conferences
I had student-teacher conferences for the bigkids this week. At Cyber Village Academy they have this format where all the teachers are around all day, and you can talk to each of them as they become available.
Isaac's are always pretty easy. I had this same conversation with multiple of his teachers:
Teacher: So... Isaac is brilliant and wonderful and amazing. But you probably hear this from all the teachers? You are probably tired of hearing it? Should I go on...?
Me: no, it's okay, you can go on. I can handle it.
Isaac is in 7th grade, but in 8th grade classes. His math teacher said that he's already almost done with 8th grade math.
My Raphael got tested for where he is with math and reading. He's at a 6th-grade level for math and an 8th-grade level for reading. He's in 3rd grade. So, you know, doing ok. He's also had a bit of sassiness and not following directions going on in class, but his teacher is a stander of no nonsense and she is nipping that in the bud. It's just the result of him needing to adjust to a more traditional class environment, I think. She says he's much improved already.
Academically, what Raphael is needing to do is set good work habits, because he never had to do almost any homework before and now he has a significant amount. This is because Thursday and Friday are online school days. So he has to get it done instead of goofing off. Raphael is a stubborn kid and will just not do things he doesn't want to do and hope you won't notice. But once he accepts that a chore is his responsibility, he will do it without whining. He's not actually lazy per se. So if I can just train him in that his homework comes first, he'll do it, and that'll be a great lifelong habit.
We're not there yet, which is really mostly my own fault, because I haven't been on him enough to get everything done. Part of it is that when they get home from school/study hall it's my instinct to let them relax a little. But I'm bad at stopping that process :) I am generally busy myself getting dinner and such. Also, I didn't know how to check his assignments - they have a kind of dumb system where the assignments and class details are on one site with one login, but the assignment grades and the like are on an entirely different site with a different login. :P And I didn't know that, nor did Raffie. (And when I found it out yesterday, Raffie's login wasn't working.)
So now I will hopefully be able to follow up with him a bit better on his assignments and make sure he has finished them all.
This is third grade, so really it's not about grades, it's about habit forming and setting priorities. Raphael is brilliant, but brilliant isn't enough; you also have to be diligent. He has the capacity. He'll get there.
Speaking of brilliance, I need to get him tested for gifted and talented, like, immediately. He was in private hebrew school last year so he was not tested with the other kids in second grade as is standard. I called about it this summer and they said information on qualifying would not be available till october. So I checked and now we only have a week to test. This is very annoying.
Isaac's are always pretty easy. I had this same conversation with multiple of his teachers:
Teacher: So... Isaac is brilliant and wonderful and amazing. But you probably hear this from all the teachers? You are probably tired of hearing it? Should I go on...?
Me: no, it's okay, you can go on. I can handle it.
Isaac is in 7th grade, but in 8th grade classes. His math teacher said that he's already almost done with 8th grade math.
My Raphael got tested for where he is with math and reading. He's at a 6th-grade level for math and an 8th-grade level for reading. He's in 3rd grade. So, you know, doing ok. He's also had a bit of sassiness and not following directions going on in class, but his teacher is a stander of no nonsense and she is nipping that in the bud. It's just the result of him needing to adjust to a more traditional class environment, I think. She says he's much improved already.
Academically, what Raphael is needing to do is set good work habits, because he never had to do almost any homework before and now he has a significant amount. This is because Thursday and Friday are online school days. So he has to get it done instead of goofing off. Raphael is a stubborn kid and will just not do things he doesn't want to do and hope you won't notice. But once he accepts that a chore is his responsibility, he will do it without whining. He's not actually lazy per se. So if I can just train him in that his homework comes first, he'll do it, and that'll be a great lifelong habit.
We're not there yet, which is really mostly my own fault, because I haven't been on him enough to get everything done. Part of it is that when they get home from school/study hall it's my instinct to let them relax a little. But I'm bad at stopping that process :) I am generally busy myself getting dinner and such. Also, I didn't know how to check his assignments - they have a kind of dumb system where the assignments and class details are on one site with one login, but the assignment grades and the like are on an entirely different site with a different login. :P And I didn't know that, nor did Raffie. (And when I found it out yesterday, Raffie's login wasn't working.)
So now I will hopefully be able to follow up with him a bit better on his assignments and make sure he has finished them all.
This is third grade, so really it's not about grades, it's about habit forming and setting priorities. Raphael is brilliant, but brilliant isn't enough; you also have to be diligent. He has the capacity. He'll get there.
Speaking of brilliance, I need to get him tested for gifted and talented, like, immediately. He was in private hebrew school last year so he was not tested with the other kids in second grade as is standard. I called about it this summer and they said information on qualifying would not be available till october. So I checked and now we only have a week to test. This is very annoying.