Parent Teacher Conferences

First let me apologize for not posting as often as I mean to lately.  It's been a crazy couple of weeks.

I love parent teacher conferences.  Seriously, I love them.  A lot.  Does that make me odd?  Probably.  I don't just love them because I hear good things about my kids either.  I do love hearing how great my kids are though.  It's a great bonus of parent teacher conferences.

I love parent teacher conferences as it gives me a chance to sit down, one on one, with my child's teacher and be a partner in their education.  Even though my kids are very good kids and smart kids, they still have things they need to work on in school.  This gives me a chance to sit down with their teachers and discuss those things.  To help find a solution to them.  To let the teachers know what I think about the game plan.  The teacher might be the coach, but I'm still the owner of this team.

I found these questions which would be great to take with you when you attend parent teacher conference and ask the teacher:

Who is my child to you?

Who are they as readers, writers, community members?

What makes them unique?

What are they passionate about?

How do they add value to your class and the wider community?

What makes you proud?

My oldest has test anxiety.  He's advanced in everything, but he is horrible at test taking.  Thankfully his teachers are willing to work around this.  We're trying some things out and working towards helping him ignore the fact that it's a "test" and just do the best that he can.  Otherwise his teacher says that he is an amazing human being. 

My older daughter has her vision issues.  Her teacher says she has no worries about her academically and is frankly amazed at how well she does considering the fact that she can't see as well as the other kids.  The game plan with her is to figure out what is going to be the best course of action moving forward from here.  Not just for this year, but for the coming years to.  Her teacher is bound and determined to find a solution.  Even with her vision issues she is still reading at least two grade levels above and is about a grade level above in math.  She is crazy smart.

My younger son has a reading issue, but only at school.  Since we had a conference I was able to find out that he is still reading at a lower level at school then he does at home.  We found towards the end of the last school year that my son feels that he is a great reader at home (which he is), but that at school he is a bad reader.  He was getting that impression from his teacher.  So his current teacher is now aware of this fact and will work on bulstering him up in reading; in letting him know that he can read his best at school as well as at home.  This kid is my artist.  He's still a smart kid, but will probably never be the academic that his siblings are and that is okay.  I am astounded by his talent with art and hope that he continues to nurture that love.

My youngest started kindergarten this year and needs to work on her teen numbers.  She knows them, but still doesn't always get them in the correct order.  Easy enough.  Otherwise she is ahead of where she needs to be in everything else.  She has been waiting for so long to go to school and is loving every minute of it.

I happen to adore my kids teachers too.  The three younger kids all have teachers that an older sibling had.  I was so excited to see each of their names on their class assignment.  The oldest teacher just started at our school last year, but from what I knew of him I was extremely happy about that placement too.  My kids teachers all know and understand my kids well.  They truly care about them and how they are doing.  They are wonderful people who I just enjoy talking to and being around.  Which is a good thing as I'm at the school a lot!

So that is why I love parent teacher conferences.  The teachers are amazing and I'm able to help them be the best teacher possible for my child and my child's needs.  Being an active participant in my children's lives is an amazing thing!  I'm grateful to my parents for attending all my conferences growing up and showing me that my education was important to them.  I hope that some day my children will feel the same.