Assessment 2018-19: Lola

Lola is like a whole party in one tiny person.

Not many people outside of our nuclear family get to see the party that is Lola, because she doesn't talk to other people, but she gives tiny glimpses now and again.

My favorite glimpse she gives is singing in church.  Every once in a while she decides to sing the hymns.  When the organ starts playing, she takes a hymnbook in her lap, finds a page that pleases her in some unknown-to-me way and starts singing.  She sings her own tune; she sings her own words.

She sings out joyfully.

Sir Walter Scott and I are often red-faced with the effort of holding in laughter because we don't want to be rude in church, and we don't want to embarrass Lola or distract her from her personal worship.

Sometimes people in front of us look back to see where the extra music is coming from.

And they smile when they see our Lola.

She's growing, learning, and developing in many ways.

 Like Baymax, she was 3 at the start of the school year and turned 4 half way through (they are only 7 weeks apart--she being the smaller but elder).

She, however, had a harder start in life, and she's still learning a few of the things on the 3-4 chart.

Social/Emotional
Lola is definitely imaginative and plays independently for long periods of time--especially in the early mornings when she wakes upwards of 2 hours before she's allowed out of her bedroom.  She sings, has conversations with her stuffed animals, cares for dollies, looks at and makes up story lines for books she has on her shelf in her room, and plays matching games all by herself.

She is able to dress and undress herself, but she is often overwhelmed by the task of finding something to wear.  As long as someone chooses an outfit for her, she can put it on for the day.  When it comes to wearing costumes, though, she needs no help whatsoever!

She has not grasped the concept of negotiating during play.  She still operates under the snatch-and-run or hit-and-take system of getting what she wants from other children.

We're working on it by modeling what to say and requiring that she follow our example in order to get what she wants.  I'm sure that it will take a great deal of time, but she will eventually understand the negotiation process.

She does know basic emotion words and, when prompted, can use them to explain how she's feeling.

She cares about helping.

Speech/Language
Her speech is less clear and less sophisticated than Baymax's, but in our family, we can understand her quite well.  She becomes non-verbal under any stress--even good stress like attending her primary class at church (which she loves).  Her primary teacher has yet to hear Lola speak other than to greet us when we pass in the hallway, but Nature Angel was similar (though for different reasons), and she eventually outgrew the extreme silence.

She loves to raise her hand and "answer questions" during Academy or Morning Meeting.  Mostly that takes the form of raising her hand and saying, "Ummm . . . ummm . . . ummm . . ." until I feed her a line that she happily repeats as her own.

She can tell stories and explain when someone has been unfair to her, but the stories are punctuated with repetitions and and pauses.

It appears to me that Lola's speech/language skills are slower to develop than her peers' skills are, but as they are developing, I'm not worrying.

As for the rest of the 3-4 chart--Cognitive, Gross Motor, and Fine Motor--she's got it all mastered.

No worries!

In spite of some slower development on the 3-4 chart, she does have enough mastered or in progress on the 4-5 chart to be worth discussing.

Social/Emotional
She has a friend that she loves, and I definitely see her mimicking that friend when they are together.

Other than the fact that she's had a few tantrums of a worrying level of violence, I do think her tantrums are becoming less frequent.

And she's as independent as they come--eschewing help no matter how difficult the task (except getting dressed).

Doing her best to be like big sister

Speech/Language
She can participate in a simple conversation, and her sentences are at least 4-5 words long.  I can think of conversations in which her sentences are much longer than that.  She offers her prayers independently at night; her little offers of gratitude usually pause between, "Thank thee . . ." and what she's thankful for, but she expresses ideas, both concrete and abstract, that are at the very least age-appropriate.

She can rhyme.

She's not very good at following directions, but that's more due to the ADHD I'm sure she has than her language development.  As long as I stick to 1-2 step directions (1 being preferred), she can do what is asked (often with reminders).

Sensory
She has all of the sensory items on the chart mastered.

Cognitive
Other than her concept of time, she has all of the cognitive list items mastered.

She knows 23 letters and sounds (U, W, Y are hard for her), and she knows the vowels.

She's good at counting and patterning, and she's experimenting with adding and subtracting.  She identifies all numbers 1-10 correctly except 6.  (I'm not sure why.)

This year, like Baymax, she started with Shiller curriculum products but moved to Easy-Peasy-all-in-one-Homeschool Getting Ready 1, which she completed with aplomb.  She also worked her way joyfully through The Good and the Beautiful Pre-K book.  I find her often trying to sound out words she sees around her, and I'll give her a reading lesson out of Alphaphonics if she asks, but I'd rather let her brain grow through play for a while.

Gross Motor
She can do it all.

Fine Motor
She can do it all.

Overall, Lola is learning a lot all of the time.  Her greatest strength are her gross motor skills, but her fine motor aren't far behind. Letters U, W, Y and number 6 notwithstanding, she's really done with preschool.  I'm considering using The Good and the Beautiful Level K Primer with her at the start of the school year to review and cement what she knows, and my gut tells me she'll need a couple of years of kindergarten--like Brother and Beowulf--but that's totally okay with me.  She's young yet.  We're in no hurry.

Lola is not a full participant in Morning Meeting or Academy.  She tries, but her attention wanders, and her body wiggles so much that she cannot follow what is happening.  As mentioned earlier, she likes to raise her hand and be called on to be fed an answer, so that's what we're doing in order to help her know her participation is welcome. 

She does not narrate lessons yet, but she tries.  I hand her paper, and remind her what we learned about, and she starts drawing something we've learned, but her drawings morph with the swellings of her imagination until they are no longer lesson narrations but glimpses into her mind.

"That's Baby Jesus doing a cartwheel," said Lola for a picture narration during Advent school. :)

That's okay.  I collect and save what I can.  This is a joyful season in her life.  There is time to stick to the facts later. :)

The one exception to this takes place during our journaling for Come, Follow Me.  On Sunday afternoons, she is usually able to draw an illustration of a Bible story and then copy a word or a phrase that goes with the picture.  I love it.

And physically, Lola is growing like crazy!  It's hard to tell because her peers are growing, too, but she shot out of her 2T clothes this year and is able to wear a few 4T items . . . as long as the pants have adjustable waists. :)  

Lola is a lot of fun . . . like a good party.