Second Year of Priority Preschool

Last Wednesday was my son's last day of school.  Yay!  He finished his second year of preschool and his second year was a great year for him overall.

I'm actually glad he made it to his last day of school because he was sick the week before and I was a little nervous that he would still be sick on his last day of school.  But he was there and able to say good-bye to his teacher until he sees her again (in 7 weeks - yikes!).  He was also able to say good-bye to one of the teacher aides who will not be there next year.  He also was able to say good-bye to his friends.  We do not know which of his friends, if any he will see again next year because next year for the first time he will be transitioning to the afternoon preschool class.

The class that my son has been in for the past 2 years is a class that is comprised mostly of new students because that was the class that the new 3 year olds joined.  The class next year will have more kids that are transitioning to kindergarten the following year (like my son).

My son was a different student this past year.  Being with the same teacher and same classroom made him a lot more comfortable because, he was more talkative and engaging - to both teachers and fellow classmates.  Last year, he was barely talked and although he participated in activities it was at the teacher's urging rather than of his own initiative.


In fact, during the last quarter, a new student (who is also diagnosed with down syndrome) joined the class and my son played sort of a big brother role by helping and basically showing the new student the ropes.  According to his teacher, my son kind of took the new student under his wing.  I thought this was so cute and it also made me very proud of him.

Another change this past year that we noticed was my son's ability to name all his fellow classmates.  In the previous year he only referenced a couple of students.  Well, he sort of did the same thing this year but when we saw other classmates walking to the classroom or leaving, he would call them by name.  I found this amazing since he did not do this last year.

I am truly impressed by how he has grown and changed over this past school year and am hopeful that he will continue to grow and improve.  This, I hope will lessen my anxiety about him transitioning to kindergarten.  It will be exciting to see what the next year will bring, but first, we are just happy to enjoy our summer vacation.