Parent Teacher Conferences and School Pics

Don't you just love school pictures?  There's something so cheesy and classic about them.  I like getting them, but I'm also grateful that I can do portraits of my kids on my own so I can show what they really look like. 

School Updates!

Sadie first.

 These papers are harder to read than I thought they would be.  This says that she is in the 96% for overall reading, 99% Text Fluency, 98% Comprehension, 53% Vocabulary, and 92% Spelling. (Not sure what happened with vocab, lol)

 This shows her almost off the charts for her reading.  The grade equivalent is 4.5, 96% I think.

 This shows her at the top of the chart for math, grade equivalent 3.7, 95%

I don't usually hear negative feedback for Sadie.  This was no different.  Her teacher is very happy with her scores (obviously) and says she does well following rules and socially as well.  I've been going into her class to help with math so I see the difference in levels with these kids.  It's crazy.  Some of them are literally counting dots.  And then some of them are doing multiplication basically.  I wish they used a different program so I could see what she's doing and how I can help her or challenge her.  Plus, the one they use has way too much "game" time instead of "work" time.  It's called Prodigy.  They used to use Moby Max which I think was better.  But I'm not in control of that.

Sadie finally started reading Harry Potter with me.  She has the same attitude as Dylan, which is a short attention span.  So the big books were unappealing to her because they would take too long to finish. We tried reading it together but she whined.  Eventually I got the audiobook on my library app (after being on hold for probably a year).  She enjoyed listening to it and listened to it twice in one weekend.  So she took a test on it and did great.  She wanted me to get the second book on audiobook but I told her it would take at least a few months.  So I convinced her to read it with me.  She likes it when I read to her (occasionally I can convince her to read to me, usually she ends up reading in her head.)  She's very into it now.  But it does take a long time for her to get through it because she doesn't spend hours in her room reading like Kylee did.  Even Dylan does that now depending on what he's reading or if he's allowed to do electronics (he will always choose electronics). 

I'm very proud of Sadie and so happy I don't have to worry about her.  She does her homework packet easily and usually passes the pre-spelling test so she gets challenge words.  We study a little and she does really well. 

Dylan.

Dylan is a smart kid.  He's in GATE again this year.  I've never really thought I needed to check PowerSchool for grades for any of my kids.  Early in the year he mentioned that he had taken his math out to recess so he could finish it so he wouldn't have homework.  He really feels like school work should be done at school and home time should be solely dedicated to friends or screens or soccer.  This made me nervous, the idea of him rushing through his math.  But I figured if he was still doing okay on his assignments then it wouldn't be a problem.  I had intended to send his teacher an email just to check because Dylan NEVER brings home any papers from school so I had no idea how he was doing.  But before I got a chance to send an email, his teacher reached out to me.  She told me she knows Dylan is a smart kid but his grades are not reflecting that.  I wrote back immediately and told her that he likes to rush through things and I will talk to him.  Then I checked his grades...  He had a C in math and a D in Spelling/Vocab!  What?!  He's always done well with spelling and I've always been impressed with his understanding of vocabulary from his reading.  So I emailed his teacher again asking if he can please make up the assignments that he did poorly on, that I needed to go over things with him to see where he's not getting it.  She lets them make up work for half credit.  So if he missed 14 on something, he can fix what he missed and earn back 7 points.  It's not perfect but it's better than nothing.  I talked to Dylan about bringing home his spelling packet so we could study, and found out that most kids in the class use the resources provided to complete their vocabulary.  The use a website called Spelling City.  But of course that takes extra time so Dylan was just trusting his brains to know the right answers.  He was doing okay on spelling but the vocab was a mess.  And his math was a mess because he was rushing and just not understanding the question, or only doing one part of a two-part question, etc.  He seemed to know the math for the most part, just needed to take more time.

Slowly but surely he made up work that he could and he started turning up with better scores.  By the end of the trimester (which is Thanksgiving and this is being back-dated before that, but whatever) he ended up with an A in Spelling and a B+ in Math.  He also met his goal for both reading points (testing on books to earn points) and math lessons passed on Imagine Math (I don't like this program at all.  Perhaps I'm not using it correctly.  It just gives the kids questions to see if they know it.  It does not teach.  If they pass the pre-quiz, they pass the lesson.  If they fail that, they have like two questions that will try and explain how they got their answer, then more practice questions and then the post-quiz.  I don't help Dylan with either quiz, because if he can't pass the pre-quiz without help then he clearly needs the practice questions.  And then he has to do the post quiz on his own to know that he knows the stuff.  Other than the fact that it doesn't actually teach any math, it also moves too fast.  I'm not sure if it would move slower if he failed a bunch or not.  But instead of introducing decimals, it introduces them and in the same breath asks you to work a problem backwards.  Things he can barely figure out using whole numbers, they are asking him to do with fractions and decimals.  It's probable hard to understand without examples.  I just wish they would have him work on adding decimals first.  Then, once he proved he had that down, start manipulating the questions.  I know they are teaching kids these days "common core" or whatever method of math so they will have a better understanding of it than my generation did as kids.  But it's frustrating.  The other problem is that it depends on the time of day and what has happened that day whether or not Dylan will be able to be productive.  One day we were working on a lesson and I was explaining it to him and he seemed to get it.  But we had to stop in the middle of it because he had a birthday party.  He went and ate candy and played with his friends.  When he got back later in the day, he could not do the same questions he had just done a couple hours before.  Whether it's the sugar or food dyes, or just the time of day or coming down from the excitement of friends.  It was very frustrating for both of us.  And he gets incredibly frustrated, probably because he's used to things being easy for him.  But the questions are just stupid!  One day I was getting mad and he was getting upset and I had to tell him that I'm frustrated with the stupid program and that he's doing just fine.  Seriously, it's stupid and I'm not sure how Kylee did it so well the last two years.  I think she may have failed more than I realized.  If you fail a lesson you end up coming back to it eventually.  Anyway, enough about Imagine Math.)  Dylan had to basically do a lesson a day in order to meet his goal and he did great.

Dylan is also participating in The Battle of the Books with a couple of his friends.  Which means he has to read four books each trimester and then have a battle where they answer questions about the books as a team.  It was fun watching Kylee last year.  Dylan loses interest in books that he doesn't love so I was a little worried he wouldn't like this.  But he has stepped up and done it.  He sets goals as to how many chapters he has to read each night in order to finish the books before they are due back.  He told me one night that he wanted to stay upstairs and read on the couch because he is less likely to fall asleep while reading and he needed to finish two chapters.  He might be the kind of guy who looks for the easiest and quickest way to do things.  But he does hard things.  He steps up when he needs to.  I'm proud of him.

Kylee

Kylee's report was not surprising at all.  She's an amazing student.  And she's always on top of her own work, she's so responsible.  I debated on whether I should even bother going to her PTC because I've heard it takes forever to wait in line for the teachers at Sandcreek.  But the evening wasn't super crazy so I headed over there.  I'm glad I did because it was fun hearing the teachers talk about Kylee.  I expected them to spend 2 minutes telling me she's great and there are no concerns (and also that they love her, because they all do.)  But they spent longer than that telling me that yes, her grades are great, but she is so NICE.  All three teachers that I spoke with (one was missing and the other two are elective teachers) ensured me that she is the kindest, happiest girl and she participates and she's polite.  I was almost blushing with how much gushing they were doing.  Kylee wasn't with me because she was at soccer practice.  Mr Emfield told me that it is quite rare to see such kindness in girls this age, sad but true.  He said 7th grade is when the claws come out.  He said it multiple times, that he hopes she stays this way forever, that she's a joy to have in class, etc, etc. 

I'm going to pause for a minute and just say that I wish I could take credit for her.  I know we raise her to the best of our abilities and I wish I could say that she's the way she is because of me and Ryan, but the truth is she has been the way she is from the day she was born.  She just came that way.  She's amazing.  And this applies to all my children.  They are all amazing kids and they each have amazing qualities and they all just came that way!  So I may have blushed a bit at the praise I received for all of them, but really it's not my compliment to accept.  God gave me some great kids.

I talked to Mr Emfield about math.  I was still not sure if I had made the right decision putting her in pre-algebra even though that is where she was placed.  Actually, I can't remember if I've blogged about this yet.  I think I have.  Somehow Kylee was placed in pre-Algebra instead of the more advanced 7th grade Algebra.  A lot of the other kids we know were placed in Algebra including Averi, Sydni and Anna.  And JT and Lucas.  They took a placement test and those guys got placed and Kylee did not.  There is only one 7th grade class so they only take 32 or so.  Now, Kylee has been the highest in her class in math for a long time now.  I'm sure Lucas was right up there with her.  And maybe some of her friends were too but as far as Imagine Math goes, she's the only one that completed the 8th grade lessons according to her teacher.  And Kylee.  When Averi was placed in Algebra Jen was really confused as to how she made it above Kylee.  The whole thing bothered me and I had originally planned to move her up to 8th grade Algebra.  They would've let her.  But after talking to Anna's mom, my friend Aria, about the future of math and high school classes and college dual credit classes, it seemed to me that there was no reason to push them in math now unless they planned on doing some advanced math above calculus Senior year.  I don't see any reason for that unless your field is math or engineering or something.  There were other reasons.  The ACT is usually taken Junior year, and so you will have just had Algebra 2 and it will be fresh, whereas if you take Algebra 2 Freshman year and Trig the next, you will have Trig fresh in your head but there is very little Trig on the ACT.  I ultimately decided there is no reason so cause her extra stress doing difficult math when she can take easier math and do really well in it and understand it well before moving on.  She can have more fun instead of homework.  Averi is in Algebra and she has a lot of homework and she is quite stressed.  So I asked Mr Emfield if Kylee is in the right place, if it is too easy for her.  He said she's great.  He even looked at her test scores from the end of last year and she scored 975 out of 1000, the equivalent of a high school senior.  My best guess about the placement test is that there were more than 32 who made it so they sort of randomly added whoever.  Either way her teacher said, "if she wanted to transfer over to Algebra I would vouch for her."  I said no, she loves Mr Emfield and is doing great in that class.  I feel good about our choice.

Talking to her Language Arts teacher was interesting.  She told me that Kylee has an A, which isn't surprising to me, but I guess it is rare.  She showed me this grading rubric and explained that in order to get an A, they have to be more than proficient, they have to be an expert.  They have to be able to teach it.

She said there is extra work that she has been doing to prove that she is more than proficient in order to earn her A.  Kylee has mentioned that her teacher says, "a B is great, you should be really happy with a B."  But Kylee does not accept that.  She wants an A!!  She is working really hard. (By the end of the trimester she had an A-, 92%.  Just 1% from her A.  She was so sad!  But I was really proud anyway.)

This new grading plan is wreaking havoc in the high school especially.  Ryan said it is probably affecting scholarships which is a big deal.  I hope they get it straightened out before my kids are in high school!

After talking to three of her main teachers, I decided I may as well talk to her choir and crafts teachers because I was having so much fun, lol.  Her choir teacher praised Kylee's voice and said "I just gave her... I mean she just EARNED a solo part in our performance coming up."  And she said exploratory choir will be doing different things each trimester so if Kylee wanted to take it again it wouldn't be a repeat.  Kylee does indeed want to continue to take it.

Her crafts teacher is funny.  He praised her, of course.  But he also had a missing assignment for her on something that I knew she had finished because she had been wearing the bead bracelet around.  Kylee told me that he loses papers all the time.  It was easy for her to turn it in again.  Something about this teacher Mr Thomson that is nice, Kylee told me she was walking down the hall with Averi on one side of her and Kylie Paskett on the other and Mr Thomson was standing in his doorway talking to a teacher across the hall.  As their group approached he told the other teacher, "see that girl in the middle there?  She's one of the best students I've ever had!"  Kylie Paskett was like, "aw, how nice!"  I guess she was more affected by it than my Kylee because she relayed the story to her parents. 

Occasionally I wonder if it is difficult being friends with Kylee.  Most kids have strengths and weaknesses and are good at some things and not at others.  Kylee seems to excel at everything she tries.  I know both Kylie P and Averi have had moments of frustration feeling like they aren't that great at anything in particular.  I imagine comparing themselves to Kylee is not easy.  I joked with my Kylee about how it's like a broken record, it's all I ever hear, "oh Kylee is so wonderful."  I hope she remains humble and knows when to keep her celebrating for a private place.  Kylie P was offered $100 for a modeling job.  Kylee A said she wanted to do that!  She asked Kylie P who she sent her picture to in order to get the job.  Kylie P said they were looking for red-heads.  Ha!  Nothing Kylee A can do about that, lol.  Ryan said it's probably good to let Kylie P have that thing to herself.

I walked away from all the parent-teacher conferences feeling light as a feather and incredibly blessed.  How did I get so lucky?!  Who knows how Kaden will do at school, but he is so mild mannered and sweet I can't imagine he's going to have too hard of a time.  Although he's been saying he doesn't want to go to preschool lately.  I guess he just has too much fun staying home with me all day.