Elliott and Natalie had parent-teacher conferences in late October. Natalie even did a self-assessment leading up to her student-led conference. She responded “yes” to important statements like “When something is hard, I keep trying” and “My work shows my very best effort”. And even the one statement or so that she wrote “No” to, “I use some lower case letters,” she has already improved on since the conference!
I am super proud of how hard Natalie is trying in school. She knows nearly all of her lower case letters, is working on phonetic spelling, is sounding out words, is negotiating friendships, etc. Here are some of her work samples.
Elliott’s conference with Ms. Krista was very positive too. He is adjusting well to Natalie not being at his school. He is making some new friends, though he still counts Natalie’s friends from last year as his too. (And Natalie tells me that some of them really look out for him.) One time, I visited class and saw him using wood pieces (e.g. straight lines, curved lines) to make letters (based on an outline). He told me today that his favorite class is recess. Natalie told me that her favorite class is reading.
My notebook with more specifics is at home and I’m typing this from Chicago, so hopefully I will add some more later.
Update – Notes from Elliott’s Conference
- Using handwriting without tears (same as Natalie) – working on b and p right now
- Learning lots of new vocab – like peninsula
- Working on sorting into categories, like animals by land, air and water
- Counting rods, counting with numerals
- Follows routines well
- To encourage independence, say “I bet you can do that yourself”
Update – Notes from Natalie’s Conference
- Gentle
- Tries hard
- Knows what she wants to say in her head and can execute
- Does a great job of including everyone
- Independent with projects
- Knew 19 sounds
- Still tripped up naming and knowing what the teen numbers look like, so we could do a running game outside (run to # 19, which would be chalked on the driveway), write all #s to 20, put them in order (ascending and descending)
- Goal for reading is to get to Level D (note: her thanksgiving independent reading books were level C)