Parent Teacher Conferences

Last week both the older kids had their parent teacher conferences. Lexi's was first and I was excited to see how much she's learning.

We got to "help" them with an art project at the start.

Lexi's elephant!

Then the teacher (not the lady in pink) had them show us their spelling and math skills.

I sat back and watched Lexi perform with her class. She was happy about it, but she's happy the majority of the time anyway. When they started to do the math problems, though, I was really, really surprised to see her whole face light up. Her entire body posture changed - she was suddenly sitting straight up, leaning forward and excitedly watching the white board for the next problem. While the other kids were counting on their fingers (addition and subtraction only up to 10), Lexi was already shouting the answer. Not once had it crossed my mind that Lexi would be so passionate about math. I was seriously shocked.

After the other kids and parents left, I talked to Lexi's teacher about her progress. She said that Lexi gets rowdy sometimes because she's bored. Apparently Lexi is "ready to read," but at the preschool level, they're not allowed to start teaching them to read yet. Mrs. Hedges recommended I start on some early reader books with her at home and said she would do great with them. Then I mentioned how I noticed Lexi got extra excited about the math part and Mrs. Hedges said, "Oh, yeah. Lexi LOVES math." She then went on to say that, again, because of preschool policies, she can only teach addition and subtraction up to 10, but that Lexi is more than ready to keep going. She suggested we get flash cards and work with Lexi at home. (Which I went out and got that day.)

It's a good thing Shane is good at math 'cause Lexi will know more than me in a few years!

Later that same day, we went to Kaden's PTC and heard great things about him as well. He's reading at a first grade level and his regular teacher and art teacher are really impressed with his drawings. The only thing his teacher had wanted to really work with him on at the last PTC was his social skills - mainly getting him more comfortable speaking loudly and clearly in front of the class. He's doing MUCH better at that now, although he's still quiet and gets shy sometimes. But his teacher stressed that that's just fine and as long as he's making progress, she's happy.

 And now Ari talks about her imaginary teacher who she loves. 

hahaha Poor girl.

On a random note:

I have been wanting to get the kids a little play pop-up tent for a while. I saw a cool one at Kohls, but it was $40. Then I saw it was on clearance for $11! And I had a 30% off coupon! So, we now have a super fun tent that all the kids had to have a turn getting their picture taken while in the tunnel (that detaches easily if they don't want to use it).