We had Ella's parent/teacher conference today, and it went fantastic. Unless you are a grandparent of my child, I recommend skipping this post...it's the type of thing you roll your eyes at on Facebook! ;)
They have a huge checklist (things like fine motor, gross motor, empathy, problem solving, speech, etc.), and the child gets either below age level, at age level or exceeds age level. Ella got at age level or exceeds age level for every category! Her teacher said they have seen TONS of improvement/growth from last year.
She said her speech is advanced, she has excellent fine motor skills, is very good at problem solving, only engages collaborative play (no more parallel or independent play) and loves art. She says she spends a lot of time on her artwork (note to self, do more art projects at home). She said she is just a good kid, they have no concerns whatsoever about her, and that she is empathetic.
She said they let her lead and solve other kids' problems because she enjoys doing it. She gave us an example of when two other girls were fighting, and Ella ran over to them and asked what was wrong. The teacher only watched to see if the kids could work it out themselves. Apparently, Ella acted as a mediator speaking to both girls saying to one, "tell her why you are upset, tell her that that wasn't nice." Then to the other girl, "you need to give her the doll back, X is upset." It went on like this. The teacher said that by the end, all three ran off completely happy- with no intervention from the teacher! Do we have a little psychologist on our hands?!
And the thing that stuck out most in my mind was that the teacher said repeatedly that Ella is a "rule follower". I always thought this was the case because she has always been a very good listener, and she is definitely on the timid side, but as a parent, I'm clearly not very impartial! I was so relieved when the teacher said this because with my Type A personality, I don't think we would survive the teenage years if she wasn't a rule follower type kid! Now Everett on the other hand, I'm thinking he may be a bit of a rule breaker. ;)
I know she is only 3, but I'm so proud!!!
Good Job Ella!!! So proud!! I started laughing when I read that she is a "rule follower" because at Brett's conference last week, his teacher same the exact.same.words about Brett. It must be in the blood. haha
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