Some Amazing Kids

I can't believe the school year is coming to an end for Ethan and Taylor.  They have both done amazingly well this year and we feel really blessed that we stumbled upon this preschool last spring.  So in honor of the end of the school year I have to brag about them a little bit.  Ethan's teacher uses a system of green, yellow and red depending on how good the kids are acting.  And they get a ticket if they are on green for the day.  Ethan definitely responded to wanting to stay on green (although we may have had a slip or two at the beginning of the year).  For the second half the year the teacher starting adding purple as the highest level since so may kids were staying on green.  Ethan loved the idea of getting purple (probably because you get two tickets and can earn prizes faster).  To get purple you have to go above the teachers expectations by being kind to your classmates or helping the teacher.  Ethan was always so excited when he did it.  The other week he did amazing and got 5 days of purple he was so excited.  The excitement had built all week (which I'm sure he shared with his teacher that might have helped the process along).

By the end of this month Ethan was so excited to pull off another week of all purples with some other great days in there too.  I love hearing from his teacher when he helped some of the other kids how were struggling with assignments or when he went to ask a classmate to play that was sitting by himself.  I sure am proud of you Ethan!  I will have to say that Ethan did like to pull my chain a little bit from time to time when it came to the behavior chart.  A few weeks ago I could tell he had had a rough day so I asked him what was up.  He always bounces to the car and doesn't stop the whole ride home so it is easy to notice when something isn't right.  I ask what happened and he told me about how he had been playing superheroes on the playground and had to save a princess but in doing so he forgot the class rule about not touching people.  So that meant he got in trouble with the teacher.  He was pretty sad about it since he sort of couldn't understand why it was so bad since he didn't hit her or something.  So we talked about it and I said it wasn't a big deal since the teacher always gives you a second chance.  That is when he bursted into tears that said that it was his second chance because he had also "accidentally" touched someone in class earlier.  So that was strike two and he was on yellow.  I felt terrible as we drove home and he was so upset.  When we got home he got out his chart for me to sign, like he does every day.  When I look at it I see that he is on purple for the day and he laughed so hard.  He thought he was pretty funny.  If I hadn't been annoyed I would have been pretty impressed with his performance.  The waterworks were a nice touch.  I think he had gotten in trouble on the playground but the rest was made up.  That kid is a character!

Miss Taylor has also done amazing in preschool this year.  Although if you ask her she will say she hasn't learned anything in school and she doesn't know her letters.  But the other day she was writing a note to send to her teacher and she wrote her name.  Although she can tell you the letters of her name in order she doesn't like to be confined to writing them in that order but you can see she wrote "Y O A R L T".  Then she wanted to write "from" so I just told her the letters and she wrote it.  Maybe she does know her letters.  Taylor has always had good fine motor skills but I was impressed.  Taylor wants to be a great reader just like her brother so she will often memorize books and "read" them to us.  Her memory is great and I just love how she will pause at each syllable like she is sounding the words out, just like her brother.  I sure do love that girl!