Parent Teacher Conferences

The boys helping celebrate my birthday last week.

We have gotten through Sam's first conference and Casey first conference with an actual report card!  Here are the highlights:

Sam's teacher says he is doing very well.  He is polite and helpful and has an "age appropriate attention span".  His teacher says he makes her laugh and tells her stories.  His lowest mark came on "interacts with other children" which surprised us a bit being as social as he is.  The teacher was quick to say that she wasn't worried about it at all, but that he tends to float a lot during free time, moving from one group to another or playing by himself instead of engaging a group of kids playing together.  We all agreed this could be a corrective move from being bossed around at home by a certain older brother.  Hard to say.  The teachers shared with us that by the end of the year the kids will know all the shapes, colors, letters and numbers.  Sam already knows all of those things so he is ahead of the curve for now.  All the students will be encouraged to learn to write their name, but so far he does not have too much interest.  Overall, we were really happy with the teachers report and are really proud of how Sam is doing in preschool!

Casey's report card doesn't look like anything Jeff and I have in our scrapbooks.  It's all a fancy number system with very detailed lists of skills and goals.  Casey's teacher has been teaching kindergarten for over 40 years; she told us that when she started, kindergarten was a half day broken into 3 parts - play time, rest time and cookie time.  40 years later, she sits with 5 year olds and a list as long as they are of the skills they will need to be ready for 1st grade.  "I still do A LOT of playtime" she said, "they are so young!"  Casey is doing great - his teacher does not group the entire class by abilities, just one table of 6 is reserved for her "best learners".  Casey has been put at this table, meaning that he will be allowed to move ahead at a faster pace if he is able and will be around other kids doing the same kind of work.  His biggest problem is that he rushes through his writing and isn't really working on getting each letter and the spacing.  She also mentioned that part of the problem could be that he tends to chat with other kids during work time.  Some people's kids, I tell ya.  The teacher showed us his journal and we could see what she meant, and we also saw some sweet pictures he drew.   Overall she said she enjoys Casey very much.

So we are through conference season for now.  We are so grateful to have 2 kids that are liking school, and two good teachers in our boys lives.  Let's hope for another 14 years of that :)