The State of Elise

Apparently November is a big time for parent-teacher conferences, because not only did we have our conference with Luke's teachers this month, we also had two conferences with Elise's teachers (one at the enrichment program and one at the kindergarten). Similar to Luke's conference, there was not a lot that we heard that was surprising. Elise is a sweet girl and a smart kid. She is progressing nicely with her academics and navigating the social intricacies of kindergarten pretty well. All of her teachers commented on how kind and helpful she is. She was pretty shy when she first started school - both with her teachers and her peers - but they both commented that she's really getting comfortable and coming out of her shell now.

She has taken a particular interest in art-related activities this year which has been a little surprising but great. In the past, she has typically been much more drawn to physical activities. She still loves to do things which require her to be running around (and has said that gym class is her favorite thing about school) she also has really started to enjoy drawing and crafts. Every day in the enrichment program she and her friends make books - it used to be that they just drew pictures but now they are also starting to write out some of the story! She also comes home with some other very creative project - a model, picture, etc every day. We need to host another art show!

Elise has been adjusting to her new schools and new friendships pretty well considering all of the change she's experienced the last few months, but she definitely really misses her friends from our old neighborhood. There are a few girls in her class that are a little bit fickle with their friendships (they declare Elise their best friend one day and say they don't want to be her friend at all the next) and she finds this extremely confusing considering that her friendships with best buddies Audrey and Sara Jane were always very clear, straightforward and awesome. She is working through it and I am sure it will work itself out soon.

She is making good progress with reading and writing - she has tons and tons of sight words now and she is getting really good at sounding words out too. You don't realize how incredibly complicated English is until you're trying to teach someone to read it! They do lots of writing in her kindergarten class and while she was resistant to writing in lower case when she first started in September (she has always liked all caps way better) her writing has really improved.

The most important thing is that she loves school - and we love the school too. Obviously the reason that we moved to the Burbs in the first place was because this was such a good school system and we have not been at all disappointed. Phew!