Student Led Conferences

Today Jill has been off school. We went to the gym this morning then went over to the school for "Student Led Conferences". Basically Jill showed us all her work and we played around in her classroom for a while. We were the only ones there at the time so we had a good time trying a few games, and she taught us some dances that she's been learning in gym class. The teacher said that last night the place was CRAZY. Apparently the younger siblings were a significant part of the craziness. I'm sure glad we have the flexibility to be able to go when others usually cannot be there. I've been there when there are a ton of other people...and it's not fun. Mostly that's because I have to worry about Peirce (who tends to really like to whoop it up with some of Jill's friends younger siblings).

Jill is doing well in school. Nothing seems to be too much of a challenge for her (perhaps that could be a concern actually) and she is enjoying what they're doing in class. A big factor in that is that she really likes her teacher. Her teacher seems to have a good balance between being strict and proving enough latitude for Jill to have some choice in how she spends her time and gets her work done. I really couldn't come up with any suggestions for areas that she could focus on for improvement in the next reporting period...well, except for neatness. She doesn't seem to care too much about whether or not things are printed perfectly. She's more into effeciency - which translates into some things getting kind of messy. But really, that's her personality. She's my 'random' child. She doesn't need things lined up and put away like Peirce seems to (and I seem to as well!) Creativity is her thing - and she has always been one who didn't care too much about clean rooms, tidy printing and things like that. Maybe though if I continue to hound her about she'll change (then again, maybe not!) LOL

The one thing I would change is the reams of worksheet style work they seem to do...but I mostly just bite my tongue and don't say anything. I'm not a worksheet person at all. I realize though that sometimes it's the best way to survive in the classroom. In a perfect world I'd never have my kids doing worksheets. But then I'd probably have to take over and homeschool to have that happen - and right now that just doesn't seem like the right thing to do.

Jill's teacher has had some serious health issues the past few years. I feel really bad for her. She's not old enough to have to go through all the issues. I really like her as a taecher. It's just too bad that she's had such a challenge with her health. I hope she gets things figured out soon. It can't be fun to always be in pain! She said she's seeing a specialist during Spring Break though. Hopefully he'll have some answers.

Overall, I'm really happy with how things have gone for us as far as school goes with Jill. Putting her in French Immersion was really the right thing. When I look back on how much work I did trying to figure out what school would be the right one for her - it's funny that we ended up going to a CBE school. I plan to also put Peirce in French Immersion next year too. Sometimes I wonder if I should be going through the same excruciating process with him and try to analyze everything to figure out what would be best - but the truth is I feel good about putting him in the same program as well. I hope it isn't just that I'm not as vigilant about these things with the second child as I was with the first!

Peirce is very excited about going to school. It's been a long time coming! I'm really excited for him to be able to go to Kindergarten in September. He will love it. He's more of a routine kid. He likes routines, he likes things to be what he expects them to be, and he follows the rules like a charm (well, in public anyway...at home things aren't always that way...but if I had to pick I'd rather he act 'proper' in public and give me the hard time at home!) Lately he's really getting good at a lot of pre-reading skills. He knows the sounds of most of the letters, can come up with rhyming words, loves to be read to, and I think soon he'll be able to start sounding out words. If I really worked with him I think he could be reading in the next six months - but I'm not sure I'm going to push it with him (here comes the less-vigilent issues with the second child again). Lately he is also starting to figure our addition. It's pretty cute. We seem to do that most often when we're in the van. I'll ask him what 1 + 2 is and he gets his fingers going and is very proud to tell me the answer. It's really fun to see him start to catch on to all these kinds of things.