Should have blogged this yesterday, but it was a full day and I just didn’t get around to it.
Yesterday, I went to spring conference at Tank’s preschool. I met with his teacher and looked over her assessments of his abilities and development. I was pleasantly surprised by what I saw!
First, Mrs. SweetTeacher (he also has Mrs. HappyTeacher, the assistant teacher) showed me the assessment from the music class instructor. The Tank showed concept mastery in all areas, including the area of “how to behave yourself in a music class.” It wasn’t worded exactly like that, but that was certainly the implication of that particular bullet point. Tank apparently knows the names of all of the instruments used in class and can categorize them (drums are percussion, for example). He always participates in class and enjoys singing. This, I knew, as I can’t put on my Glee cd without the child belting out “Don’t Stop Believing.”
In Mrs. SweetTeacher’s class, the Tank has also been making great strides. His gross motor skills are just as good as I knew they were and his fine motor skills are also excellent. He can jump, skip, draw a straight line and a circle, and draw a picture of himself with all the parts that a child should be consistently putting in drawings at this age (head, facial features, arms, and legs). He is social and gets along well with other kids, always has a playmate as is right in the middle of the action, though he shows a mature ability (“We usually see that in much older children!”) to identify the kid that won’t put up a fuss if he swipes their toy — yes, the Tank is the kind of child who could easily become a bully if that sort of behavior weren’t parented out of him, which is one reason why I think homeschooling will be much better for him than public school, where his innate bullying instinct might be fed. I’m glad he has such a high level of social intelligence, but I want him to use it for good, not evil!
He knows all of his colors and shapes. He can count to 15, though he often skips 16 and/or 17, then can continue to count up through the 20s and 30s, and often beyond, especially with a little prompting. He has sight recognition for the names of all of the boys in his class (the preschool ended up with way more boys than girls this year, resulting in an all-boy classroom for the M/W/Th group). He can write his own name, from left to write in all upper case, though he writes each letter from right to left, which is sort of interesting. They don’t expect them to have name recognition or the ability to write their name, but they assess them for that anyway, just to see if they can, and the Tank can!
The area where I wasn’t at all aware how the Tank was developing was in letter recognition. He won’t even sing the ABC song for me (“I don’t know them all.”) and I didn’t know that he could now recognize all of the letters, at least the upper case ones! He sometimes misreads G for C, but otherwise, he can correctly identify all of them. Wow, this really blew my mind. On the one hand, I was really excited that he could do so much more than I realized. With Captain Science as my barometer, it’s often hard for me to know if the Tank is behind, normal, or even ahead, because Captain Science was so far above average that the usual “above average” seems like “average” to me, if that makes any sense. It was comforting to know that the Tank is not only NOT behind, but is ahead in most areas.
On the other hand, that I didn’t know all the things he can do leaves me with a slight feeling of loss, just like missing any milestone in your child’s life. Where was I when he learned the alphabet? How could I miss that he knew all the things he knows? I don’t think it would have occurred to me to feel regret about this if I hadn’t been homeschooling Captain Science this year. I like being a part of my children’s education. I like knowing what they know, because I’m the one who helped them learn it. I’m sad that I wasn’t the one who taught the Tank the rest of his letters and it only reconfirms my plans to homeschool him starting next year.
Mrs. SweetTeacher asked if we were reenrolling him for next year and I told her we would be homeschooling. She seemed disappointed that he wouldn’t be returning to the school. I’m glad his teachers seem to genuinely like and enjoy him, because he’s an enjoyable, entertaining child. Both Mrs. SweetTeacher and Mrs. HappyTeacher have remarked on his good sense of humor, his advanced verbal skills, what a great personality he has. It’s always nice to hear that from an outside source.
I’m thrilled this conference was full of so much good information, but now I can’t wait to start preschooling at home next year!
