Last Thursday marked the last day of the school term for Spud, and besides the fact that it is usually a timely holiday for Songkran, it also signifies something much bigger than that: It was the end of Term 2 and Spud has one more semester to go before she graduates to K2 in September.

As with the end of every semester, we attended the regular Parent-Teacher session where we get to discuss her progress with her Homeroom teacher. Her progress report indicated that she has made a lot of improvements this time round.

The conversation with her teacher has been rather enlightening for us as she commended Spud for her ability to write her abcs and 123 free-hand as well as being able to spell and write her name without any help; a progress we don’t really think about as we still think she is in a play school and thus, spends her entire day just playing.

I am clearly under the impression that this is now a norm for every 3.5 year old kid, and given that I have actually seen some kids who can already recognise words (and they are at least 6 months younger than Spud), I thought Spud may have just been a little behind in her development. Either way, for a parent like me who is not too focused on my kids being too academically inclined, I guess the school has been doing a very good job with her and her progress.

Here are some of her handiwork which I thought I’d capture for her benefit (amusement) in the near future:

What is also comforting to know from her teacher is that Spud is a well adjusted kid and makes friends easily. It turns out that she and the same boy whom she befriended from 2 years ago are still as attached as ever to each other. In the words of her teacher, “These two are really best friends. I have never really seen kids that age being so close. They play together, they talk all the time and while they also fight a lot, they get together again quite quickly. They would always ask for each other. They are so close that I have to keep them apart – one on my left, the other on my right or, one at one end of the room, the other on the other end, or otherwise,  they never will pay attention or get things done.”

Such sweetness of innocence.

As with the end of each term, the school would usually send a bagful of materials to us parents as a way of letting us know the kind of activities the kids have been doing in school. While flipping through the materials, I came across some of her handiwork from school and was pretty impressed with what I saw. They were written free-hand, and some which she apparently did it all on her own.

Looking back just a few weeks ago, I remember that she has been asking A LOT about how to spell things. And, because I have been pretty consistent in casually spelling out her name for her every once in a while since about 3 months back, I did not think that spelling AND writing it would be something she would accomplished so quick.

One morning, Spud ambled to our room while we were still sleeping and asked her father, “Papa, how do you spell your name?” Silver Bullet, I assumed still groggy, did not think much of the question and started spelling out his name. She quickly dismissed it, frowned and asked him again; to which he re-spelled the same way. Spud, for some reason, would not take his answer and then went, “Nooooo. How to spell Papa’s name? It’s ppppp…”P”. Pa-Pa.”

The mind of a child amazes me. Both Silver Bullet and me could only look at each other and started laughing.

From what I have seen, I really don’t know for sure if such developmental milestones of a 3.5 year old is to be expected – and as I said earlier, it would be easy for me to assume it is; particularly because I have seen toddlers younger than her being able to read words. For Spud, she seems to enjoy writing her letters and numbers.

She is currently particularly proud of herself that she not only can spell her name (as well as her BFF’s name!), and she is able to write it freehand as well.