We had my son's parent teacher conference today. In the past, for a long time, it's been a lot of conversation about how things weren't going all that well. There were good parts and my son was learning, but there were challenges as well. For a few years we battled what was his intentativeness and hyperactivity and how it was impacting his ability to learn as well as causing him to be disruptive to the class.
He would, "spin around" which is a phrase I could understand, but I didn't really have a good grasp of what they meant. I know what they mean now though. Because my son only takes a short acting Adderall pill for the hours he's at school that wears off by the end of the day when they're outside, we have an opportunity to see what they meant when he does things that require focus at home.
He's been practicing his Mystery History presentation for the past four days. He simply cannot do it and stay still. He bounds around the room, over the bed, bounces on the purple yoga ball, leaps over the chair and doesn't ever stay still. When he's holding the sheets with his presentation printed on them his arms stay relatively still, but the rest of his body continues to move.
He doesn't maintain a normal speaking pace or pitch. Sometimes he reads as fast as he can, he uses different voices to read and he's even broken into song, singing the words on the page. I've let it go because he's actually doing the work. He's memorizing the presentation and he's doing so quickly. It's not short, what he's delivering from memory to his entire class and parents in a week. I challenged him to read through it as fast as he could this morning to see how long it would take him.
At top reading speed with very little breaks, he made it through the three pages in five-and-a-half minutes. At a normal speaking pace with the remaining section of his speech still to be written, he's going to take about eight minutes to recite it, all from memory. I don't remember ever having to memorize something that long. He seems to be doing it with ease, deviating from the exact wording from time to time but getting the essence of each sentence correctly.
I'm not worried about his body movements because I know with the Adderall he'll be able to do the presentation calmly and easily in front of his peers and parents. He needs an outfit so he's dressed the part. We found a three-piece brown suit and matching brown bow tie on Amazon and plan on putting white in his hair to make him look like a distinguished gentleman. Hopefully he will remember everything when he presents on the 31st. If not, he remembers easily where he is with a few words of promoting, which his teacher will be doing with all the children.
After talking about my son's upcoming presentation with his teachers, we talked about his academic progression. He is "graduating" this year after being his his three-year Lower Elementary Montessori class. Most students spend three years at this level but some stay for a fourth if they're not ready to move into Upper Elementary yet. We were worried two years ago and even last year that he wouldn't be ready after three years. His teacher said today he was most definitely moving up next year. He's already excited and talking about it to his friends.
The Big Boy Update: My son is so thrilled to have his sister's old watch. He is less thrilled about wearing it and left it at Nana and Papa's yesterday. We'll see if he wants to really wear it because if he's not willing to make a commitment to keeping it on and takes it off all the time he's not going to be allowed to use it. So far, he's more interested in having it and wearing it. He just needs to get accustomed to having something on his wrist.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: Today was my daughter's first day back to school after being tracked out for over three weeks. She is in the street right now with her friends on a big wheel trycycle that spins around that Nana and Papa have borrowed from their neighbor. She is laughing and having a great time. She also had a chance to see Dhruti this afternoon, which always helps. I'm hopeful getting back on her school schedule and seeing Dhruti coupled with her, "happy pill" will help her feel better overall. Today, so far, it looks like she's having a very good day.
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