Last Day of School

This last Thursday was the girls' last day of school. I can't believe we've actually accomplished a whole year of school with Summer and a half year with Claire. I've seen so much growth in the girls since they started school. It has been such a great experience for them. I was quite sad the last day to have to say our goodbyes. Six of the eight kids in Claire's class are moving up into Summer's 3-5 year old class (Claire's staying). And about half of the kids in Summer's class are moving on to Kindergarten. The only thing that made the day bearable (for me!) was to know that my girls would get to return to their same classrooms next year with their same teachers. Their teachers are wonderful!

We had an end of the year conference with both Summer's and Claire's teachers. Summer's teachers filled out an evaluation form (which we did a the beginning of the year, in November, in February, and then now) to track her progress. Here are some of the things written up about her:

Social Emotional Development
Summer has gained so much confidence this year. She has gone from a shy child who would hardly talk and only if addressed first, to a child who will initiate conversation and greet teachers and students. Friends are important to Summer and she has many children that she interacts with in play. Summer can direct the play, or be directed in play. She follows classroom rules and routines. Summer likes to help others and now takes the initiative to clean up with it's time (no reminders needed). (As we read through this together, her teacher stopped and said at the beginning of the year, she would race to sit down for circle time--reading and singing--while everyone else cleaned up. But now she is one of the last kids helping scrub the table and push chairs in.) She participates in group activities and circle time.


Physical Development
Summer is an active three year old. She runs and climbs, balances on one foot, throws and catches a ball or bean bag and pedals and steers a trike. Summer began the school year by making squiggles and circles to write and can now write her whole name! She can draw detailed picture of a person. she cuts with scissors. Summer has great fine motor strength.


Cognitive Development
Summer is very interested in learning. She is curious and likes to ask questions to gain information. She can identify her name in print--looking beyond the first letter to do so. Summer began the year naming four alphabet letters and now names all 26! She can identify 10 basic colors; shapes: rectangle, circle, star, oval and triangle; number 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 9. Summer counted out 14 objects. She is interested in reading and will choose books and asks to be read to.


Along with end of the year conferences, Summer's class celebrated the summer birthdays. On the day they celebrated Summer's, they all stood in a circle around her, sang the song, then as she blew the pretend candle out, they all fell to the ground. She was so excited to tell us about it when she got home. Her teacher, for fun, asked her a few questions about herself. Here are Summer's responses:
Name: Summer Barney
Address: 514 16th Spokane (not our real address )
Age: 3
Job: Cleaning up, reading books to Claire, play with Claire
Pay: $5.00
Start: Tuesday, 5:15 pm

I thought that was hilarious.


We had an end of the year conference with Claire's teachers, but because she is in the early class (ages 0-3), they didn't write anything up about her. But they did tell me a cute story that happened a few days prior.

One of her teachers noticed Claire staring at a classmate. Claire then said, "You have something in your ear."
Her classmate responded, "What is it?"
"I don't know. Let me see."
Claire leaned closer to her friend. She reached over to her friend's ear, and picked a tiny with thing off the side of her ear. "It's popcorn!" she said.
Everyone laughed. And her friend proceeded to tell them about how she ate popcorn before she got to school that day.

One thing that has been really neat about watching Claire in her school is seeing her create and build relationships with her classmates. In the beginning, their play was parallel play, and as they've grown it's become more interactive. It's amazing now to see them work together in their play, and having real conversations together, talking back and forth.

On another note, the girls and I browsed the blog a few nights ago to watch clips and look at pictures, and I realized I haven't posted pictures in a while. So that is my next goal . . . hopefully within the next few days . . . if we're lucky . . .