Parent Teacher Conferences

It is always still a shock for me to attend parent teacher conferences. It really hits home that I am the parent, and I have school age kids, two now! I am lucky, because somehow my kids are doing very well in school. I don't mind bragging a little, because they don't always do so well at home for me, so at least I can say that they are good for their teachers.

Markie's biggest problem is he wants to be well behaved all the time, so if even his table gets told to be quiet, he gets a little stressed. He is doing very well, Last report card most of his grades were DL, developing level, which is on track for early in the year in kindergarten. He only had one P, which is proficient, satisfactory achievement of this kindergarten goal. (Highest you can get.) This time he had 7 P's and 3 DL's. His teacher says he is the only one in the class with a P in "derives meaning from books using patterns and letter/sound knowledge." Whatever that means! Right now he is working on writing his last name, he still gets his p's and q's backwards when he writes them, he has a good concept of the math concepts, which are all using manipulatives at this point, and he listens well to the teacher. I am proud of Mark's behavior the most, he has done better than I thought he would with that.

Lizzy is really surprising me, her teacher says that she is just doing amazing, I guess her reading has just taken off, they do a lot of testing with reading and comprehension as part of Bush's no child left behind. Her fluency went last quarter from 126 words to 147 words, is that a minute? I can't remember. Anyways, all of her scores are up from last quarter. Her report card was all 4's. (they don't do A's and B's etc, it is now 1 - 4. Her teacher says my biggest problem will be keeping her challenged through school. This is a change for Lizzy, she has always been at the top of her class, but this year she is really getting smart. Once again, I am proud of her because although she is smart, she can be quite the nightmare to deal with at home, and I deal with that every day, so taking a moment to enjoy her shining at school is a luxury I will allow myself. Lizzy has a phenomenal teacher, she just finished reading Artemis Fowl, a book that is over 350 pages, she loved it and actually it is quite a good fantasy novel.

One final note, they are both nominated for student of the month for one month this fall and will both be honored in an assembly this coming Friday morning. Unfortunately Markie will be the only one there, the rest of us will be in Vegas at Lizzy's gymnastics meet. (Markie is staying with his Aunt Kim.)