Qualche aggiornamento qua e la': Rajiv iniziera' la prima elementare a ottobre, abbiamo rimandato i buchi per gli orecchini a quando Lila avra' sei mesi, e abbiamo finalmente trovato un insegnate di violoncello per Rajiv
In recent developments:
In recent developments:
School
Rajiv's test was "successful" and he is going to join the big kids' class after the Fall Break, in October. I still don't know much of what went on during the test, but apparently everything was more or less as expected and the only area of concern is fine motor skills: writing, drawing, cutting with scissors and so on. We know this and we don't really practice with him as much as we would like, but it might be that in fact that is a good thing, because I think Rajiv would just get unnecessarily frustrated.
Apparently he was asked to cut around the picture of a fish and instead of following the outline of the fish he just cut a big square of paper - containing the fish. I think this is funny and it reminds me of when as a baby, confronted with a shape sorter, he simply took the lid off, dumped all the shaped blocks in the bucket and then replaced the lid - which is of course the best solution to that problem, if not the expected one.
Still, as I said, I love that they take the time to assess this kind of abilities before putting a child in a stressful situation where too much might be expected of him. Chalenging yourself - or being challenged by others - is good of course, but you need to build a certain degree of confidence first and you can only build it by being asked to do things that are possible for you to do.
Earrings
The (medically trained) family friend who was consulted about our piercing doubts said that unless there are specific religious requirements (there aren't) he usually recommends waiting until after the six months mark. Supposedly this reduces the chances that as the girl grows the hole might end up visibly off center. Fine, so we will reconsider in a few months.
Cello
We found a teacher for Appu! Not Suzuki trained, but that was really too much to hope for. It took one year just to find *one* cello teacher, in the whole city, willing to teach a five year old. He doesn't seem to speak English very well and I hope that is not going to be a problem in his interactions with Appu. I wish I could accompany him for the first few classes to see how it goes, but that is not allowed. How am I supposed to help him practice if I don't know what approach the teacher is taking, what words he uses, what is the typical flow of a lesson..? I already miss Genevieve and the Suzuki group back in Waterloo. Sigh..
Rajiv's test was "successful" and he is going to join the big kids' class after the Fall Break, in October. I still don't know much of what went on during the test, but apparently everything was more or less as expected and the only area of concern is fine motor skills: writing, drawing, cutting with scissors and so on. We know this and we don't really practice with him as much as we would like, but it might be that in fact that is a good thing, because I think Rajiv would just get unnecessarily frustrated.
Apparently he was asked to cut around the picture of a fish and instead of following the outline of the fish he just cut a big square of paper - containing the fish. I think this is funny and it reminds me of when as a baby, confronted with a shape sorter, he simply took the lid off, dumped all the shaped blocks in the bucket and then replaced the lid - which is of course the best solution to that problem, if not the expected one.
Still, as I said, I love that they take the time to assess this kind of abilities before putting a child in a stressful situation where too much might be expected of him. Chalenging yourself - or being challenged by others - is good of course, but you need to build a certain degree of confidence first and you can only build it by being asked to do things that are possible for you to do.
- - -
Earrings
The (medically trained) family friend who was consulted about our piercing doubts said that unless there are specific religious requirements (there aren't) he usually recommends waiting until after the six months mark. Supposedly this reduces the chances that as the girl grows the hole might end up visibly off center. Fine, so we will reconsider in a few months.
- - -
Cello
We found a teacher for Appu! Not Suzuki trained, but that was really too much to hope for. It took one year just to find *one* cello teacher, in the whole city, willing to teach a five year old. He doesn't seem to speak English very well and I hope that is not going to be a problem in his interactions with Appu. I wish I could accompany him for the first few classes to see how it goes, but that is not allowed. How am I supposed to help him practice if I don't know what approach the teacher is taking, what words he uses, what is the typical flow of a lesson..? I already miss Genevieve and the Suzuki group back in Waterloo. Sigh..
No comments:
Post a Comment