Now I really feel like an at-home mom

I took a big slug of Robotussin so I wouldn't cough all over the kids, and headed in for my first time as a parent aide in projectmothra's classroom this morning. I recognized most of the kids, which is good because they all wanted to know if I knew who they were. They wanted to know how I made my candy corn necklace. They were really a sweet bunch of kids, and mostly wanted my attention, which I haven't had since I used to teach Sunday school a long time ago.

I put away the books that she's been sending home with the kids twice a week for reading practice, and realized that my son is the only one reading with any skill in the class, that the rest of them are prereaders or extremely early readers, not really a mix. That was kind of interesting. The teacher told me he's obviously good at reading, but needs practice reporting about what he's read. So we'll work on that. I ran into the speech teacher who said they aren't really working on diction anymore, just on looking at people when they talk and figuring out when it is your turn to talk.

Nevertheless, Rhys seemed to be pretty engaged in the classroom. He put on his glasses to read without anyone asking him to. He likes to draw quickly, and tiny, compared to the other kids. I think really he doesn't like to draw very much.

I'll be going in once every other week or so, for the rest of the year or until my schedule changes. I really enjoyed the connection, and I'm feeling more confident that things are going okay in the classroom, even if I'm pretty sure he's not learning anything academically at all. But learning to listen and take directions is a pretty basic school skill, and I think he's working on that, so I guess that's good.

I need a new mommy icon.