Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Mateo's Green Thumb

Today I went to a Parent-Teacher conference at the Liceo.  Mateo has been having "issues" with expressing his emotions and often hurts others because he can't control the intensity of those emotions.  We've been working with him on communicating verbally instead of physically, although it's not always easy, especially with Santiago.  His teachers have observed that he has a hard time making transitions - they feel that the change to Colombia, coupled with Santiago's arrival and entering school, has affected him more than we thought.  

Otherwise, he is thriving!  His motor skills are still a bit weak but his language skills are way up there!!!  In comparison to his classmates, he has a strong command of both languages.  At home I'm speaking to him in English and while he understands mostly everything, he prefers to answer in Spanish (although when he reads "Mercy Watson", his FAVORITE BOOK OF ALL TIMES, it's always in English!!).

I was very pleased to see some of the work he's been doing at school:  paintings, mostly. Another project the class worked on was of planting seeds and observing what plants need in order to grow and thrive.  Mati seems to have taken after his grandmothers' green thumbs because he planted a bean and his plant is the tallest one of the class!!!  When I congratulated him at home, he said that his is the tallest because he waters it a lot.

I also met the class pets: two snails - Margot and Pierrot.  These two have been busy at night for they have tons of baby snails!!!  The kids take turns getting them their food (leaves), moisturizing their house with a water atomizer, and cleaning their "house".

Overall, it was nice to see that they do more than just play because when I ask Mati, EVERYDAY, what he did, all he answers is that he played with Juan Lucas, Jero, Jaco and Pablo - his clan.


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