Tommy!

We had Tommy's parent-teacher conference this morning and so strap in for another one of those posts that focuses on his wonderful qualities.

First, I should explain that both Eli and I really like his teacher, Miss Jo.  She's from New Zealand and told us today that she's getting married over Christmas.  She has a nice manner about her and a positive approach to teaching and managing the classroom.

Anyway, she said a bunch of very, very nice things about Tommy.  She also said that when she asks questions to the class, he very often calls out the answer before anyone else has a chance.  Miss Jo believes that most other children in the class now think that he will answer so they don't bother.  She asked Eli and me to tell Tommy that, when they're sitting on the blue carpet, he needs to put his hand up before he answers Miss Jo's questions.  Also, his handwriting is seriously bad (my words, not hers) and she thinks it might start to affect his reading progress.  So we're tasked with working on that.  Lucky readers, she suggested sending postcards to friends and family, so watch your mailboxes for postcards from Tommy!

She gave us his file to review this weekend and here are some of the things in it:

"Today during lunch playtime, Tommy noticed a child playing alone.  He decided to share his toys with him.  When a teacher approached, Tommy said, 'I saw him playing all alone so I wanted to share my things with him.' "

"Upon arrival every morning this week, Tommy has chosen to create a 'newspaper.' Each day the concept is the same.  He selects a large sheet of paper and a box of coloured pencils then finds an empty table to work from.  Tommy then draws a series of coloured groups on the paper.  Today a teacher asked what he was doing.  'I'm making a newspaper.'  The teacher asked if he could read her a story.  He responded, 'No, its only children's stories that I write.  I don't do adult stories.' "

"Tommy is very eager to learn how to read and write words.  This week I introduced to Tommy the word 'the.' I explained to Tommy, 'the' is a tricky word which I call a camera word meaning its like when you look at a photo you know what the picture is.  I suggested to Tommy to take a photo of the word 'the' and to store the photo in his brain.  Today when Tommy was playing with the magnetic letters Tommy said, 'I know a word to make!  How about I make 'the'? You know the camera word.  I've got a photo of it up here (pointing to his head).  Do you remember when you talked about camera words, Miss Jo?' Then Tommy found the letters and proudly showed me his board."

There are more, but I will not subject you to them.  Happy weekend!!