first parent/teacher interview

So I had my first parent/teacher interview with Lilah's teacher last Monday evening. Lilah absolutely loves school, she still hasn't come off the 'high' since her first day in September. Her knowledge base, her ability to understand and her memory have grown in a tremendous way this past 3 months and it's getting more and more obvious that this girl is going to go far.

She has an incredible understanding. She sounds out the letters in words now and it is only a matter of time until my little 4 year old is reading. This morning I found her downstairs writing her class friends names down on a page, just by the sound of their names. Unbelievable! She also finds what her teacher calls, 'popcorn words', all over the place, different words that she already knows, like 'it', 'to', 'hello', 'and'...and there's a few more I can't remember right now. She finds them (and points them out to me) in reading books, magazines, her Bible, food packaging, etc. She sits eating her breakfast in the morning, spelling all the letters on the food packaging at the table. She uses bigger words now and different phrases in her sentences and stories, that are sometimes just plain funny!

Like this week I was drawing lines and she said, "Oh, you're making horizontal lines!" Wow. I was amazed that she knew, remembered and completely understood the meaning of that word! Here's a few other things she has said in the past week that have made me grin...

: After accusing Lilah of possibly telling lies one day, her reply was: "I think God is the only one who knows what I'm talking about. He knows that I'm serious!" I found out later (from Baba) that she was indeed telling the truth!

: Telling me about how fast she had eaten her breakfast one morning: "I eat up my porridge SO fast and it was TOTALLY gone!"

: As I was multi tasking one day and trying to remember what I was going to tell her, she said: "Mmm. Maybe it just popped out of your mind!"

: Talking about her French teacher one day: "She fell a long long long time ago, probably when she was a daughter!"

: Baba was being a bit crazy one night while playing a game with Lilah, she was rather affronted with his behaviour, turned to him and said: "Baba, I think we'll play the game when you're feeling calmer!"

: When I asked Lilah why she was hiding one day, she replied: "I'm hibernating, because I'm an animal...and it isn't Spring time yet."

Anyway, I came away very happy after the parent/teacher interview. Sure there are things that she needs to work on, like sharing and helping out with tidy up time, but other than that things are going great. She is a happy girl, she loves to learn and she absolutely adores her friends. The teacher was telling me how her effort is always 110%. In fact, she told me that Lilah was one of a few children she has ever taught, that can block everything and everyone out and work solo without any interaction. She said it was a sign that she would be a very strong learner. I was glowing when she told me, "You have a very special girl, she is very intelligent!"

I was also told that she adores her reading buddy! All the children from the older grade classes comes to kindergarten class once a week and they read their 'personal buddy' some stories. Lilah's teacher was telling me, out of all the children, Lilah asked for and wanted the little Chinese boy to be her reading buddy. The teacher also told me that they are so so happy together, they sit together laughing and reading stories - she promised me a picture of the two of them together, which I can't wait to see! Speaking of her choice of another Chinese child, we just found out this past week that Lilah seems to be able to tell apart other Chinese children. She was walking to school with Colin one day and they passed by two little girls who were down on the ground playing. Lilah remarked "There's two Chinese girls playing." Colin was taken back a little by her remark and inquired how she knew they were Chinese. Her reply: "Because their faces are Chinese!" One of the things I appreciated during my chat with the teacher is how much the teacher wants to celebrate Lilah's heritage. In fact, her words to me were: "I really want Lilah to lead the class in the Chinese New Year celebrations and I want her to feel well represented in our classroom." I was thrilled to hear her say that. She also went on to tell me she's been on the lookout for a Chinese babydoll for the playhouse - I was only too pleased to be able to help her out in that department!

Lilah is also learning French in school. The French teacher comes into her class for 20 minutes every day and Lilah now has a wide array of French songs at the tip of her tongue! She can also count to 10 in French, say hello, my name is..., how are you?, I'm good, thank you, etc. She told me around Halloween time: "If you hear the word bonbon, it actually means candy!" She is constantly telling Baba that he is a garcon and she and I are filles. There are things that come up in our every day chat that she'll tell me the french word for. Like I called something small one day and she said, "Oh, well, you could just call it petite, that's what it means in French!" She gave me a good laugh one day when I'd bought my new camera and it had two manuals included, French and English. She was peering over my arm with curiosity and I told her one of the manuals was in French and she could throw it in the rubbish because I couldn't read it. She opened the little book, flicked through the first couple of pages and said "Well, I can read this, because I speak French!" Haha! She's had it a while now and I see that she's been higlighting parts of it, which makes me laugh! Good thing she enjoys French, because next year she'll be starting the French Immersion program at school.