Miles started preschool in January at St. Thomas Aquinas. He has been going for a little over 3 weeks and is adjusting pretty well. He is the only 2 year old in a 3 year old class. The 2 year old class was full and since he was turning 3 in February they agreed to put him in the older class. He will repeat that level next year so that he can finally be with the kids his age. Although the one year age difference has been a bit of a struggle in terms of play skills, Miles has learned a lot over the last 3 weeks. When I picked him up today his teacher, Miss Kelly, said he was finally using his words today and sat in a group of 4 boys and played dinosaurs.
Yesterday marked another milestone. He started school at Longleaf Elementary. Since Miles was born, he has been in a state program for hearing impairment; first in Colorado and now in Florida. They monitor his development to make sure his hearing does not interfere with it, but this program is only available from birth to 3. When a child turns 3 they move out of the program and are then monitored by the school district. As part of this transition, Miles "home interventionist" felt it would be helpful for him to join a special program at one of our elementary schools. It is called the "Talk Program" and it caters to children with language and speech issues. She thought that this would be a good place for him to be since his state provided speech services are now over and he will not be enrolled in the school district until he starts kindergarten. It is a special program designed to focus on creating language and speech for children who are not very vocal.
Fortunately, being vocal has not been a recent issue for Miles, in fact he almost didn't qualify for the program based on language alone because his sentence structure and vocabulary are advanced for his age, but being hearing impaired was an automatic qualification. Also after visiting several preschools in the area, I actually was quite fond of this particular program based on structure alone. I wanted him in it just because it was one of the best ones I saw regardless of its intent. His speech teacher (different than our home interventionist) wanted him to piggy back a mainstream preschool if we could afford it, because she wanted him to have good language role models as far as the children go and she didn't think the talk program would offer that. So that is why we are at the Catholic preschool as well. (The state provided one is free while the private one costs quite a bit of rocks.) In the state of Florida, children are only funded for preschool from the age of 4 and on, but they must be 4 by Sept. 1st, so Miles still has another year after this one at our expense.
Miles new schedule is quite hectic and we are still wondering how he is going to handle it. He goes to the private preschool, Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9-12 and the "talk program" at the elementary school, Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 9:30-3:30. I was worried about the six hour days, but Miles didn't seem to mind it. At the new school, they take naps and buy lunch, which was all that Miles could tell me for that day.
"I went to bed at school and had pasta."
I am hoping for a more detailed report as time goes on. His teachers have him keep a notebook which contains progress reports that they send home daily. So at least someone will be talking to us about what is going on.
After I picked him up in the pouring rain on Monday, I came into our neighborhood and saw the bus dropping off all of the elementary school kids (Miles will go to a different school when he starts kindergarten since the "talk program" is not at our zoned school) and realized they were all getting on the bus when I left to go to school in the morning........Miles is now a big kid and despite how anxious I am for him to start doing big things, I am still a little bit sad. Life is changing. There will only be good things to come!!
Yesterday marked another milestone. He started school at Longleaf Elementary. Since Miles was born, he has been in a state program for hearing impairment; first in Colorado and now in Florida. They monitor his development to make sure his hearing does not interfere with it, but this program is only available from birth to 3. When a child turns 3 they move out of the program and are then monitored by the school district. As part of this transition, Miles "home interventionist" felt it would be helpful for him to join a special program at one of our elementary schools. It is called the "Talk Program" and it caters to children with language and speech issues. She thought that this would be a good place for him to be since his state provided speech services are now over and he will not be enrolled in the school district until he starts kindergarten. It is a special program designed to focus on creating language and speech for children who are not very vocal.
Fortunately, being vocal has not been a recent issue for Miles, in fact he almost didn't qualify for the program based on language alone because his sentence structure and vocabulary are advanced for his age, but being hearing impaired was an automatic qualification. Also after visiting several preschools in the area, I actually was quite fond of this particular program based on structure alone. I wanted him in it just because it was one of the best ones I saw regardless of its intent. His speech teacher (different than our home interventionist) wanted him to piggy back a mainstream preschool if we could afford it, because she wanted him to have good language role models as far as the children go and she didn't think the talk program would offer that. So that is why we are at the Catholic preschool as well. (The state provided one is free while the private one costs quite a bit of rocks.) In the state of Florida, children are only funded for preschool from the age of 4 and on, but they must be 4 by Sept. 1st, so Miles still has another year after this one at our expense.
Miles new schedule is quite hectic and we are still wondering how he is going to handle it. He goes to the private preschool, Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9-12 and the "talk program" at the elementary school, Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 9:30-3:30. I was worried about the six hour days, but Miles didn't seem to mind it. At the new school, they take naps and buy lunch, which was all that Miles could tell me for that day.
"I went to bed at school and had pasta."
I am hoping for a more detailed report as time goes on. His teachers have him keep a notebook which contains progress reports that they send home daily. So at least someone will be talking to us about what is going on.
After I picked him up in the pouring rain on Monday, I came into our neighborhood and saw the bus dropping off all of the elementary school kids (Miles will go to a different school when he starts kindergarten since the "talk program" is not at our zoned school) and realized they were all getting on the bus when I left to go to school in the morning........Miles is now a big kid and despite how anxious I am for him to start doing big things, I am still a little bit sad. Life is changing. There will only be good things to come!!
