Mia's "Preschool" days....

Im a very thankful to be able to give Mia this awesome gift. Being able to socialize with kids her age, and being expose to so many activities, makes me feel really blessed. Mia's first period's evaluation was last week, and even though I know everything that you can do (and what she cant), it is great to hear it from other people who happens to be experts in small children's development.

They evaluated her social skills, cognitive development, motor skills and vocabulary. Each part had several aspects that were evaluated. In general, Mia got "Meet Expectations" in mostly every aspect.

In the Socio-Emotional Development, here are the things were she "Meet expectations":

* Says her name when she is asked; when asked, identifies and says her gender; when she talks, she refers to herself by her name; says the names of her classmates; call the teachers by their names; play with other children; share with others when asked; express caring feelings with her teachers and classmates; shows awareness of somebody else's feelings; follows the classroom routine; seeks for help when she needs it; shows friendship towards other kids.

In the Cognitive Development, here are the things were she "Meet expectations":
* Answers simple questions; uses simple sentences to express herself; follow instructions; observe and reproduce simple patterns using objects; counts from one to five using objects; seek and found an object when she is looking for it; gribbles freely; gribbles inside of a giving figure; sort objects in different positions (up, down, in, out); names the action of an image; put puzzles together, recognize the different between “much” and “few”; identifies and names some parts of the body; identifies and names objects around the classroom.

In the Motor Skills Development, here are the things were she "Meet expectations":
* Builds towers with blocks; uses books going from one page to the other and going one by one; tears paper freely; shows her dominant size of the body (right on her case); prefers to use her (right on her case) hand; holds the crayons to color; stands on one feet for a few seconds; runs after a balls and kicks it; crawls easily; rolls her body with support; can climb (oh boy, dont we know about this?); alternate her feet to go up the stairs; moves her body to the music; responds to a simply rhythm using a musical instrument.

In the Vocabulary that they have worked on, here are the ones were she "Meet expectations":
* My School; myself; my community; city helpers.

In the Socio-Emotional Development, she only "Needs Improvement" in "Shows her age with her fingers". In the Cognitive Development, she "Needs Improvement" in Identifying and naming all the shapes for her level, and some colors. For some reason they were not specific. I plan to ask her next week. In the Motor Skills Development, she only "Needs Improvement" in "Uses playdoh to make balls".

There are some areas that were not evaluated this time, so we will see more of that in the Spring Evaluation. Here is the comment that the teacher wrote:
Camila, with her friendliness and kindness, has conquered us all. She shows a positive attitude in the accomplishment of the activities and interacting with her classmates. She express her emotions and feelings on a clear way, although sometimes she does not make use of the verbal language and cries, which is why we are trying to speak to her in a low tone of voice and motivating her to do the same.

She is doing a great job with potty training and has been “dry” most of the time: Good Job, Camila! She still needs more reinforcement in this area, and we are sure that we will be able to accomplish this with the help of the house. Shows very good motor skills development, showing it in “free traces”, “sorting out patterns”, in addition to “going up the stairs, walk, run and jump”. Her favorite activities are: story time, sing songs and put puzzles together.

Camila is a very special child and having her in my classroom enlightens up my days.