Ryan's christmas concert and Kurtis on piano

Here are two videos of my sweetie at his Christmas concert yesterday. I was so impressed with the last song - they signed "we wish you a merry christmas"!



Photo Sharing - Upload Video - Video Sharing - Share Photos



Photo Sharing - Upload Video - Video Sharing - Share Photos



Have I mentioned how much I love Ryan's teacher? And boy, are we going to miss her as this is her last week. Mrs. W is covering a maternity leave and Ryan's regular teacher is coming back in January. Mrs. W taught me a valuable lesson in pre-judging. I heard we were getting a substitute teacher for 4 months who was coming out of retirement to do this. I immediately thought that she'd be a teacher with old outdated stereotypes, one who would limit Ryan and not include him. I was so worried at the beginning of the year.... and boy, was I wrong. Mrs. W is amazing! She was eager to meet with me and discuss goals for Ryan (outside of his official "individual education plan") and discuss how best to teach him. She fully included Ryan in the class - calling on him when he raised his hands even though most of the time he didn't know the answer (but many times he did!). She taught the class sign language and Ryan "led" the class during those sessions. She held him to a high standard of behaviour - unfortunately, for Ryan, this means a fair number of time-outs - but Tom and I fully expect Ryan to be held to the same standard of behaviour as other children. She encouraged independence but also realized that modifications could be made if the task was too challenging. At first Ryan really missed his junior kindergarten teacher and wasn't thrilled with Mrs. W, but as you can see in the picture, he really really likes Mrs. W now! We really are going to miss her.

Here's a short video of Kurtis doing his piano concert. He did have a school Christmas concert but I didn't get a good video of it.

Photo Sharing - Upload Video - Video Sharing - Share Photos