Parent-Teacher Conferences

We had parent-teacher conferences last week for both boys.  It actually worked out that the kids were out of school on the 16th of October for conferences and then were off entirely on the 17th (Finn's birthday!)  I had a conference with Kai's teacher, Mrs. Pierce, on the evening of the 15th.  She is an older teacher (has been teaching for 35 years) and is more laid back and gentle than Kai's teacher last year.  She absolutely adores Kai and is blown away by his ability.  She tells me that kids his age may not appreciate him, but that all of the adults do because they know that he is going to be something important one day. What high praise!  I told her that Kai had mentioned a certain classmate had been teasing him a bit and she was a bit bothered.  She told me she didn't want him to get teased for his intelligence.  She sounded like she would go down fighting for Kai and is one of his biggest allies and guardians.  I am so grateful for her and for her influence in Kai's (and our) lives.  Another thing that I have noticed and been super grateful for this year is that there have been no complaints of him not completing his work.  He is actually getting it done!  And it seems that there is also less of it....at least there are less worksheets coming home.  Which is so, so nice.  I had heard other moms complaining about Kai's Kindergarten and First grade teachers being worksheet addicts, but I didn't understand.....until now.  It's nice not to have a bazillion worksheets coming home crumpled up at the bottom of a book bag.  Kai also has free reading time in class which he loves.  His teacher has a large library of books for him to choose from and I know he has been working his way through her Magic Treehouse Books, again.  Speaking of reading, at the conference Mrs. Pierce gave me Kai's test results from the assessment day held on the third day of class.  Kai tested at a 5th grade 8th month reading level.  It was just the 3rd day of 2nd grade!  Yep, that's my boy.  I'm super proud of him.  His results say that he would best be challenged by material on a 5th grade level.  Yowzers!  He has currently been reading a Space Encyclopedia by National Geographic at home and telling me all about dark matter.  Sigh....I still don't understand and my 7 year old does!   

Finn's parent-teacher conference was held really, really early in the morning on Thursday the 16th.  Of course Bree had a horrible night the night before and I was barely functioning and dragging myself out of bed, but I made it.  I will admit to being nervous about this conference.  With Kai, I pretty much know what I'm going to get.  This is his 4th year at school.  But for Finn this is uncharted territory.  And add in all of the times that his teacher has called me (about his medical stuff) and told me why she thinks some things are happening, well, let's just say, I didn't know what to expect.  The school nurse actually called me the afternoon before conferences to talk about Finn's recurring vomiting episodes at school.  I told her what was going on and it made sense to her, but when explained to Ms. Michelle she just didn't seem satisfied.  I don't know what else to say to her.  It seems like she just wants to tell me how it should be without listening to me as a mom.  And when she's listening I just get this feeling that she doesn't even really care.  I've become a bit exhausted trying to explain his stuff that this week I just gave up and went to school and picked him up early.  I'm going round and round with his teacher and just not really seeming to get through and I'm exhausted of it.  So, that being said, of course for his conference we talked about more than just his medical.  She showed me that he knew all of his shapes and colors and could accurately count up to 14 (he ALWAYS skips 15....but I knew that).  I was impressed that he had shown her that he knew most of his letters.  He is doing well with recognizing the capitals anyway, while the lower case letters are giving him a bit of trouble still.  He loves the dramatic play areas and tends to gravitate there during centers and so she said they are going to start redirecting the kids towards different centers before they go off to play.  She says he plays well with lots of different class mates and that she is working with him on managing his frustration and expressing his feelings.  I'm glad she is doing that with him as that is something we have been working on at home and so I'm glad for the reinforcement.   Overall, she has a no-nonsense approach that I feel has been a good introduction for Finn to school.  He is learning the rules and the importance of following them.  I feel that his behavior is improving ever so slightly and I'm glad to see the growth in him.  She isn't the friendliest of teachers with the parents, but at least Finn is learning and loves school, right??!

Towards the beginning of the year the aide in his classroom (who also happens to be a friend of ours from the ward) sent me these pictures of Finn playing at school.  Finn told me that in these pictures they are playing house and he is the dad and the little one behind him is the mom.  Ummmm.......no words!  I love it!