In one of those “oh my god we’re somebody’s parents” moments, M and I went to our first parent-teacher conferences last week.  I hope I always look forward to and enjoy them this much.

Of course, we did not have any particular concerns about how Daniel and Rebecca were doing in school.  They get out of the car every day with huge grins on their faces, and all of the teachers seem genuinely happy to see them.  There were no surprises at the conferences, but it was still both fun and gratifying to have some of our own observations and suspicions confirmed.

Rebecca’s conference was first, and her teachers immediately beamed and pronounced her “the perfect Montessori student.” She should practically be on a brochure or something. She’s constantly busy, very independent and self-directed. She’s friendly with the other kids and teachers, but works very well on her own. The teachers were surprised to hear that we hadn’t taught her any letter sounds/phonics before starting school, so quickly has she picked them all up.

It was especially fun to hear the things I wouldn’t necessarily know – which number-related works are her favorites (if it doesn’t result in a paper that comes home in her bag, I wouldn’t know about it), and the fact that she and Daniel seek each other out on the playground and give each other a big hug most days. She likes to raise her hand to talk at circle time, but seems to like being called on just for its own sake – it then takes her a while to decide what, exactly, to say, and often ends with something like “look, I have flowers on my dress!”  When we asked if there was anything we should work on with her, the teachers just smiled and shrugged. She’s doing exactly what she should be doing and is a delight to have in class.

Then we went off to Daniel’s classroom. While the teachers acknowledged his Daniel-ness, his tendency to be a little flaky and distractable, they also said that he amazes them with how much he really is paying attention. He seems to be looking everywhere but at the person who’s speaking, but when you try to snap his attention back and ask what you just told him, he will repeat it, verbatim.  His recall is unbelievable, and he will often cause the entire class to stop and look in wonder as the littlest kid in the class spouts out the craziest little facts and stories.

Daniel is two or three steps ahead of himself. He only wants to do what the big kids are doing. He practically begged to sit in on a lesson the teacher was doing with the 5- and 6-year-olds about addition in the 1000′s and doing carrying in your head.  He loves math-related works, especially subtraction and geometric shapes. He also spends a lot of time on letters and sounds. His teacher confirmed our suspicion that he is showing every sign of being an early reader, and thinks if he isn’t reading by the end of this school year, it will be early next year.*

If there is any “problem” (and she emphasized that it is not actually a problem, but fairly typical for a boy his age), it’s that his fine motor strength and control is well behind his desire and need to write. Most of the 3-year-olds spend a lot of time in the “practical life” area of the classroom, which includes things like pouring, sorting, coloring, snaps and buttons, and the like. Some of them are, indeed, very practical discrete skills. But the larger point of most of them is developing hand strength, so that the kids will be ready to hold a pencil and write as they get older.  Rebecca spends a lot of time in that space, and (whether the chicken or the egg) has nice fine motor control.  Daniel? No interest, whatsoever.  He’d much rather do the math. It’s just that he’ll soon come to a point where his mind wants to do works that his hand can’t keep up with. Thankfully, his teachers had a list of fun activities we could do to work on that hand strength, if we were so inclined.

Not to read too much into it, but M and I each seem to have found our academic doppelgängers. Rebecca, like me, is all about the rules of the classroom. She focuses on works that she knows she can do well, and does the same ones over and over again. Bright, certainly, and a bit of a goody-two-shoes.  Daniel not only has some of the same interests and skills as M, but could care less about the rest and will not work on the skill unless he feels an actual need to do so. He’ll probably have M’s horrible handwriting, too.  I’m fascinated to see how this continues to play out as they get older.

All told, it was a lovely morning to hear just how brilliant and wonderful our kids were. I was more than happy to spend the hour getting those extra boosts of good news.

*Just for kicks, on Sunday I busted out the Bob Books, which I picked up after reading LauraC’s recommendation. Daniel read the first one to me like it was nothing. That night at dinner, he read every short word I could write down on his placemat. No kidding, he blew through them all and nearly got “lobster.” It was downright freaky.  The kid can seriously do it. Plus, we were at a restaurant with some interesting light fixtures. Daniel pointed to them excitedly and said, “Mommy, look! Cubes and rectangular prisms!” God, I love Montessori.