A week or so ago we had our first of what I know will be many parent-teacher conferences.
Oh and this is what Letty wore to picture day. Picture Day. Already. Anyway.
Going in we were quite the nervous two parents. On Wednesday's pick up the teacher informed Matt that Letty was quite "chatty" that day so we figured.... Great. This should be good. The boys stayed with my mom and Letty helped the aide set up the room for the day while we sat down on these two tiny little blue chairs across a tiny desk from Mrs. Shearn.
The conference itself went as expected I suppose. General points being that:
- She shows no interest in learning her numbers or letters
- She has finally come out of her shy shell and has branched out from her two best friends to others in the class as well
- Her vocabulary has greatly improved from the beginning of the year
- She is respectful of authority and rules and never breaks them.
- She was a follower until Christmas and has finally become more of a leader
- Her teacher recommends instead of full day kindergarten next year we do three full days of preschool for another year.
- Her teacher was floored to hear she is loud or bossy or anything but a wallflower at home. She said Letty tells her David gets in trouble a lot but when we told her no that's actually Letty she couldn't believe it.
- She should have her speech evaluated, as her teacher is picking up on an issue or two and had problems understanding her at the beginning, but feels it could be corrected quite quickly and easily.
I'm mostly glad to hear that she is well behaved. I shuddered to think of how she could have been treating the kids and the teachers. So I'm glad that she reserves that evil for me when she arrives at home. I'm glad that she has friends. I'm glad that she listens and is kind and respectful. But what kills me is her lack of interest in learning. I was always a student. I loved homework and memorization and quizzing and all of that. I prided myself on getting great grades and doing well. To have a daughter who seems to care less is going to be very difficult for me to handle. I will have to train myself to give her a break. I'll just spend all my memorization and scholarly skills on David since he seems to respond better.
The teacher gave us all kinds of recommendations for how to help her out with her interest in learning. Mainly trying to find ways to trick her into learning in her day to day life. Using crafts as learning tools and playing with them in that manner. Continue reading to her often and she also recommended a few apps or tools we can use on our iPad. But only for short periods of time and don't frustrate her or push her too hard (uhm yeah that won't be hard for me).
So that's that. Five months in. What she's up to. Now we know for sure what we should do for her for next year. I've been on the fence forever it seems about that. I was the youngest in my grade and was fine with that, but Matt was the oldest in his grade and he was fine with that. So we have been at a standstill. Her teacher just reminded us we need to do what's best for Letty so she will be a leader and not a follower. To think of her down the road transitioning from 8th grade to 9th grade or 10th grade to 11th grade, not just into kindergarten. And so I guess we know where Letty will be in the fall.... which to be honest a part of me is really happy about. The thought of having her go to school five days a week all day long was a bit terrifying. To me. Not to her. She could care less.
Her motto.
Preschool a month in here.
