Elementary Parent Teacher Conference Report

Elijah is an outspoken and prominent member of the first grade. He is extremely serious about his work, and now that we've introduced goal sheets and the guidelines have been laid out, he is much more comfortable and ready to set about addressing his agenda of productivity. He is very good at catching on to subtleties and has an excellent memory for details and procedures. He is quick to become perturbed and express his dismay with a situation, but accepts consequences when they are explained. Elijah is a strong personality and well-liked, though his attention seems to be directed much more toward his own work and ideas than to connecting with his classmates, whom he sometimes seems to accept as a part of the scenery.

Elijah is a strong reader, and should be encouraged as he extends his skills with books of the appropriate level. We are working on memorizing the addition tables, but he could always use extra practice at home, in the car, or anywhere you have a moment. We are in the process of going over the formation of letters and cementing good habits while we still have a chance. His pencil grip can be awkward, and we are trying to reinforce good habits at school. Elijah can practice this at home as well, perhaps in a journal or daily passage to copy.

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Hannah continues to work hard and take full advantage of what's offered in the classroom. She is an excellent role model for the younger children, and she takes her responsibility seriously. In the past few years, she has shown increasing interest in activities which allow for artistic expression - both written and visual- but is equally engaged in purely academic pursuits. Hannah is interested in everything we put on her plate; the question always seems to be how she will have time to get everything she wants to (and is assigned to) work on. She wears her heart on her sleeve, and as easily beam with glee over the prospect on an interesting work as she can "shut down" when she feels overwhelmed. In the end, Hannah seems to fully enjoy school and always manages to play the role of responsible student when she needs to.

Hannah is a strong reader, and her always-lagging spelling is still making its slow progress. She has been interested in works about capitalization and punctuation, which has had a good effect on the mechanics of her own writing. We will be writing in cursive by the holidays, so allow her to practice at home. Help Hannah to build up her speed and accuracy with the multiplication facts; we'll use these in our upcoming work with double digit problems, after which we'll have plenty of time to explore division by year's end. Hannah has shown a great deal of talent and interest in both visual arts and written expression, and would always enjoy chances to do more at home

Fall 2010 School Pictures

Hannah



Hannah's Class




Elijah


Elijah's Class




Leah


Leah's class

First Day of School!!

Today is Hannah's first day of kindergarten and Elijah's first day of preschool. They were both pretty excited this morning! Isn't this a cute picture?? Elijah wouldn't let me hold his hand once we walked through the door, he was READY to get to class. So, his drop off was super easy. Because not all first year students are as independent as Mr. Elijah, parents are not allowed to linger. That was kind of a bummer since my kid wasn't going to be throwing a screaming fit about being left... Then Hannah and I dropped off her lunchbox in the cafeteria and went to her classroom. Last year was a transition to a new teacher (Montessori students have the same teacher for three years), so this was the first time we'd seen the classroom set up the way Miss Beth wanted it. Hannah was a bit unnerved by the changes in the room (how unlike Elijah she is in that regard!!), but she saw several of her friends and that helped. I did linger for a minute until she was almost adjusted (I knew that the second her best friend, Daniela, arrived she'd forget about everything else). I left the school with just ONE child in tow. We drove to Target and did a little Elijah-free shopping. Just before lunch I'll pick up Elijah, and at the end of the school day we'll go get Hannah.

I'm very excited about Elijah's teacher, Miss Sarah. She has a classroom blog that she updates nearly every school day. Miss Beth (Hannah's teacher) isn't the computer-phobe that last year's teacher was, so maybe she'll start a blog as well.