Report on parent-teacher conferences

The parent-teacher conferences from yesterday went really well with good reports for both girls. My first grader has straight 100s so far this grading period, and is reading on a second grade level. She's one of seven first graders who have a book discussion club and she gets other extra work as well.

My fourth grader has A's and B's; her grades have dropped even from the last grading period, when she had her first ever B's on her report card, but her grades are still good. She is capable of better so we'll keep working with her and encouraging her. It's not that she doesn't understand, it's mostly a matter of not paying attention to directions and details. She sometimes skips problems or does them incorrectly because she didn't pay attention to the directions or the details, and sometimes they throw in trick questions. I can look and see right away what happened, so I can see that it's not that she doesn't understand. Her teacher also pointed out that spring in the fourth grade is a time when "love" blooms ...

All the kids came with me to the school of course, and they played in the first grader's room while I talked to the teacher. My son loves it in there because there is pint-sized furniture in the reading corner and all sorts of things to dump in the floor in the math corner. They went to the pre-k room while I went to the fourth grader's class; they painted, played with blocks, played in the sandbox, and had all manner of fun. None of them wanted to leave when I finished so I had to gently encourage them to wrap things up so we could head home for lunch. They were very well behaved so I was proud of them for that.