Miss Emily said Pennington is doing great. He enjoys going to school and getting to see his friends. He is working on doing his work independently and together with his friends. He is also working on improving the amount of time he can focus on his work. He is very interested in letter names and sounds. He also enjoys writing letters and numbers.
Overall, Pennington is on track for children his age. I personally have seen a lot of improvement in Pennington's willingness to learn. Recently he has asked Johnny and I to read chapter books to him. We read My Father's Dragon a few weeks ago and are now staring to read The Magic Tree House series. Nonni kept all of Uncle Elliott and Uncle Henry's Magic Tree House books so we have at least 30 of them.
Piper moved up to Room 7 about 2 weeks ago. Her new teacher is Miss Carrie and her assistant Miss Rae. Miss Rose thought that Miss Carrie/Miss Rae would be a good fit for Piper's intensely-curious-very-verbal personality. I think Miss Rose definitely knows my daughter. I think the way she described Piper was about spot on. Miss Carrie's class is the classroom I was hoping Piper would be in.
When we met with Miss Carrie last week she had only had Piper in her class for a few days. Miss Carrie's first comment about Piper was something like . . "Wow (long pause). Piper has quiet the personality". Basically that means that Piper is not shy and definitely lets everyone know how she feels and what she is doing. Miss Carrie mentioned that Piper has only been in class a few days but she has let everyone know who she is. Piper has spent most of her time watching the older children do their work. It is very typical for the younger children in a Montessori class to observe for the first few months before they start preforming their own work. Miss Carrie also mentioned that Piper has hit the six year old boys a few times. Both Johnny and I were a bit surprised about this since she doesn't really hit Pennington very often and we haven't seen her hit other children. Miss Carrie thinks Piper is just investigating the new class room and trying to determine what the boundaries are. She doesn't think that Piper will continue to hit the other children on a long-term basis. Overall, we are really happy that Piper got moved up to Room 7 since she needed to be a more challenged. I'm also a very pround mama since her class is meant for 3 to 6 year olds and she is only 2 1/2.
Below is a recent picture of the kiddos.
