First Parent-Teacher Conference

I had my first ever parent-teacher conference this morning, via phone, and by the time that call ended, I was one proud mommy! Miss Mary said that Elsa is "such a joy" to have in class, and that her enthusiastic nature is an asset to the entire class, since the kids tend to feed off each others' emotions. Mary said Elsa is "a little ray of sunshine," she's friends with pretty much every kid in the class, and the teachers just love having her there.

I expected Elsa's report to be pretty good, but I thought there could be some issues with her being so young. Mary confirmed that Elsa is the youngest in the class, but said she's actually better at many things than some of the older kids are. One example of this is "using words to initiate play." Mary said some kids (I'm guessing mostly boys) will shove somebody or take a toy away in order to get them to play, while Elsa simply goes up to the other kid and asks them to do something specific with her. Since she does this to me at home at least 20 times a day, I guess I never thought about this being an issue. I'm glad Elsa does fine with it.

The only negative Mary had for me is that Elsa often gets easily frustrated and starts crying. This is frequently over something really little, like a toy not working the way she wants it to, etc. Again, we've experienced this at home plenty, so I was not surprised at all. We've been working on it—I think it's mostly a matter of her just getting enough sleep, since she does a lot better when she's well-rested. And Mary did say Elsa always recovers from these incidents very quickly, and goes right back to being her usual happy self. We knew that, too.

The one surprise during the conversation (a pleasant surprise): Elsa is not the worst in the class when it comes to things like taking off her coat, rain pants, etc.! With her being so young, and not terribly mechanical besides, I just assumed she might need the most help with stuff like that. Mary said that's not the case—Elsa can usually at least get the process started, while some of the other kids just stand there because they literally have no idea where to even start. I was pretty shocked by that, especially since I don't think I've worked with Elsa on things like that as much as I could have. Not being the most patient person myself (ahem), it's often quicker and easier for me to just do it for her. But I guess something we've been doing has paid off. : )

And finally, here's a story Mary told about Elsa that cracked me up. They have a basket of dried gourds in the classroom that are maraca-type shakers. As the rest of the class was playing quietly, Elsa went over to the gourds and called out to the entire class, "Come on, guys, let's make a band!" and went around handing out the shakers to everyone in the class. She's actually done that several times, according to Mary. Too funny ... and it's just so Elsa. Like I said, I'm a proud mommy today. : )