Preschool Open House

Yesterday we met Phoenix's preschool team. The school had an open house for the parents and kids who are planning to attend in the fall. I actually went to the open house last year, not knowing that Phoenix's birthday fell 9 days after  the cut off for registration. So I was able to ask many of my questions before hand and just listen to get to know the team. The teacher will have 2-3 aides in the classroom with a maximum of 15 children enrolled, making the ratio 3:1 students to staff. That's pretty good I think. Also the SLP. OT and PT work in the classroom 1.5 days a week. They do individual and small group instruction (all play based), and they teach the aides how to work with the kids in their absence. Awesome. There are also family days where the team meets the parents to show us how to work with our kids at home. Equally awesome. I'm psyched.

We brought Phoenix with us to the open house and she spent the time with one of the aides playing. They hit it off and Phoenix made herself at home in the classroom right away. This is great, because it tells me that she should have an easy time adapting to her new school. Her flexibility and sociability is a huge bonus for her in life. It allows her to navigate new situations with confidence and ease.

Now all we need to do is work on toilet training (insert grumpy face). Phoenix continues to sporadically tell us when she wants to go potty, but it is not consistent, and diapers are still the constant. The idea is to give it a good effort once my summer vacation starts, and I am able to spend all day with her trying.

More Gross Motor play

We recently went to play gym after about an 8 week absence. We had bad weather and illness and travel and more illness before we were finally able to make it back for a visit. Which is a good thing because we pay by the month whether we use it or not. What I love about play gym is that Phoenix is now so comfortable there that that she confidently attempts the new structures. I try to arrive a little early to let her try out the apparatuses before the other kids arrive. Here she is on an incline mat. She did all the steps by herself without any assistance. Go Phoenix!

 Dancing with the hula hoop.  

Climbing the bridge

And this is parachute time. She knows now to move to the side of the mat, pick up the chute and start shaking.

That's it for now. Happy Sunday!

More Sight Words

So I introduced about 40 sight words last week with our bathtub foam shapes. Many of the words I had introduced already in other ways (writing on her magnetic board etc). I am pleasantly surprised at her ability to learn most of them in a very short period of time. I'd say there are about 5 that she doesn't know and she is so open to reading them and playing with them at bath time.

So I made some more. this time I did a little bit of research and found the 100 most common sight words. Many of the words I had already chosen were on this list, so I have continued to follow it with adding 40 more words. I also have added 20  words that are part of Phoenix's common lexicon such as: cookie, home, milk, shirt, pants, clothes, coat, fish, turtle, cow, horse, sheep etc and words that I feel will benefit her transition to preschool in the fall such as: teacher and school.

I gave her the latter set of words last night and am so surprised at how quickly she learns them. There were at least 5 or 6 that she remembered after just one introduction of the word. And she is so open to many repetitions of words she didn't remember yet.

It gives me so much hope for the future that at 3 she already loves to learn! We are going to an open house next week for her preschool. I am so psyched to be able to meet her learning team and to see what types of things they are going to be teaching her.


Here she is practising her words:

 

 

 

 

And a cute photo.