Report Card

I went to Caleb's "conference" at school yesterday. Everything his teachers told me, I pretty much expected. He's way ahead academically, and way behind socially. However, Mrs Johnson told me that he has really "blossomed" since school started. He no longer just lays on the floor, oblivious to what everyone else is doing. While he doesn't play with other kids yet, he seems much more interested in what they are doing. Sometimes he'll just stand and watch them play together, as if he's soaking it all in. But, most of the time he plays with toys next to kids playing with other toys (parallel play). And they did mention that he would rather play with the teachers/parent volunteers than the kids (and in "real life" he's the same way. I think he's more comfortable with adults because for the first 2 years of his life, that's the only people he was really ever around). They really feel that it will just take time for him to feel comfortable joining in with his peers. He has also started to offer some answers during circle time. Not often, but at least he's doing it once in a while. They know that he knows the answer because he'll get a huge smile on his face, but then will say "I don't know." when they ask him.

He's very into their art projects and loves to paint. He gets very upset when he can't paint or when he doesn't see his projects in his bag at the end of the day. Leaving his projects at school to dry or to finish later is NOT something that he's okay with and has shed many tears over this. He won't tell me anything about his day, but loves to show me what he made. He always gives one of his "projects" to Isaac. And he also loves story time (which also doesn't surprise me since he loves books.)

One thing they are really trying to work on with him is that he is into EVERYTHING. If they turn their back, he's opening up a cabinet and taking paint out, or getting into their purses. Or opening all of the windows in the classroom, like he did on the day when I helped out (on the coldest day of the year, no less). He's a "busy body." We already knew that from how he is at home, but I had no clue he was that "busy" at school too. I don't know why they waited this long to tell me. And his teachers are so nice that they pretty much just say, "Oh Caleb, we need to put the cover back on that paint because we don't want to get it all over your nice clothes. Or we don't want you to cut your fingers with that big paper cutter." Instead of laying down the rules and just not letting him get away with doing things like that.

We have actually been working on that at home for a while. We have started teaching him "Stop and think" before he does something. He's actually does pretty well with this at times. For instance, he will stand by the refrigerator and yell "Hey Mom! I stop and fink and I didn't open the figer-gator!" He still has a way to go. But at least sometimes he's stopping and thinking about what he's about to do, and if it is right/wrong, before he just does it. Anyway, I shard this with his teachers and they are going to try it there too. I also told them that if they feel he needs a time out for not listening, I would have no problem with them doing that. Apparently they don't do timeouts at this school.... Anyway, I am hoping that they keep me a little more up to date with this issue, so we can continue to talk about it with him and continue to work on it.

All in all, they had mostly great things to say about our little man. They both look forward to seeing his "bright smile," and cannot wait to see how much more he develops the rest of the year.

***I wrote this post last week, but forgot to post it. Yesterday (2/1) his teachers tried the "stop and think" technique and they said he did better. YEAH!