Development!

Can someone please tell me what that school did with my child??

He went in at 3 1/2 as a shy, observant little boy who liked to flit from thing to thing and who slurred his consonants and couldn't recognize many letters or count past 11. He was all energy and heat and no patience or stamina. He was sometimes afraid of large groups and nervous to do new things. He just "graduated" at 5 1/2 now from the 3rd year of his Montessori program and honestly, is surprising me every day with what he can do. I knew about the academic stuff- reading 3 letter words, doing addition tables and bringing them home telling me how "easy" they were. He cuts and pastes and draws and weaves and sews and builds, and speaks much more clearly too. But just the past 3 days since school ended on Friday there are so many other things to observe as the "school" Jake starts to emerge at home. Like playing intensely with playdough today for nearly 2 hours, and then cleaning up every drop (sorting everything by color first) and arranging it carefully to fit back in the bin-- a 20 minute clean-up task accomplished all by himself without complaint. Who is this kid??

On Sunday during our afternoon quiet time he found some bendaroos and made a beautiful multi-strand pendant necklace. I tell you- the colors and design were so good someone would have paid money for it if it hadn't been made from waxy string. And then he proceeded to tell me how many strands he wove together for different parts of the necklace and why, for weight reasons. Who is this kid?!?

On Saturday when presented with a pile of shorts and swim trunks in different sizes I'd bought him at Kmart, he devised a system during quiet time to try on each pair and then create a written"yes" or "no" label underneath each to let me know which to keep and which to return. I walked in his room at 3pm to find an angelic sleeping child with 2 perfectly folded rows of shorts with labelled papers underneath them, and all of the hangers organized by size label off to the side. Who is this kid?!?

Tonight after dinner he asked to help me with clean-up (a first!)and ended up spraying and wiping down not just the table, but carefully cleaning out abby's booster seat and wiping down all the chair seats and backs as well- and he did a fabulous job!!
I say-- who is this kid?!?

So I guess this is my first big lesson of school. He grows there and you don't see all the aspects of him that emerge until he decides to show them to you. I may not recognize every aspect of my nearly 6 year old, but I'm honored to see glimpses of the amazing self-possessed boy he's becoming. I love him so dearly and am so very hopeful that he'll grow as much and as well transplanted to the new soil of north carolina's public schools!!

And, hooray for montessori pre-school-- I hope it has a similar effect on Abby!