Parent/Teacher Conference

Last night was our very first Parent/Teacher Conference. It was nice going and knowing we didn't have any problems. We just got to hear how good of a student C is. His report card looked very good. In Kindergarten they get graded on more personal skills than anything. They get a + if they've mastered it and a / if they are working on it. Mrs L said she's not very giving on + for the personal skills in the first quarter because that is what Kindergarten is all about. They were graded on 9 skills and she gave C a plus on 6 of them. The three that he's still working on are Taking Care of Personal Belongings, Completes Work on Time & Works Independently. We're still working on taking care of personal belongings at home, so that wasn't surprising. He has a hard time completing his work on time because he's a perfectionist. He tries so hard to make everything perfect that he doesn't always get it done on time. Mrs L said C is harder on himself which slows him down. That also isn't surprising. He's just learning Time Management, which is a trait most of us are still working on. The third thing he needs to work on is actually pretty funny - Working Independently. J knew what Mrs L was going to say before she even said it. He is the pet of the teacher's aide that spends a few hours a day in the classroom. He asks for her help because he likes her and she likes him. He doesn't really need the help, he just likes her. Mrs L laughed when she was telling us about it last night. J's had the teachers aide's kids in school so he knows them really well. I guess she had been telling J about helping in the classroom. C is used to getting someones full attention so if they're willing to give it to him of course he's going to take it.

He did very well on his Reading Readiness skills, he has mastered everything and he can recognize all the upper case letters and most of the lower case. He's still having problems with d's and q's, which is common. He is still working on his Motor Skills which includes Writing Neatly and Plainly, Colors Neatly, Cuts Neatly with Scissors and Glues Projects Together Neatly - once again we weren't surprised. The other things he's still working on is Knowing Right from Left, Art and P.E. Knowing how I was in school those also aren't surprising.

C started out looking so much like J that I always just assumed he would have his personality. In the last 6 months or so he's becoming more and more like me. Sitting there last night I realized how much he is starting to develop more and more of my personality quirks (good and bad). She was telling us a lot of stuff last night, but we both thought she said C was at the top of the class in reading. Who does that sound like?

The highlight of the night for me was getting his school pictures. For the last few weeks I've asked J every afternoon if his pictures were in. I know I shouldn't say this about a boy, but I thought they were really cute. We need to Ooh and Ahhh over these because if my school pictures are any indication, they're all downhill from here!


and by the way - school photos are a lot fancier then they were when I was in school. We got to select the background color and pick a border for the picture. There was a lot of thought put into ordering these pictures.