Landon's email from 10/3/14

Hello,

Here is a little bit of what Landon's day was like at BMW. He is coming happily into classroom every day! He gets his favorite book for starts. We are doing "first wash hands, then book".  Then he is so ready to play! When reading, we are working on turning the pages instead of banging the book. He rolled some chalk across black paper, and w/ some hand-over-hand he did make a few lines on the paper. He used the all-done thing b/c wasn't too interested in the chalk. We played connect four by inserting the pieces, and when he was all done, he cleaned up the pieces. He enjoyed taking turns with this game.

Landon had a short but happy time of painting today! With hand-over help, we sang a song while moving a sponge brush over the paper. There was bright colored paint out and it was fun to see the colors appear w/ every beat we sang. Since Landon likes to bang his hand on the table, we tried banging our hands on the painted paper, and he was not upset to get paint on his hands. He washed up and moved on to another activity.

The yellow room has had a puppet theater set up for last few days. Today, Landon became very engaged in puppet play with Elise. He liked being the audience, and while Elise was singing Old McDonald w/ puppets, she gave Landon choices for which animal next. He also came behind the scenes at one point to pat her on the head for a thankyou. He clapped after every animal.

Yesterday Landon started playing a game in the gross motor room, where he went behind me and came around as if to surprise me. I gave him big reaction, and he was thrilled. He kept this up for long time, and it was so funny for all of us! He really laughed very hard. Today, he continued this game on the playground, but with a peer! Andrew was swinging and Landon would sneak up on him from behind. They were both engaged in this, until Julie came, and she got to see it for a moment from the gate.

Yesterday we also followed up on our field trip by making applesauce in the classroom. Landon helped wash some apples by moving them from bowl to bowl. We again did big/small apples for him to choose from.

Today Elise and I had a few kids in the Big Room, and we put out a large bean bag for jumping on. Landon enjoyed jumping into this very much. He was able to jump off a short height with two of us holding his hands. Again, great turn taking w/ peers. For snack there were canned pears out with forks to use, but Landon didn't want to try. I think maybe he didn't want to eat the pears. He did eat goldfish and drink lots of juice. He loves to pour and will ask to pour more before his cup is empty. We are working on having him ask for more when he wants, instead of making noise and closing eyes.

If the class snack is same or similar to what you've sent, we've been having Landon eat the class snack. He's been eating well and is doing great job now telling when he's all done! Today he pointed to the trash can, telling me he was all ready to clean up!

Tanya

How nice the aide sent this to me at 7pm at night on her own time and Landon must be loved already!