pre-school photo.

Harrison's first Pre-school photo.

He needed a haircut lol but he's so handsome :)

And Looks so grown up!

 

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Harrison's first field trip.

What a fun morning we had today!

We went to Jaquamin farms on a pumpkin patch field trip.

It was so fun, all of Dublin Pre-Schools were there today, so we saw lots of friends who don't go to Harrisons class.

Above is all of Harrison class learning about pumpkins and gourds. Who new there were so many! From a standard Pie Pumpkin, a Phat Pumpkin, Cloud Pumpkin and so many more.

The other pictures are Harrison, Lila and Isra running through the hay maze, and then Harrison, Isra and Maggie from his class. He likes girls can you tell?

Below is Harrison Isra (there attached at the hip) and Carter.

Harrison and his Pumkin!

Harrison and Isra (see!)

And again being goofy :)

It was such a fun morning! It's such a treat to be able to spend one-on-one with each of the boys. Now I think I'll take Allister by himself too?

We bought home some yummy pumpkin donuts.

 

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Hopscotch :)

 

 

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Random Fun.

We've been doing lots of fun things lately. The boys are awesome ages for everything now!

We got a Cosi (Columbus Ohio Science Institute, or kids museum :)

The boys love it, their favorite thing by far was the under water robot submarine, and the water feature.

Here are the boys playing with the robot.

And the water area.

Shall we get wet?

I'm glad we brought a change of clothes!

We also went bowling for the first time!

We learned 2 things.

1- The boys love to bowl.

2- Mummy and Daddy are BAD! And I don't mean Michael Jackson BAD, I mean bad.

 

The nerves!

And the boys are really into Legos now! Fun, messy, but fun :)

Harrison has been wanting to learn to ride his bike without stabilizer wheels.

So we dug out Matt's (Greg's?) old razor scooter for him to learn to balance on.

He's getting good, and the kids in the neighborhood love to play with our boys!

You can just see Allister in his McQueen car :)

 

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Painting.

Harrison loves to get dirty!

Finger painting is the perfect activity for this messy boy :)

 

 

 

 

 

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First day at Pre-K.

Today was Harrison's first day at Pre-K.

He was so excited he got dressed without a fight and even brushed his teeth.

That's big for a 4 year old, believe me.

Here he is all set for his day!

 

Being goofy.

All smiles on the road!

Smiles turn to frowns as Harrison's get out the car :(

At Pre-K drop off the teachers come to the car so all the parents don't have to park and take each child in.

This was a big change for little Allister and he was all worried about his big brother wondering off to a strange place with a new teacher.

It almost sent Harrison into tears, but I told him to be brave, and he asked "why?".

I told him Because your going to have a fun day, and he smiled right away and all was forgotten!

We kissed goodbye and off he went!

Here he is with his 2 teachers helpers and out friend and his classmate Isra, he's holding hands with Carter I believe.

 

 

After school he jumped in the car. The teacher said he had a good Day, but for once Harrison wasn't particularly chatty!

Weird I know.

He told me everything he did today was a secret. His new favorite word. Along with stupid.

Yeah I know.

Anyhow, at bedtime we snuggled after stories, as usual, and this is what I managed to get out of his day.

He played outside after it stopped raining, and then it rained again.

He had a story about a frog and a crocodile and the frog hopped away.

He only had 2 more minutes left to eat his snack, so didn't get to eat all his goldfish. He did however eat his carrots and tangerine.

They sang a goodbye song. To each child by name.

He explained about the Green light, Yellow light, Red light reward system. Red makes the teacher sad.

He didn't get to stay for lunch, and wondered why the other kids did. (I explained that those kids had some special needs and needed some extra lessons to help them.)

He didn't get to play on the computer today.

So that pretty much summed up his day! We're off to a curriculum night on Thursday so watch this space.

All In all I think we've all had a great first day :)

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Pre-K!

 

More later :)

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Pre-school.

On Tuesday Harrison will start Pre-school. Like proper Pre-school.

Not just a moms day out program.

He's will be attending Bailey Elementary in Dublin as a peer. What that means is around 50% off the class will have special needs, and the other kids are peer models. Or average ability kids.

He will go mon-fri 8:45-11:30.

Harrison's class will have 9 children aged 3-5. All the peers are 4, the majority of the class is 4/5.

The class has 4 children with learning delays, all are on the autistic spectrum, varying in degree of delay.

Harrison's teacher will be Miss Kellie and her assistant Miss Debbie. They also have a 3rd teacher who will work between 2 classrooms. There is a speech therapist also who works with all the children each day.

It's is a GREAT program. For both average kids and special needs. The kids with special needs learn to model some of their behaviors from the average kids, and the average ability kids get excellent teaching in a small group. They learn empathy,how to be patient with people who are not the same as them and how to help others and be caring. Along with the regular things a Pre-schooler will learn like days of the week and his alphabet of course!

Harrison is so excited to be starting Tuesday! Even more so because his friend Isra just so happens to be in the same class.

The lady at the back of the class in the stripy skirt is Miss Kellie. She seems wonderful and has recently transferred to this school from a school that specialized in teaching kids with Autism.

Harrison's sat next to one of his new friends, on one of the 3 brand new Mac computers the class room has.

 

Harrison testing out the playground that will be shared with his class and one other.

We have a curriculum night next week where we hope to find out a lot more about his new school!

In the mean time, wish Harrison luck for his first day on Tuesday.

And wish me luck trying to get everyone out of the door for 8:20am.

 

 

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Harrison's 4 year update.

Back in June Harrison went for his 4 year check up.

I don't think I blogged about it!

Here are his stats.......

Height 43 3/4 "

Weight 52lb

They didn't measure his head anymore. His BP was 98/48

He's doing everything he should. No problems. He's still a big boy for his age, and off the percentage charts in both height and weight.

He just graduated to his first size 1 shoes!

He is wearing size 6 clothes, but they are getting small! Oh my!

Next year he gets to go to proper Pre-school!

He starts at Dublin City Schools. Bailey Elementry Pre-school peer program. It's a 5 day a week Pre-school and it's 8:45-11:30. Notnsure how we are all going to get out of the house for 8:30 every day!

The peer program is a subsidized system so 50% of the school is for special needs or delayed kids. Some are speech delayed, delayed motor skills, autism spectrum stuff like that.

So Harrison is one of the peers - or average ability kids. They've found it helps both special needs and average ability children to be in a mixed class. And the class sizes are small! 8-10 to a class. I've heard a lot of good things about this program, and it will be a great start for him.

Next year he gets to go to kindergaten.

Scary!

4 years olds are a lot of fun. Seriously.

He is hilarious and has developed a true sense of humor. He laughs in all the right places in movies, will play a game and understand the rules, he loves to play make believe. Both our boys have awesome imaginations!

He won't eat a sandwich. It's annoying, he decided he doesn't like them.

His favorite colors are blue and green.

His favorite food is Probably soft salted pretzels. And chocolate and candy of course ;0)

He loves super heroes and Harry Potter.

He loves DocMcStuffins, Peppa Pig and Jake and the Netherlands pirates.

He loves to be told stories. Made up -with him staring in them.

He wakes at 6:30 am sharp almost. Every. Single. Day.

We are still learning to sleep dry at night, but we are getting there!

He is >this< Close to being able to swim. He's doing great :)

He loves to snorkel.

He loves to play dress up.

We love our 4 year old!

 

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My First Summer Camp!

Harrison enjoyed his first summer camp last week!

He had a BLAST!

He went 9-1 every day at the local rec center, it's ages 3-5.

They played all sorts of fun games, catch the flag, soccer, sang songs, made crafts and all sorts of fun stuff!

They even took photos of a few activities.

Here is Splash Day.

Being so little they don't do field trips, all activities are in and around the rec. So they don't have pool days. Instead they get out the sprinklers and baby pools and have a blast!

Here they are playing with the parachute and Duck Duck Goose.

Harrison gets to go to summer camp again in a couple of weeks.

He can't wait to go back!

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