First parent day

Kindergarten was closed on Wednesday for Parents Day. Z had finally succombed to the tonsillitis that all the rest of us had had, so he got to stay home with the girls while I went to work and then, after leaving work early, to our appointment with their preschool/kindergarten teachers.

All in all it was a very positive meeting, they are very pleased with how the girls were intergrating in the group. Apparently our girls are very popular with the older girls (the curosity factor because they are twins? or because they are smaller?) who sometimes have to be reminded that Ciara and Enya are not babies and must learn to do things for themselves.

They are mostly speaking german at Kindergarten although they play "repeat in english, repeat in german" with their teachers too now (the teachers are enjoying the challenge of brushing up on their english!). They have definitely realisied that there are two different languages and not everybody understands both. Ciara in particular delights in confounding one of the teachers (Susannah) with new english words that Susannah doesn't know. If Enya notices the teacher doesn't understand an english word/phrase, she will try to find the german translation. Both girls are apparently quick to absorb new words and try to use them as soon as they are learnt.

Surprisingly the teachers feel Enya is further than Ciara developmentally. They feel she has generally better coordination and her fine motor control in particular is better (she uses a tripod grip when drawing and is going to be a lefty like her mom). She is also able to concentrate during activities longer than Ciara can and will seek out her own activities (in paritcular enjoys investigating how things work-this is a long standing interest). Z and I find this very interesting as at home we feel the opposite is true regarding concentration and coordination. We feel Ciara is more coordinated but is also a bit more cautious and therefore slower, where Enya moves so quickly so that the fine control of the movements is not necessary and is also almost reckless- she trusts herself to do EVERYTHING! Ciara is going to be a righty like her dad and she has a peculiar way of holding a pencil, uses all her fingers with the pencil threading up between her ring and middle finger.

Ciara is more social, going and joining the other kindergarten groups and joining in to play with the older kids without waiting for an invitation (they were a bit surprisied at how self confident she is socially). Enya tends to stay in her kindergarten group and is happy finding her own activities, she tends to wait for an invitation before she joins in playing with the other kids. C and E don't tend to play with each other although they do check to see where the other is periodically during the day. We have not as yet had to send one without the other yet and it will be interesting to see how they react when it does finally become necessary.

The best part of the meeting though was when I mentioned that it had been suggested that Enya would be better off with an intergration helper in kindergarten, I was told that Ciara and Enya were doing better than some of the older boys and were more than appropriate for their age. The teachers do not feel it is at all necessary for either girl to have any special assistance!