Can you believe she's 5??

I found this cute picture of Ella from over the summer. Doesn't she look like a little Nature Girl?

I went to my first parent/teacher conference last night. Aron stayed home with the kids while I went by myself. I must say I was a little nervous about what to expect. I tried to get a picture of Mrs. Lori the pre-school teacher but Aron didn't think it was the best idea (he actually used words like "creepy" and "weird" to describe my wanting to get a pic of her for the blog. To me it's not any different than another Mom wanting to get a picture for a scrapbook or something, right?).

It went pretty well. I expected her to say that Ella was on course academically but was behind socially and is shy.

BOY WAS I WRONG!

Well, I wasn't wrong about the being on course academically but Mrs. Lori set me straight about the shy part. She said that she's relatively quiet in the big group when we drop her off in the morning. She'll play with a few other kids (the usual suspects are Elizabeth and Maci). Once Ella's class is separated and taken into their classroom, Ella is very social and outgoing with the other kids. She is especially outgoing and social with her best buddy who is a boy whom I'll call Jordan Catalano** (I know Tori will understand this reference). Mrs. Lori says that the two of them just sit there and laugh at their own little inside jokes and they both think the other one is hilarious. She says that she's learned that she can't sit them directly beside one another during the academic times of class but other than that they have a great time together. Ella's mentioned him quite a few times at home but be careful asking her about him because she gets kind of embarrassed about it. I think she's got a little crush on Jordan Catalano.

Academically, she's doing great. She finishes her work quickly and accurately. Mrs. Lori tries to have "advanced papers" ready for her to do once she finishes because the other kids are still working. (Jordan Catalano also needs these advanced papers). Mrs. Lori tested all the kids before the conferences and Ella didn't know or couldn't do just a small amount of things. These were things like identifying a pentagon (She might just have a problem with name recall of a pentagon, though, because later on in the test when she was asked to draw a pentagon with no prompts of what it looked like she was able to draw one with no problem) and skipping. Ella was described as very artistic (I could've told you that. She's amazing when she draws) and has advanced scissor skills (I, too, was advanced in scissoring at her age. I could cut like no one's business. Ask me to glue something, though, and it was all over. Extra glue was sloshing around, getting all over stuff). She was the only one in her class able to cut a complicated set of lines on a paper Mrs. Lori showed me. Mrs. Lori is impressed with her ability to remember things when shown only one time. Ella is also asked to help show the kids sign language (learned courtesy of Monday school) to the other kids in class.

My little baby's all grown up!

**As always, names are changed