Parent/Teacher Conference

We had our first parent/teacher conference with Hayden's teacher at daycare yesterday. And no, not because he was in trouble. Not yet, anyway!

They meet with you periodically to go over their development with you. I thought it would be a very informal meeting and we would be on our way. I was very impressed with how they evaluate them. They measure their development on high/scope key developmental indicators for infants and toddlers. There are 10 different indicators and Miss Jordan went over each one with us. The indicators are sense of self, social relations, creative representation, movement, music, communication and language, exploring objects, early quantity and number, space and time.

He is doing very well in each area. I won't bore you with all of the details because I'm sure nobody cares but his proud mama. I just wanted to share a few quotes that his teacher wrote in his evaluation that brought a smile or a laugh.

• "Hayden has a great sense of self. He is very independent." Ha! That is an understatement.
• "He plays well with the other children. He has also given the other kids hugs when they are sad, showing empathy towards their feelings." Aww, hopefully this is a sign that he will be nice to his brother or sister.
• "Hayden can express a steady beat when he is dancing to music." I witnessed this on Saturday night. He was a dancin' fool!
• "Hayden is very curious and loves to explore new things."
  

He consistently uses and understands the signs for eat, drink, more, please, all done and thank you and he talks a lot. He has started putting words together and understands more when people talk to him. He says animal noises and does the motions to songs like "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" and "The Wheels on the Bus." He tries to sing along and is learning more of the words to the songs. Miss Jordan said it is hard to understand, but he counts to five. I thought he was counting the other day, but I wasn't sure.  He still LOVES books and enjoys music, doing art projects, building and taking things apart.

He is a busy bee and it is amazing how quickly they learn and grow. We have so much fun with him and he always brings laughter to the table.

It is a huge comfort and blessing that he loves it at school. His teachers are amazing and he loves them. I watch him online throughout the day and it is obvious that he is having a good time and his teachers care about him.  He will start early preschool at 21 months and we will be sad to leave Miss Jordan. I can't believe that he will be almost two and starting early preschool in the spring. My baby is not really a baby anymore.

Here is the Facebook link to the rest of his pictures we had taken the other day.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2378786&id=16708120&l=5219e05556

Happy Tuesday!