My bundle of love

Today I returned to work for the learning conferences. It was so good getting out of the house even though the crutches really hurt my hands but the parents didn't seem to mind the fact that I sat with my leg up with an ice pack on my foot!

We also attended our own children's conferences and for the first time (and I'm sure it won't be the last) I actually shed a few tears. We've known for some time that Olivia is very verbal and enjoys experimenting with language but her French teacher described Olivia as "off the charts." The teacher has been teaching at the school for over 20 years and explained that it is very rare to meet a child who is completely anglophone who has picked up another language so easily (despite being in an English speaking school). Olivia is now in a class with francophones and although she can't read books in French to the same level as the others her written work and her comprehension is the best in the class. The teacher showed us some work where Olivia was the only student to answer all the questions correctly. The teacher sets each child a different reading and writing task so that they can't copy and then she rotates the work so that they all to it. She fully expects Olivia to be reading books to the same level as the others by Christmas. She also knows Olivia very well and says she loves learning and her enthusiasm and energy are infectious. She kept telling us to "watch out" as she believes that if we stay here Olivia will be bilingual within 3-4 years and will be able to study other subjects in French. I find this incredible and can't believe I'll have my own French teacher at home! Well at least I hope I will as she often refuses to speak any French to us or to others when we're out and about which can be a little frustrating.
Her main teacher also told us that Olivia is now set other work to do in class as she has surpassed the end of grade 2 targets in literacy. Olivia does continue to distract other students and is often moved to another table on her own to complete her work ( she gets that from her Dad!).

We also met with Dexter's teacher and we were pretty impressed with how well she knows him already. It seems he's a very sociable little soul and likes to make his friends laugh. He's also very sensitive and gentle and not one of the rough and tumble type boys and doesn't quite understand when his friends don't want to play the same thing as him all the time. She also said that he's always very quick to put his hand up to answer a question and that they are working on a new method to encourage the other children to answer questions. He takes the 'big 4' very seriously as they have been doing lots of work on this and he often tells us about this at home. The big 4 are: Is it kind? Is it fair? Is it respectful? Is it safe?

All in all a very successful day and two very proud parents.