A Quiet Student?

Yesterday evening I attended my very first Parent - Teacher Conference.  It makes me a bit sick to my stomach that I could even have a child old enough to require such an activity, however I was very excited to get the real scoop on Miss Jentry. 

Her teacher, Ms. Peterson, is very sweet and even took the time to write a summary report of what Jentry has been learning and her progress.

"Jentry follows the classroom routine and rules.  She engages in cooperative pretend play with her peers, and she maintains the interactions with both peers and adults for extended periods of time.  Verbal or visual cues may be needed with Jentry to help her use her words to problem solve with her peers.  She enjoys playing board games and card games, and will sometimes choose the academic activities during choice time, rather than pretend play.  She enjoys creating in the art area and engaging in pretend play in the house area.  Jentry preforms all tasks that are presented to her, and she is cooperative in the classroom.  She has age-level attention during choral activities, music/movement activities, and paper/pencil tasks.  Occasional verbal or visual cues may be needed to redirect Jentry to the task.  She also has good manners, and she is sweet and caring towards others.  She uses a very quiet voice in the classroom."   

Most of what I read was very predictable and expected, however when I got to this last sentence I had to double check the name because my daughter does NOT use a quiet voice!  The teacher reassured me, "She is always very quiet and I never have to ask her to quiet down."  What?  This can't possible be my energetic, boisterous Jentry!  It was difficult to believe, but I took the teachers word to be true.

"Jentry writes her first and last name independently.  She draws a self-portrait independently, and she adds simple objects in her pictures.  Jentry puts together 25 piece puzzles, zips her own coat and cuts out simple shapes.  She is dominant with her right hand, and she uses a tri-pod grasp.  Jentry identifies all of the basic colors and shapes.  She counts objects 1-39, using 1:1 correspondence, and she identifies numbers 1-19 with occasional prompts.  She also identifies all of the uppercase letters, and she is developing phonemic awareness skills to sound out and write other words.  She also has good large motor skills as she jumps, gallops, balances on one foot, hops on one foot, and skips.  Jentry continues to work on ball skills, such as kicking, throwing, catching and dribbling.  We really enjoy having Jentry in our class."

The fact that Jentry needs to practice her ball skills is no surprise to me at all.  If she takes after her mother, she will most likely have very little to possibly zero athletic abilities.  Hopefully this is not the case.

I am very proud of how far Jentry has progressed this year.  Last summer she had absolutely no desire to sit down and color and/or draw.  Sit still?  What? No way!  Now, just eight months later, she is writing and drawing all kinds of things.  This makes me very anxious to see what Kindergarten will do for her this fall.