Next we moved to the tables for some marker work. Lucas put on his apron and starting making requests for Jeff to draw things on the paper...

Then he took the marker from Jeff so that he could color in the oval. He was very serious about this task...

We wrapped up the evening by saying good-bye to Orange, the class fish.

A few days later we got to meet with Lucas's teachers without Lucas being in the room. It was a really productive meeting. They told us that Lucas has come a long way in a short amount of time. When he first started he wouldn't do any works outside of his comfort zone... just blocks, puzzles, and familiar things like that. Now, however, he is eager to stretch himself and do works that are really more suited for an older child. This gives his teachers the opportunity to work with him 1 on 1 and teach him how to do the work. For example, one of the things he showed us during our parent/child night was an exercise where his teacher and him take flashcards with the months on them and lay them out as they say each month... I had no clue that Lucas knew his months!

In addition to telling us how well Lucas is doing in school, how comfortable he feels there and how well he's adjusted, they helped us with some things that we can work on at home:

1) Personal Space - Lately Lucas has been performing football moves on his friends. It's never in a mean way, but more like he wants them to chase him or wrestle with him. He kind of runs into them with his upper body. We are afraid that we may be partly to blame because when he does this to us we tackle him and roll on the floor laughing... but some of his friends don't like to play like this and some of them are too small to even understand. They suggested that we are consistent and try to always redirect this aggressive behaviour.

2) Manners - they asked us if he used his manners at home and we told them that he always says "please" , says "thank you" about half of the time, "bless you" most of the time, and most of the time he takes his plate and glass to the sink after a meal. They told us that he uses his manners ALL the time at school and even says, "May I be excused please?" when he finished with a meal. So now we know to expect these things at home.

3) Potty Training - they told us that the first step of potty training is for the child to be able to pull their own pants up an down. They say that he does this all the time at school, but we admitted that we never give him the chance to do that at home. So we know to practice that now. We started when we got home and now he's happy to do it.

4) Picking out Clothes - We admitted that we don't make the time for this either. We did this about a year ago and he didn't seem to care what shirt he wore, so now we just pick out his clothes for him because it's easier. Mrs. Xenia suggested that we pick out his clothes at night since the mornings are so busy. We've done that every night and Lucas now looks forward to it. The only thing is that he doesn't choose the cute collared shirts and khaki shorts that mama likes, but instead he chooses the loud Elmo and Nemo shirts that I had sectioned off in the "play clothes" section : ) Oh well, freedom of expression I guess!