Learning Fun

Last week I had Owen's parent/teacher conference for preschool. Everything is going well. They used words like "joyful, enthusiastic, sweet, and compassionate." I would use those words to describe him as well. He is joyful. And I can't think of too many people I would say that about. They did say they are "working" on keeping hands to ourselves at circle time and sharing. Well, yeah. I can see that too. Both teachers commented how they recently added a new student to the class, and Owen has been very, very welcoming to the boy. Going out of his way to hug him and say hello when he arrives. They also mentioned how he lights up whenever he sees Natalie or myself, and how he knows everyone's name (including the teachers and staff that aren't from his room) as he walks down the hallway to his room every morning. I had to share with them my story from our Christmas trip, going out to dinner with Grandma & Grandpa, and Owen introducing every person at the table to the server, finishing with a sweep of his hand and the comment "all the peoples" and then wanting to know her name. I'm not sure the server had ever had a 3 yr old make such formal introductions before.

One thing that I asked his teachers about was his ability to sit at the table and draw...anything...shapes, letters, etc. I knew the answer to this, but wanted to see if he was different at school. The answer was that "well...he's too busy and energetic to slow down much for that." So I have been trying to think of ways to make it a little more fun. On someone else's blog I read about letting kids write letters in flour, so we gave it a try. I think we'll have to do it more often, because he did have a lot of fun. Right now I'm just trying to get him to do the four letters in his name. He can do the O, but has a hard time stopping at just one loop - he'll loop and loop and loop until it no longer looks like an O. I think we might be onto something though, using things like flour instead of just a pen. By the end, he was covered in white powder and started experimenting with how big of a poof it would make if he whacked his hand into it hard. Still, a good experiment overall.