Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Preschool Graduation

This year has gone by so quickly I can't believe it's over and is now time to move on to Kindergarten. Zane has had a wonderful time in school.... loves Miss Amber and all the classroom aides and
other mom's that have helped out during the year.


His favorite part of school... just like his mom.... was P.E. - or in his case, adapted P.E. This is the area where he made the most progress and has learned to jump, walk on a balance beam, skip, crawl like a crab, spin in circles like an airplane, kick a ball and other fun activities.


His most notable mark of progress is his speech and Zane has started to mimic words and has learned to ask for the things he desires. At the beginning of the school year, Zane had only one word, "please." He still says please - after everything - and his teachers named him the most polite and well-mannered kid in the class! At the end of the school year, Zane can most of the time repeat words and sometimes phrases with some clarity. On his own, he still needs prompting and help to remember how to ask and what the names of things are, however, he is not a shy little boy when it comes to something he wants, although he is precociously polite. ;)


The video clips below are my first attempt to record on my camera and I wish I'd figured out the zoom feature. I think he was a little bit overwhelmed with so many people in the auditorium and the noise of all the kids. He does a few of the actions he knows the best, but eventually the noise gets to him. I think he would have done more if he weren't preoccupied with the fruit snacks that one of the aides brought for him into the gym. They've been working on these songs for months and the kids all did really great. I am especially proud of Zane - for keeping his hat on his head the whole time, paying close attention to Miss Amber, and for participating in the songs as best he could, despite the overwhelming nature this kind of meeting is for him. Throughout the year the school attends various assemblies, where Zane has thrown fits due to the noise. He can't take all the input. I think this meeting is quite noisy and Zane did really great to filter the noise as best he could. This was also meant to be much shorter in duration, but they had a problem with the sound at first, and perhaps if Zane hadn't had to sit still for so long, he may have made it through to the end a happy little boy.

Anyhow... here's the star of our show: