Conferences

Since I was presenting at a national conferences during parent/teacher conferences a few weeks ago, I rescheduled them for last night. Here is what each teacher said:

Kadence: Overall a complete delight in the classroom. The teacher wished she could have a classroom full of Kadence's as she is compassionate towards others, LOVES to help out whenever and wherever it is possible, is self-confident and has positive self-esteem, needs to be challenged in all areas, and is a great role model for everyone else in her class. The teacher couldn't find any deficits or weaknesses yet with Kadence. She said that just that day, she had brought up the idea during group time that they were going to start learning their phone numbers. When she got done speaking, Kadence walked up to her and said, "Here is my phone number." Sure enough, Kadence had written down her number. The teacher said she will be creating more difficult tasks for Kadence so that her learning continues.

Nick: Overall a well-mannered, compassionate, and helpful boy. The teacher said she has to keep him challenged in math, which he states is his favorite subject. Nick had a difficult time with his eyes last year (vision therapy), but even with that, he is developmentally where the other children are in reading in the classroom. The teacher knows he can do more in this area, so she encouraged us to have him read more at home and to ask questions related to what he just read. The only major concern that she had for him was that he has been very quiet lately and is very nervous when he has to go in front of the classroom (something that has changed with him since last year). I asked Nick about this when we got home and he broke down in tears saying that there was a boy outside who always picked who was on the football teams. This boy never picks Nick, and since there are limited numbers of footballs for the entire grade, Nick cannot start a game of his own (his class is usually last to get outside). My heart broke for him... I know personally how difficult and hard it is when I was the one "standing on the sidelines" because no one wanted me to play. Aaron and I are going to Dunham's later today and buying more footballs. We are going to donate them to Nick's classroom so that he and other boys in his class can have them during recess. Hopefully this will help remedy the situation and Nick will be more confident in himself overall. I told him he needs to stand up for himself as well and tell that boy that he cannot choose who is on the team every day. Other children should have that opportunity. We'll see what happens...

Family picture

We decided to send out Thanksgiving cards/letters this year instead of Christmas ones. Here is the family picture that will be on our cards.