Ian's first parent/teacher conference and more

This past Friday Mark and I attended our first of many parent/teacher conferences for Ian. Going into the meeting I couldn't help but wonder if the Ian we know at home was the same Ian the teachers experience at school. So I was curious as to the feedback we were going to hear.

The teacher showed us his "self portrait" as he drew it. Here it is. She was impressed that he drew arms as most kids his age only draw legs on the body. I was pleased to see him portray himself as happy and smiling. We were then shown his page where he attempted to cut the paper along a straight line and he did really well, staying quite close to the line. On the opposite side of the page he was shown a sequence of X - O - X  and asked to fill in the next few blanks as to what letter would follow the sequence. He filled in X - O - X and the teacher commented that he was "close". I noted that he actually started the entire pattern over and she chuckled that maybe he's "advanced" in his thinking. Too cute. Then she let us know that he can successfully count to 14 and he can count backwards from 10 to 1.

Overall they gave him a good review and said he is quite social, has lots of friends (and girlfriends) and his vocabulary and communication skills are at the top of his class. The teacher joked that she loves talking to Ian because he can "have a real conversation" and that he actually prefers to talk to the teachers often because he appreciates "adult conversation". Again, we chuckle because we know he only stops talking if he's eating (and even then he still tries to talk or make noise of some kind) or if he's sleeping. Thanks to his Grandpas, he has the gift of gab!
Ian has discovered rhyming words and often speaks in rhymes or we play a game called "What Rhymes With...(fill in the blank)" and he and I try and say as many words as we can think of - most of which are made-up, of course.

His other interesting game is "What Is Bigger?" where he'll ask a question like, "What is bigger - God or a dinosaur?" or "What is bigger - a house or a bulldozer?"

Mark gets him a stack of books from the library every other week or so and we read three each night at bedtime. Ian's new favorite author is Bill Peet. We have read "Wump World" daily since Mark brought it home. The author is quite creative, great at story-telling, and the illustrations are pretty cute, too.

We've also, unfortunately, entered the potty talk portion of his preschool years. I realize with boys the potty talk is inevitable and thankfully it's really rather innocent at this age. The words he dares to say are "poop, pee, bottom, bummy...". Even though we've talked about the idea that there is a time and a place for such talk, I only wish his world would remain this innocent. He doesn't even use the word "butt" yet. If daring to say the word poop is as rebellious as it gets around here for a while, I'm thrilled.

Ian loves using big words and he always asks what words mean if he hears them in conversation or on television. So he's adopted several "big words" here lately and it sort of cracks us up to hear a 4-1/2 year old speak like an adult sometimes.

His new favorite words/phrases:

"speaking of..."
stupendous
appropriate (if I tell him that we can't watch a certain show or movie he will say, "because it's not appropriate for me and anna?")
hughnormous (a combination of huge and enormous - I swear he thinks this is a real word)

Ian's writing skills have really blossomed since the holidays. He can correctly write his own name and first initial of his last name, Anna's name, Mom, and Dad without help in spelling or how to write the letters. He will often ask how to spell something he wants to write or how to write a particular letter and once I explain it, he does it. He catches on so quickly. We're so proud of how his little mind is expanding day by day and how excited he is to learn!