January, February, March….

On September 4, 2012 - Uncategorized

Grace is definitely learning things at school, and one of them is the month’s of the year. They sing the calendar song, and today it got stuck in her head. She was running around this afternoon singing, “January, February, March, April, Marry, June, July…” (yes, “Marry” not May, no matter how many times Donné corrects her….who knows). Over and over and over she sung, happily enjoying the song going around in her head.

Grace took this photo of me this morning

Zooting back after feeding the worms some chillies

Chilli juice…it will put the zing back into your life

Screaming

On September 3, 2012 - Uncategorized

Grace has been screaming quite a bit lately. Part (probably most) of it is definitely playing with sounds (not that it is more palatable that way, but at least she is learning), and part of it is frustration when we don't immediately understand what she is trying to communicate to us, and part of it is just plain tantrum.

So Donné decides, "Let's put some boundaries in place for this. Grace, if you want to scream you can go scream outside." Grace does an immediate about turn, runs down the passage, opens her door, runs into the garden…..SCREAM.

Going outside may never be the same….we might need to be a bit more specific with those boundaries.

Having a chat with Emma

On September 2, 2012 - Uncategorized

This was Grace's first chat with the first friend she made at school (photo courtesy of her teacher)

Birthday!

On September 1, 2012 - Uncategorized

The first words out of Grace's mouth this morning were, "It's weekend! Go to Diya's birthday party! Go to Isabelle's birthday party!" Yes, two birthday parties today….

Happy birthday Diya!

She was loving the balloon pit

Grace spent quite a lot of time in the music room playing drums, piano and guitar. Her drum playing was quite impressive, but she was not compliant enough to let us take a video

Maria Montessori Day

On August 31, 2012 - Uncategorized

Today is the anniversary of Maria Montessori’s birthday (check out Google’s Montessori logo), so the school celebrated with an international day and Grace went as Italy (there are more photos on the school’s Facebook page).

She took along some mini pizzas as her taste of Italy.

Independent!

On August 30, 2012 - Uncategorized

Shock and awe peeps, shock and awe. I was in shock and awe this morning when I dropped Grace off at school. We came in, the teachers said hello (Grace hardly gave them the time of day), put her bag into her locker, put on her slippers (no moaning at all so far), told Emma she had lost the crown (which I recovered later), big hug goodbye, then she went through to the main room and did not go to Janine. She cruised over to the table, collected some paint or glue and started her day. No input, no clinging, just happy and independent.

A swimming lessons & some stories

On August 29, 2012 - Uncategorized

Grace’s awesomeness is starting to come in. Today she was singing Amazing Grace in the car, “Amazing Grace, Amazing Grace, Amazing Me.” Daddy’s girl.

The friendship continues to develop: Grace left school with a paper crown which Emma made for her….which I then forgot at swimming….and was in trouble for….fail.

This is a fairly long (10 minutes) and possibly boring video, with no catchy background music, of today’s swimming lesson (at Aquatoads Swim School)

A detailed run-down

On August 28, 2012 - Uncategorized

Grace gave me an extremely detailed run down of her school day today, which is unusual because it is normally quite difficult to get much info out of her. She first glued and “Wiwwow” joined her (Willow is a difficult name if you can’t pronounce L’s). They were gluing cotton wool to paper. Then onto practical life for some pouring, measuring and bubble making. After that Kim sat with her while she ate her snack. This was followed by “floor mat work” and today she did the red rods (the third picture). And then what did you do Grace? “Not group time, not home time, not time for anything.” She sung a song in group time and they read a book about four piggies that took a drive in a car.

There was more encouraging play today. When Donné arrived Grace was playing with Emma and Caitlyn – pottering about, playing and chatting.

In the feedback session yesterday there was something which I found really interesting. They specifically give the children real glasses to work with in the practical life area. The thinking is that a glass has a higher value attached to it (versus a plastic cup) and that if they are dropped there is a greater sense of the consequence of how it got dropped. It sounds like after two glasses the children figure out how to hold the tray or glass properly. It actually makes a lot of sense, but is counter-intuitive (for me at least).

Monkey gets a name!

On August 27, 2012 - Uncategorized

Monkey has never had a proper name, he has always just been Monkey, but the way Grace says, "monkey" it often sounds like "Mikey" (or "maatjie" for the Afrikaans speakers, which I've always thought was appropriate). So I was swinging her today and Monkey happened to be around, so I said, "What's monkey's name?" to which she answered, "Monkey" (or "Mikey", I'm never really sure). So I started to joke around around and say, "What's his name? Monkey?" and she would answer, "Monkey" and I would ask, "Mikey?" to which she would answer, "Monkey" (or was that Mikey?) and the game would start again.

Round and round we went, backwards and forwards playing with the word, and then, "Michael" and a huge smile. And it stuck. So Mikey/Maatjie the Monkey is now Michael the Monkey.

We had our first feedback session with the principal at school today and it seems like things are going pretty well. Grace is engaging and participating, the only thing she is not really doing is interacting with the other children, although today she did engage with another little girl, Emma, and had a conversation with her (there are photo's to prove it!). She is very excited about group time, and we both loved the story from today: when it was time to pack up before group Grace starts shouting, "Pack away everyone! Pack away everyone!" Get a move on peeps, it's time for some group fun.

While we sat and chatted with Janine, Grace was having loads of fun pottering around the class. She was painting, pushing the gate button when parents arrived to fetch their children, playing with the number outlines, and just having fun. It was lovely to see her so relaxed and enjoying the space. We are really, really happy with the school and how Grace is handled by everyone there.

drennan a day

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