What to discuss at 6 week meeting at nursery?

[Ellie2015]

I am having a meeting with LG’s keyworker at her nursery later in the evening and I have no idea what sort of things I am supposed to be discussing..

LG is not gifted but is bright tells her name age and town where she lives, counts upto 20 easily, ABC until Z, knows phonics A to Z, even sings some of the jolley songs A-Z level 2. Builds tower about 12 blocks, makes face with eyes nose ears hairs hands, knows all the colours even brown black grey, talks in short sentences i am going, oh my Goodness etc etc.

Most importantly she is a happy child touchwood. Loved running around dancing on tunes and jumping/hopping with both feet up the ground 😂

When we drop her, most of the times she is happy and doesnt cry. She is particularly happy to see her keyworker. There is another lady who cares for her who seems ok-ish. Both of them love doing hairs for my LG. I send her in one hairstyle and my LG comes back home looking ever so beautiful having a different or similar hairdo! After coming from nursery she is in so much of elated mood for about good half to one hour which tells me she has been well looked after which is what i expected from their ofsted outstanding report.

Now since joining I have not seen any skills
Improvement as such and not sure it would be worth asking them to challenge her with things. They do keep sending cards ‘made by her’ on different occasions so obviously she must have worked with them working on them but other than that I have not seen anything new.

On the contrary there has been change in her personality not sure her age or nurseey or borh, she has been ‘more naughty’. She has started lying on the floor if we try and take her away from her point of interest..if she goes in a shop she can at times throw things on the floor eg chocolate candys etc which comes in her hands (but good thing is she tidys it up and even nursery acknowledged she is good at doing that which I knew anyway). Not sure I should bring this personality thing with them.

Lastly i would like her to be toilet trained (so far its been hit and miss at home) but not sure I could ask them to take her to toilet every hour or so as a routine.

Long and short of it, please can you advise what I should be talking to them in order to maximise care and learning for my lovely daughter.

Thanks so much in advance xx

[Ellie2015]

Yorkiedorkie thats a useful info and quite reassuring for me. Thank you

Brutusmcdogfce: thank you for your kind words. I promise I enjoy every bit of her toddler stage especially her being so chatty and watching her hop like a bunny! Bless her 😂😂

[Ellie2015]

Aw such lovely messages! Lots of helpful and learning points here. Thank you all!!

Please don’t get me wrong..yes i’m invested but not ‘overly’ and our love is just the same whether our children are bright or not. She is simply a joy and you got it right she is so switched on! And really we do chill a lot together! 😂

Romaincalm those questions make perfect sense, they are open ended questions and I am more likely to receive more info re DD through them. Thank you x

Rainatnight I totally get ya. Thank you!

Re toilet training it was DD led NOT me :) and I was wanting them to do exactly same as Loraline mentioned. She has already been started her toilet training at home but its still a bit of hit and miss in the sense she is still making quite a few puddles at home! 😩😅

[YorkieDorkie]

The prime areas of learning in the Early Years are:

• Personal, social and emotional development.
• Physical Development
• Communication and language

These are the MOST important areas for development.

There is very little emphasis on "academic development". If your child already knows numbers, letters, colours etc then it's highly unlikely you'll see much progression in those areas for a long time! They are 40-60+ month targets. Your little girl will be in the 22-36 month targets but the lovely thing about the profile is that they will not be held back if they achieve more.

Your daughter will show a LOT of progression in the prime areas above. And perhaps some specific areas:

• Understanding the world
• Expressive arts and design

[GeorgieTheGorgeousGoat]

Development in children isn’t linear. They will all have times where they don’t seem to learn anything and they are simply embedding their new skills and perfecting them. Sometimes the skills they are learning aren’t obvious but might be negotiating with other children or improving their running gait.

Also: chill.

She’s not gifted and talented. She’s a switched on child but is still only 21m. Let her be a toddler. It goes so quickly.

[BrutusMcDogface]

Yup, sounds like normal behaviour for someone who is almost 2. She does seem very bright, though, despite what pps have written above! Sometimes this early development balances out when children get older.

Take a step back and enjoy her. You're going to have the rest of her school life to think about academics and progress; for now, just let her be.

[Rainatnight]

The behaviour could be lots of things and don't think it's necessarily fair to blame nursery. A lot of it will be down to age - this is just the age when toddler behaviour gets going and it's perfectly normal - some of it might be a reaction to the big change of nursery, even though on the surface of things she skips in happily every day. I know you say she doesn't seem tired but it is a really big change for them and there could be an element of her 'holding it together' at nursery, and then letting it all out in front of you! And as a PP said, it could be picking up some behaviour from other kids and testing you.

My DD (same age) is at a similar level of achievement and was similarly easy going. She started at a child minders recently and has certainly picked up one or two things from one of the other girls there that I'm not massively keen on.

However, I try to see it as just part of this great big process of sending them out into the world and we have to trust that home will be the primary influence on them.

On toilet training - I wasn't clear from your post whether you expected them to toilet train her or whether you expected them to stick to the toilet training regime you've started at home? I think the latter is fair enough but the former is unreasonable.

On whether she's being pushed enough, I think if you have kids like ours, who seem to be pretty bright, it does us no harm to bear in mind that there are lots of different things they should be learning at this age and most of them aren't the traditional verbal and maths things. Getting on with other kids, turn taking, dealing with frustration, etc, are all really important just now. DD is the only child in our house and I think it's really good for her at childminder's to have to, for example, wait for everyone else to finish lunch before she has her yogurt. A few of those experiences and I think that's pretty much her important learning done for the day. That's the 'challenge' in my eyes.

Does that make sense?

So if I were on your shoes, I'd be asking how she's settling in, how she's getting on with other kids, say you've noticed she seems a bit more prone to tantrum like behaviour, what can you and nursery do as a partnership to deal with it?

[insancerre]

Loraline

Is that now what I said
Do it at home first

[RomaineCalm]

I would go with an open mind and some questions. What you are describing sounds fairly typical of toddler behaviour. The nursery team will have loads of experience and may be able to set your mind at rest around what you are seeing and how 'normal' it is.

For example:

Tell me about the daily routine? What does DD like doing? Is there anything that she doesn't seem to enjoy as much? How does she interact with others? DD loves books/numbers at home, do you see any of that?

I've noticed some changes in DD's behaviour at home? Do you see it here too? Any idea what triggers it? Based on what you see at nursery are there any things that you would recommend? DD is my first/only child, is there anything that you think I should be concerned about?

How would you normally approach potty training? What works best? When the time is right how can we work together?

[Loraline]

As for toilet training, that's not their jib either. You do it at home first and when she is reliable you ask them to carry it on at nursery

This isn't strictly true. Many nurseries will help with toilet training. Ours told us they thought ds was ready and when we started to do it at home (he had 4 days at home to start) then they would put him on the toilet every hour and supported the training.

That said, he was older than 21 months which is quite early.

[insancerre]

By counting do you mean touching and counting an irregular number of items or do you mean reciting numbers in order, because the latter is not counting
I don't think she sounds gifted and talented sorry
She sounds like she has a good memory, which isn't intelligence
The nursery will have assessed her and will tell you what they have planned for her next steps.
It's not really down to you to tell them how to do their job
As for toilet training, that's not their jib either. You do it at home first and when she is reliable you ask them to carry it on at nursery

[Quartz2208]

I think you need to separate it all out and take a step back as well

First off let her develop at her own pace

Secondly the behaviour you are experiencing is normal at this age and indeed important in her emotional development in learning her own boundaries of right and wrong

Thirdly potty trainbig, personally it should be when the child is ready and not you, why would you like her to be, so she highlights how gifted she is.

You sound overly invested let her develop at her own life pace

[Ellie2015]

Coyoacan thank you! Yes they do feed back on her activities which generally always sound the same ‘ so and so had a lovely day..she played with this or that..etc’ 😂which is good i like that!

[Ellie2015]

Ps: any tips on how to discipline her on this would be greatly appreciated. I have not even done any time outs till now lol

[Ellie2015]

She is 21 months. This is her first child care. She has been doing these lying down on the floor for last one to two weeks! She doesn’t appear tired plus she gets a daily 15 min oil massage after bath! :)

I have never needed to punish her at all. She has been such an amazing girl..i used to feel bad for mums who had to drag their babies up from floor in public areas..and now my own one is doing this..literally any shop, any public place..it doesnt seem to matter to her! 😩😅

[MoodyTwo]

How old is she? If she's pre school age I would just leave her to have fun ...
definitely bring up the toilet training, they should do what ever you do at home so it's consistent.
The 'naughtiness' may just have been picked up from other children and she is testing boundaries, deal with it in line with how you punish her and it should pass

[Coyoacan]

Congratulations on having such a bright child. However I think there are lots of things to learn at this stage in childhood that are not so easily measured. Do they report back to you on the activities she is doing?

[NerrSnerr]

How old is she? Is it preschool she's at? Personally I'd just be happy she's happy there, I don't think children need pushing academically before starting school.

Has she been in childcare before? The change in personality could be tiredness. My 3 year old goes through phases of being a huge pain when tired.

[Ellie2015]

PS: oops really didnt realise my post would go so long..sincere apologies! 🙈