Yesterday was Asher's first helper day at preschool. Which really means that it's my day to go in and help in the classroom, and Asher gets to do all the special things that day. He got to hold the pointer and point to the month and count all the days in the month and put up the "16" at the end of the row. He got to hold the flag for the Pledge of Allegiance, he got to help get the snack ready with me, and he got to do show and tell.
We had picked out his object the night before--he picked his little toy airplane that makes noise on the ground. I asked him to tell me what he was going to say about it, but he wouldn't. "No, Mom. That's for my class to hear, not you." No matter how I tried to get him to prepare, he wouldn't do it. I fully imagined that when it was time for him to walk to the front of the room, that he would turn around to me, hold out the airplane, and whisper as he does, hands over his mouth, "Mom, I don't want to." I thought he would hide behind my legs, and I thought I might have to go up with him and hold his hand and that I would have to tell about the airplane.
Wrong! I was so wrong. I'm so glad they do show and tell on their helper days because I would have a hard time believing it if his teacher had just told me. When Mrs. Stone asked him to come up, he hopped up from his mat, walked to the front of the class and with no prompting, told them about his airplane. "This is my airplane. Me and Zimrie play with it all the time. You can push it on the floor on its wheels, or you can fly it in the air with your arm. And you can spin the propeller with your finger." His teacher asked him lots of questions, who is Zimrie? Who gave you the airplane? What color is it? And he answered them all, happy as a clam, and when he was done and everyone gave him a cheer, he came back to sit beside me, so proud. It was so fun to see! Of course, he was a little hard to understand. Mrs. Stone does a great job interpreting, and I understood everything, but I'm sure the kids didn't.
Which brings me to another exciting thing--we met with the speech therapist today at the primary school. Ash will go for a speech screening in the next 60 days and then, most likely, will start speech once a week at the school. I'm just very happy to start working on that and to have guidance, myself, on effective ways to help him. He can make all the sounds, but he just doesn't. Or refuses to. Or is in the habit of not doing it. Everyone in the meeting was so nice and they didn't seem overly worried at all. They said that if he can already make the sounds that he's ahead of most kids in speech. It will just be working with him on pronouncing all the consonants and with clusters of consonants and not dropping syllables out of words.
Preschool and this meeting have me wanting to be a teacher! :) I loved going to the schools. It's really fun to see Ash learn so much and grow. I also got to see his teacher screen him yesterday on recognizing shapes and colors. He did really well, he only got mixed up on "pink" which he called "purple." For some reason he's been getting those mixed up lately, though he never has before. He's also growing socially. His teacher said he's starting to talk to other kids at school more, and play with them. He still does mostly individual play, but I was there yesterday and saw lots of other kids doing the same. It helped ease my mind a little bit. And two weeks ago he started wrestling hard with his friend Mason. They had so much fun, and were so rough! Haha. It was so fun to see. That is a far cry from the extremely shy, nervous little boy who used to cry if another kid touched him. I'm sure having a brother helps, and getting older, but I think that going to preschool is helping, too. I still sometimes feel like these are things I could do with him at home, but he just doesn't respond as well. And neither do I. It's a hard fight, and I don't always know how to handle it. I'm happy to be involved this way--going to his classroom and speech lessons, and doing other fun stuff at home and with our friends.
We had picked out his object the night before--he picked his little toy airplane that makes noise on the ground. I asked him to tell me what he was going to say about it, but he wouldn't. "No, Mom. That's for my class to hear, not you." No matter how I tried to get him to prepare, he wouldn't do it. I fully imagined that when it was time for him to walk to the front of the room, that he would turn around to me, hold out the airplane, and whisper as he does, hands over his mouth, "Mom, I don't want to." I thought he would hide behind my legs, and I thought I might have to go up with him and hold his hand and that I would have to tell about the airplane.
Wrong! I was so wrong. I'm so glad they do show and tell on their helper days because I would have a hard time believing it if his teacher had just told me. When Mrs. Stone asked him to come up, he hopped up from his mat, walked to the front of the class and with no prompting, told them about his airplane. "This is my airplane. Me and Zimrie play with it all the time. You can push it on the floor on its wheels, or you can fly it in the air with your arm. And you can spin the propeller with your finger." His teacher asked him lots of questions, who is Zimrie? Who gave you the airplane? What color is it? And he answered them all, happy as a clam, and when he was done and everyone gave him a cheer, he came back to sit beside me, so proud. It was so fun to see! Of course, he was a little hard to understand. Mrs. Stone does a great job interpreting, and I understood everything, but I'm sure the kids didn't.
Which brings me to another exciting thing--we met with the speech therapist today at the primary school. Ash will go for a speech screening in the next 60 days and then, most likely, will start speech once a week at the school. I'm just very happy to start working on that and to have guidance, myself, on effective ways to help him. He can make all the sounds, but he just doesn't. Or refuses to. Or is in the habit of not doing it. Everyone in the meeting was so nice and they didn't seem overly worried at all. They said that if he can already make the sounds that he's ahead of most kids in speech. It will just be working with him on pronouncing all the consonants and with clusters of consonants and not dropping syllables out of words.
Preschool and this meeting have me wanting to be a teacher! :) I loved going to the schools. It's really fun to see Ash learn so much and grow. I also got to see his teacher screen him yesterday on recognizing shapes and colors. He did really well, he only got mixed up on "pink" which he called "purple." For some reason he's been getting those mixed up lately, though he never has before. He's also growing socially. His teacher said he's starting to talk to other kids at school more, and play with them. He still does mostly individual play, but I was there yesterday and saw lots of other kids doing the same. It helped ease my mind a little bit. And two weeks ago he started wrestling hard with his friend Mason. They had so much fun, and were so rough! Haha. It was so fun to see. That is a far cry from the extremely shy, nervous little boy who used to cry if another kid touched him. I'm sure having a brother helps, and getting older, but I think that going to preschool is helping, too. I still sometimes feel like these are things I could do with him at home, but he just doesn't respond as well. And neither do I. It's a hard fight, and I don't always know how to handle it. I'm happy to be involved this way--going to his classroom and speech lessons, and doing other fun stuff at home and with our friends.
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