Andrew's Schooling

Andrew started PreK this fall at my old elementary school.  In fact, he's in my old Kindergarten classroom! How cool is that?!? He's adapted quite well to the routines of the class.  He knows he has to take off his outside shoes and put them on the shoe rack.  He forgets he needs to take his jacket off sometimes but quickly comes back to hang it and his back pack up. He likes to play with the kitchen centre in his classroom so normally makes a quick beeline for that. Then he remembers he needs his indoor shoes and goes to the bucket where the shoes are kept.  He's doing pretty well at putting his own shoes on!

After shoes are on, it's time to sit at the tables (where their picture is).  His teacher switched the tables around last week so Andrew was a bit confused as to why he was now sitting on the other end of the table :) The kids have some type of activity to do while they wait for morning carpet time.  Sometimes it's stringing beads on a string, playing with play dough or blocks or colouring. At this point, it's time for a quick hug and a kiss and a wave and I'm back out the door.  The EA in the classroom used to have to run interference on Andrew and position herself between us so Andrew couldn't see me leave.  Now? He's fine with me leaving and knows I will be back!

Andrew apparently does well with the carpet time (seven minutes worth). They go through the days of the week, what the weather is like, what the date is and so on.  Andrew sometimes likes to snuggle up to the EA.  His sitting still for seven minutes is huge HUGE…he doesn't like to sit and listen to stories at home and I was worried he would want to just run around the classroom all willy nilly.  But, as his teacher says, the kids want to be doing what their peers are doing so if they're sitting, he's sitting :) During snack time, Andrew most often tries the snack but won't partake.  The one day, he actually tried tomatoes! Way to go, buddy!

I received a note home about Andrew's speech. He is still having difficulty with sentence structure and grammar patterns, his "l"s and "th"s, as well as having a slight lisp.  I find it interesting that he would have both a lisp and difficulty with "th"! The Ls and THs are age appropriate and he will likely grow out of them, but the lisp needs to be worked on. It's tough to coerce Andrew into doing any sort of practice or work.  He loves his dinosaurs and cars and that's all he wants to do in a day.

Our goal is to have Andrew doing full days by the end of the school year.  He only does half days right now (whereas the rest of his classmates do the full day). After Christmas, we will work on staying for lunch and then adding a little bit more time until he's staying the whole day.  All in all, he's doing really great and I'm so happy we made the decision to put him into PreK!

PS - I've been asked what the difference between PreK and preschool is lately…as far as I understand, preschool has no curriculum and anyone can go.  PreK is designed more for those at risk for delays and has more of a curriculum (and even parent teacher interviews!). Also, preschools are private and PreK is a part of the school system so we only pay school fees. That's my understanding in a nutshell :)

And so it goes...