I must say, I’m really excited to go to parent teacher conferences (PTCs).  I love hear what the teachers have to say about my kids in the classroom – it’s a glimpse into their world that I don’t get to see.  It’s also neat for me to hear what the teachers think of my kids and to hear them describe them in class.

I know my kids put on a different “front” if you will, at school than at home, which is perfectly normal, I think.  At home, they’re more relaxed, they have siblings with whom they have a love/hate relationship, and they are in their “home life” mode.  For me, this means I see 99.99% of their worst behavior.  I’m not saying all of their behavior is bad at home, but I get the brunt of their misbehavior.  Parent teacher conferences give me a glimpse to see how they are with another adult and their peers.  It’s an opportunity for me to see their personality in school, and for me to get an idea of how they’re doing in their grade-level.

Yesterday, we had all three conferences with all the teachers.  I was interested to hear what everyone had to say about each child.  I’ll go in the order of the conferences.

Jonas is in his third year of pre-school.  Long story short, he could have gone into kindergarten at a private school and transferred into public school in first grade, but the private school we were looking at was no longer accepting “young” kids this year due to a restructuring of their elementary school – they combined two grades together.  There was also a change in the pre-school (where Jonas and Karis attend), with a change of the pre-school teacher.  All the changes in the school were an answer to prayer for us for what to do with Jonas.  Jonas was ready for kindergarten academically (no question), but socially, he was still a little shy, and the school’s change in their elementary school made our decision for us.  At pre-school, Jonas had two new teachers (who changed the routine a little bit) and new peers, so it was like being a new pre-school, even though he had been there for three years.  I think it’s been good for him to grow in his confidence.

At Jonas’ conference, Mrs. S and Mrs. J talked about how much Jonas knew and how he is so bright.  I don’t think my husband and I were too surprised given that he was already academically ready for kindergarten last year.  However, I can see how there is a big gap between him and his youngest peers – there potentially being a year difference between his peers.  Mrs. S and Mrs. J did share that Jonas has quite a few playmates, which was great to hear!  It was good to hear how he’s been growing socially, and I’m glad that he’s starting to come out of his shell more.  I know that he’ll still probably be shy in new situations, but it’s great to hear how he’s growing.  Mrs. S told us that they enjoy Jonas so much, and he’s such a good role model for the class.

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Following Jonas, we had Karis’ PTC with the same teachers – Mrs. S and Mrs. J.  Before I go on, I must say that there is a stark difference going between the two conferences.  With Jonas, he’s pretty much the maximum age for most pre-schoolers, and he’s excelling and ready for kindergarten (probably even now, even though it’s early in the school year).  Now, we had to switch gears to talking about the other spectrum of pre-school – the newbies if you will.  Karis is probably one of the youngest, it’s her first year, and she’s still a little developmentally delayed in her speech.  Thinking about this during and after the conference, made me realize how much the kids change between 3 to 5.  It’s amazing!

Mrs. S and Mrs. J both had good things to say about Karis.  Mrs. S (the lead teacher) told us it’s been quite an adjustment for her to teach the 3’s class since she mostly taught kindergarteners.  I think she also is seeing the start contrast that I see between Jonas and Karis in her 3’s class and 4’s class.  Karis is doing well and she’s starting to learn to sit down for prolonged periods of time, and she’s learning to pay attention.  She can’t pay attention for too long (and we’ve seen this ourselves at swim lessons this fall), but she’s starting to learn.  Mrs. S and Mrs. J say she loves playing with Evan and follows him around.  Evan goes to our church, so I’m not super surprised by this, but I did expect her to play with the other kids since she’s more of an extrovert.  Mrs. S and Mrs. J says she does her own thing most of the time (which I remembered that the boys did also at 3).  I’m sure towards the end of this year, she’ll start playing more with her peers.

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We ended our day of conferences with an evening one with Mrs. G, Sean’s teacher.  Mrs. G started by saying she is really happy to have Sean in her class, and she really enjoys having him.  I could her the genuineness of her comment, and it brought a smile to my face.  I wasn’t too surprised since Sean’s kindergarten and first grade teachers expressed almost the exact same sentiment.

Sean is doing well academically, which also isn’t too surprising.  Sean has told me over and over again his favorite part of school is math, and it showed in his report card.  Mrs. G told us that Sean is pretty unique when it comes to math.  She said, for some kids math comes easy to them, and they can do it, but then they have a hard time explaining their thought process.  Sean is not one of them.  He is able to explain pretty clearly what he’s thinking and how he gets to the answer.  In fact, she said that Sean had described how to solve some math problems in a way that doesn’t have a name (i.e. counting by tens, doubling, etc.), and the class has coined this way as “Sean’s way”.  Mrs. G said that he smiles every time the class refers to it at as “Sean’s way”.  It made me smile too, and I’m glad that Sean is proud of himself.

Mrs. G did mention one area that Sean is not consistent in – self control.  Again, I’m not surprised, because this had been mentioned before in previous years.  She said that Sean is sneaky, but not in a malicious way.  He likes to take things away from those that are sitting around them and hide them.  Mrs. G said he’s just trying to be funny, but sometimes his classmates don’t understand and get frustrated.  Fortunately, Mrs. G usually has to correct him only once, and it’s enough.

We did ask how Sean is doing with his peers since we hear less about who he plays with now.  Mrs. G said that Sean is very good natured, and she never hears anything negative from his peers or complaints from his peers.  It made me smile thinking about how Sean is a very good natured good, and that’s his personality.  He’s friendly, and easy to get along with.

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It was a busy day, but it was great to hear how everyone was doing!