Leaf Dancing

Yep, another Parent-of-the-Day visit!

Two of James's hearing specialists happened to be there yesterday as well (the speech therapist and the person who checks to make sure the classroom equipment for his hearing aids is working well).  They were sitting behind James at snack time when he picked up two teddy grahams in one hand and said, "I have two!"  Then he picked up two more in his other hand and said something like, "I have two more!"  I asked, "how many do you have all together?" and he instantly answered "four!"  They were very impressed with his excellent counting.

One of them also told me that she has told many families about James (not using his name) as the "poster child" of how well kids can do when they get a lot of language input early (the talking close to his ears that we did when he was younger on the advice of his auditory-verbal therapist).  Wow.

Of course, that doesn't stop him from being stubborn about actually using that language!  The kids had made handprint turkey placemats for Thanksgiving (sooo cute), and Ms. S was having them each say something they were thankful for to write on their papers (phrased as "what's something that makes you happy at home?").  James just wouldn't say anything!  (She called across the room to ask Mattie, and he immediately said, "Puzzles."  Not what I would have expected, but okay.)  And then this evening we tried to get James to say Happy Birthday to Uncle Adrian on the phone, and when we gave up, he said, "I didn't say that."  (Contrarian boy!)

The last activity of the preschool day was "Music with Ms. K."  They sang a couple songs and then she passed out big construction paper leaves for them to do a leaf dance. James LOVED it!  He was the most enthusiastic one in the room, running around and waving his leaf.  :)


Mattie was excited to wear his new coat -- he loves the orange stripe.  (Even with the new coats, it was freezing on the playground!  In the morning, Mattie had asked if he could wear his new long underwear, and I thought it wasn't going to be that cold yet -- I should have just told him yes.)