Parent-Teacher Conferences (Lauren’s Experience!)

We recently attended our Parent-Teacher conference meeting with our Infant A teachers. It is incredible that just one year ago, we were meeting to discuss our four-month-old son. Who was just barely able to roll over. Now, we were learning all about Beau’s love of books, buggy rides, and how he is always first in line to head to the gym!

These meetings are also a wonderful opportunity to see how Beau connects with his different teachers. They begin the conference by sharing Beau’s progression, from how he interacts with other students to how he interacts with the teachers. Beau’s teachers shared how much he loves books and hearing about what is happening on each page. They also shared with us his favorite toy, a mystery box filled with different shapes and surprises.

We have worked to create a similar toy at home and make sure we take time to look over pictures and drawings on each page as we read books at home together. It is a helpful way to ensure we are encouraging his learning and growth at home in a similar way. They also share with us details about his eating and drinking habits. Learning what foods are his favorites (black beans!) and how we can encourage him to try new and different foods at home.

This conference also prepared Beau for his transition from the Infant to the Toddler Room. It seemed like we were just learning to do tummy time, and now Beau was ready to move to the ‘big kid’ room! One of the most significant areas of focus for us in preparing Beau for his transition was to help encourage the use of more words.

He often babbles at home, but it would be essential for him to start using more words each day at Casa. We put a strong emphasis on using more Spanish words at home and working with him to repeat them. We slowly started to hear him say the words “màs” and “nana” (banana) and even more “mama” and “dada.” The American Sign Language (ASL) words have been such an immense help in allowing Beau to communicate what he wants or needs while getting more comfortable using actual words to express himself.

Beau’s teachers also end his conference by learning what areas of development we would like to have them focus on with him in the coming months. I am always so thankful that his teachers are open to helping Beau develop in areas that are important to us as well. For example, the continued use of sign language was one area of focus that we had during a previous parent/teacher conference. Seeing how he has learned and developed in his use of ASL has shown how they focus on the areas important to parents. They also share with us projects that he has made during the year, which is the best surprise!

We appreciate the time and focus the teachers at Casa put into the parent/teacher conference experience. We have seen Beau grow and develop so much over the last 14 months, and we cannot wait to see him reach more milestones in the Toddler Room!