school reports

It was Ehren's birthday yesterday and usually we do something with the kids in the evening, or just us but the only time that worked to have parent teacher conferences was last night and it's not a quick there and back when you see 3 teachers.  At the same time, I love sharing it with Ehren.  It's nice for him to see the details of kids' school life and just gives us more to talk about how we can be there better for our kids.  So it was a great date night in my mind anyway :)

We started off with Kason's teacher and no surprises there.  They tested him for reading and his level is so high there's nobody in his class to match up with.  The teacher said she could work one on one with him but it's more fun to be in a little group with his buddies and work as a group.  So he'll actually work on a bit easy books for him but he'll bring books home to read that are harder and we can work on that ourselves.  The hard things for him are the fine motor skills and writing.  It doesn't come easy to him and has to work hard to make the letters nice.  At the same time it's very frustrating to him because he knows exactly what they should look like and could even write his own sentences but his hand is not matching up with what he knows. :) So we need to really work on that.  Otherwise, he's just a very smart little boy and has such a kind loving heart.  I just hope he can get challenged enough in the future because he loves learning new things and if there's too much of repetitive and easy things he starts to misbehave because he's bored.

It was so nice talking to Anika's teacher.  She loves how sweet and kind Anika is.  She is so responsible and independent and works so hard at everything.  Math doesn't click for her as easily as for our boys but I loved what her teacher said.  She said that she sees way too many people being concerned with the test scores and how much ahead their kids are in 1st grade, but they forget to let the kids just be kids.  Anika loves to play pretend plays with Kason or by herself and the teacher said that is so wonderful and so important at her age.  If they can play and let their imagination grow, it will be way more beneficial to them later on than worrying about test scores.  And she's really not behind on anything, she eventually gets everything they are working on and once she knows it she really knows it well.  Her reading is really good and I am just happy she loves school and is excited and ready to go every day. She also loves homework and that's always the first thing on her mind when she gets home to get everything done.

And Kade's teacher was the last stop.  This is the first year when they are getting grades on everything besides the standardized tests that everyone has to take.  It is a bit of a learning curve for Kade because he never had to work for his grades but it's exactly what he needs before he starts Middle school next year.  The teacher says he knows Kade is really smart and just gets everything right away, but he misses a lot of details or doesn't pay full attention to every problem and stuff so his grades are not showing his potential at all.  But they just started the grades and since that never mattered to Kade before, it's something new.  Before, if he got 2 problems wrong because he rushed he would just say that's ok, I know how it should be but that's over now.  If you miss 2 problems that is a C. :)  So they are trying to scare the kids a little bit before going to Middle school and to just really think about every homework and every assignment because it's graded and therefore really matters.  His reading level is really high, I guess someone messed up and they gave all the kids last year a way too hard of a reading test but even then Kade did really well while most students took a bad hit on it.  And on the math tests he scores high all the time too, it's just those details he needs to be aware of and not rush with his assignments.  I'm really glad Kade got this particular teacher though.  He's a lot more strict than the other teachers but he says when his kids go to Middle school and were getting average grades in his class, they are on honor roll there.  All because he's teaching them they need to put the effort into a good grade, just knowing the subject doesn't make a good grade.  So I think this is so good for Kade and we've been talking about grades a lot because I want him to understand the importance of it and of working hard at everything.

It was a good night, I always like when there's tangible things we can do now to help our kids in areas they need it.  We got home and had Ehren's usual birthday pie - a chocolate almond mousse pie.  I only make it for his birthday or some special occasions so it means a lot to us and the kids when we have it.  Kind of like with certain Christmas goodies we only have once a year and somehow it makes it more special then.