We had conferences for Hockey Girl and AOS Boy last night. I think we're pretty aware of the strengths and weaknesses of our kids, but it's always interesting to have the first conference with this year's teacher to see if they are the same kids in school as they are at home. For the most part I'd say they are. Hockey Girl is probably the most different at school. According to her teacher, Mrs. S., at school she is very responsible - at home she is pretty responsible, unless responsibility includes brushing your teeth and hair without being told, putting your dirty clothes in the hamper or down the laundry chute or keeping your desk organized. Apparently she is so responsible at school that she keeps Mrs. S. and her brother in line if given the opportunity. Mrs. S. has a hard time picturing HG as a hockey player. She absolutely couldn't believe that she lead her team in penalty minutes last year - but she did. HG's grades were okay. We (including Mrs. S. - she said she double checked it) were all a little surprised at her C in Language Arts (also known as grammar and writing). Apparently she only likes to do the minimum required and she doesn't like to correct or edit her work (who can blame her). So, she has to try a little harder to bring that grade up! Everything else was just fine - As in Science/Health and Spelling and B+s in Math and Social Studies.
It's always a little frightening when a conference starts out with, "let me start with, he has really turned it around in the past month..." Hmmmm. Turned it around from what? Apparently Mrs. L was really worried about AOS Boy at the beginning of the year. He just wasn't doing what he was supposed to. He failed to turn in homework on time 10 times in the first 3 weeks. He told Mrs. L that it was *my fault. I always took it out of his folder and forgot to put it back. Finally when she picked up the phone, asked him for my number and told him she was going to call me, he fessed up. *That is exactly what he is like at home. Lying to avoid personal responsibility until you call him to the carpet and he has no place else to go. He has reportedly come a long way in a short time. He has not had a late or missing homework assignment in two weeks. He is generally "acting like a 5th grader." He is a pretty smart kid. He has had perfect spelling tests this year. His reading tests were nearly perfect (but he only will do one book report every other week so he's just at grade level, as opposed to above grade level). He had an A in Spelling and Social Studies, and A- in Math a B in Science/Health and a B- in Language Arts. He was pretty disappointed in that B- and told us he know what he has to do to bring that up is increase his effort. He loves to write, he is very creative and comes up with great stories - but capitalization, punctuation and sentence structure are not very high on his list. Again not much of a surprise. He was a little disappointed that he did not get an E in gym (although his sister did).
Overall, we were pretty pleased. The kids aren't perfect, they're not genius', but they seem to like school, they try, they're pleasant to be around and teachers enjoy having them in class. Those things get people at least as far in life as perfect grades.
It's always a little frightening when a conference starts out with, "let me start with, he has really turned it around in the past month..." Hmmmm. Turned it around from what? Apparently Mrs. L was really worried about AOS Boy at the beginning of the year. He just wasn't doing what he was supposed to. He failed to turn in homework on time 10 times in the first 3 weeks. He told Mrs. L that it was *my fault. I always took it out of his folder and forgot to put it back. Finally when she picked up the phone, asked him for my number and told him she was going to call me, he fessed up. *That is exactly what he is like at home. Lying to avoid personal responsibility until you call him to the carpet and he has no place else to go. He has reportedly come a long way in a short time. He has not had a late or missing homework assignment in two weeks. He is generally "acting like a 5th grader." He is a pretty smart kid. He has had perfect spelling tests this year. His reading tests were nearly perfect (but he only will do one book report every other week so he's just at grade level, as opposed to above grade level). He had an A in Spelling and Social Studies, and A- in Math a B in Science/Health and a B- in Language Arts. He was pretty disappointed in that B- and told us he know what he has to do to bring that up is increase his effort. He loves to write, he is very creative and comes up with great stories - but capitalization, punctuation and sentence structure are not very high on his list. Again not much of a surprise. He was a little disappointed that he did not get an E in gym (although his sister did).
Overall, we were pretty pleased. The kids aren't perfect, they're not genius', but they seem to like school, they try, they're pleasant to be around and teachers enjoy having them in class. Those things get people at least as far in life as perfect grades.
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