Parent Teacher Conferences

I had parent teacher conferences yesterday sandwiched somewhere in between running, work, de-lousing the kids and babysitting at the Kaplan's. 

Amelia's conference went pretty much as I expected: her teacher said she is a pleasure to have in class, that she is "a talker" but that she waits until her work is done before she starts talking and that she is not disruptive. Academically she scored 100% on all of the first quarter assessments and scored "exceptionally well" on the limited standardized testing they do in kindergarten, which includes a measure of phonemic awareness and I forget what else. Reading-wise she is "cruising along", is bringing home "B" level reading books every night and is able to read them with a combination of sounding out and sight recognition.

I was a little bit worried about Charlie's conference, as I felt like he has had trouble getting in the groove this year so to speak. His teacher said he is a very sweet kid with a great personality and is doing well in school. He is currently in the top math and literacy section and is in Talent Developmemt for both math and literacy this year. His teacher said that he uses his time well, gets his assignments done on time, is "just as organized and responsible" as she "expects a 4th grade boy to be", and is doing well academically. Her main concern was that she had asked all the students to write down something they wanted her to know about how school was going before parent teacher conferences, and Charlie wrote that he felt "overwhelmed" with the volume of work and the pace of the work, that he worried about not being able to complete his assignments and that he sometimes had trouble sleeping at night because of this. So we had a long talk about this, because Charlie has come to me 2 times over the course of this quarter and has told me the same thing. But, at the same time, he does 90% of his work in class, turning it in before I ever see it and thus not allowing me to help him with it (and also clearly having the time to do it without even bringing it home.) The other piece is that he definitely brings some of the stress on himself -- the last time he told me he couldn't sleep was because he was worrying about typing up an assignment that didn't even have to be typed. (And which I just typed for him in two seconds to save him the trouble anyway.) 

Some of the stress definitely is caused by the extra assignments he has for Talent Development, so we considered moving him to the next section down which is still TD but without the extra assignments. However, in the end we decided to leave him where he is for the time being, as it has been a boost to his self esteem to be in the top sections even though it is kind of a reach for him to be there, and his teacher is going to encourage him to bring his work home for me to help him with, rather than doing it all on his own in school. And I need to make sure I really check in with him to make sure he's not feeling overwhelmed, as fourth grade is a biiiig leap from third grade. 

But all in all good reports for both :-)