Conferences and 3 year review

Today was conference day. Or I should say conferences day. Since I have 3 children in the school system of course it would make sense I have 3 conferences to attend. Originally, Carolyn's and Andrew's conferences were scheduled for afternoon times but I had Matthew's 3 year evaluation meeting scheduled for 7:45 this morning and the loving husband playing babysitter I decided to move things around a bit and try and get everything done in the morning.

My first conference was with Carolyn's teacher at 7:30. That one went very well. Carolyn is doing great in class and there have been few problems with her behaviors or academic skills. The teacher was very pleased to inform me that Carolyn's scissors skills have greatly improved and she is able to hold the scissors correctly and cut shapes that actually look like the shape and not a shredded mess. Her handwriting is also getting to the point I can recognize the letters in her name and she is starting to press harder when she writes. As for social skills, Carolyn is very social in class and gets along with the other kids very well. She is friends with the other girls and they are very encouraging and helpful.

My next meeting was the three year review for Matthew. I was a few minutes late to that meeting due to my conference with Carolyn's teacher. Fortunately it was the same building so I only had to change rooms. That was the long meeting of the day, lasting about 90 minutes or so. I'll go into detail later on that meeting.

My last conference was with Andrew's teacher. Carolyn had this teacher for the two years she was in the early childhood program so this was someone I was very familiar with. So far Andrew has made the adjustment from at home toddler to pre-schooler. His tantrums in class have decreased in the past few weeks and he loves being a helper whenever he can. He still has issues with transitions from different stations and is not very fond of going to speech. As expected his counting and alphabet skills are above average and the staff use counting and letters as a calming method when Andrew gets upset. It was also mentioned that Andrew's singing and dancing skills inspire the other kids to move and grove when a certain number song is sung or played on the radio. He has improved socially from only wanting to play by himself to parallel play next to other kids and at times will play with one or two other boys and has shown empathy skills towards his classmates. He will qualify for the summer session so I'll have another meeting to discuss summer goals later this spring.

Overall, it was a long and informative morning. The good news was almost everything said about the kids was positive. There are still some things they need to work on and I've got more stuff to work on at home with everyone but compared to some of the conferences and meetings I've sat through in the past 4 years or so, I'll take today.