Parent Teacher Conference

A couple weeks ago, Bean's teacher offered parent/teacher conferences. Dustin has every other Friday off so he opted to go this time around. When I got home from work, I was anxious to get the report.

It was all good news! In summary, Xavier is one of the "top students" in his class. He and two other students are miles beyond the others. His teacher said that he is getting bored with the lessons she is providing and that he should move up to the 4 year old class but the class is too full at this time so we will probably have to wait until "graduation" this fall. To keep him engaged and interested, he has been assigned all sorts of jobs. He and the other two students that are high are the "class helpers." They do things like pass out plates for snack, help organize toys, etc.

She did mention that once Xavier has been given a job for a period of time, he is reluctant to give it up. For instance, if he has been the "plate helper" for a week and then they switch it up, he gets frustrated. That was not surprising to us as he is definitely a creature of habit. He loves consistency and has the same jobs every day at home. Also, he HATES being the "caboose" of the line. He does not like to be last, he likes to be first!

She gave Dust a copy of his "ASQ" which is essentially a standardized test for babies (YUCK!) and Xavier scored perfectly on every question except he got half credit for using scissors and half credit for putting on his own shirt. Those are things we are working on :)

Finally, she shared the most impressive bit of information. Xavier can read (or recognize) his name everywhere. I've noticed this in the last month or so as well. When my parents sent the Easter basket with his name embroidered on it, he said "That says me!"  Also, when he is showing me art work on the walls of his class, he can easily find his even though there are 12 pictures that look exactly the same. He always points to his name. She said that they switch seats and name tags on tables every other week. They always do it at recess and when they come back in Xavier is the first to find his seat.

What is even more impressive is that this two year old of ours recognizes all of his classmates names as well. No joke! His teacher told us that when they come in from recess, his friends go to their old seats and he will say "No, you don't sit here, Charlie does!" She told me after the conference that one day she changed them and had X show everyone where their seats were and he only mixed up two of the 13 classmates!! Dustin and I were reluctant to believe this so we decided to test it out ourselves. That weekend, Dust took out the chalk board and began writing each of Xavier's classmates name on the board. To our absolute astonishment, he got them all right! It was amazing. He can also recognize 4 sight words (mom, dad, cat, and dog).

We were overjoyed to learn that Beanie is already on the road to getting an excellent education. He really is such a smart cookie. Of course we already knew that but it is wonderful to hear his teacher say it too! :)