Devan's school work & parent-teacher conference

The week before Thanksgiving were parent-teacher conferences.  School days were half-days so conferences ran in the afternoons.  Luckily, my friend was in the same boat as me- what to do with the kids while we're in conference?  Both our hubbies were traveling that week.  And what worked out better?  They were 30 mins apart!  So she dropped off her two kids at my house and then went to her conference.  Then she got back and stayed at our house while I went to the school.  We couldn't have asked for better timing!

 

So, I was really looking forward to getting in front of the teacher.  I've had some questions that have been bugging me for awhile.  First off, Devan is excelling in school.  Duh.  I knew that.  He picks up thing quickly and loves learning.  She showed me a lot of his work, and results from the tests.  Some of the stuff I had to laugh in my head because it was way too easy!  And, she said she was going to move him up to the next reading level soon because he could do level 1 books just fine (these have 1 sentence on each page).

 

So, my questions were more about his social skills.  I let the teacher know going into the school year that he is very introverted, will not raise his hand to participate, and does not like standing up in front of the class (feedback from preschool).  She said at first this was true, but she has seen him slowly come out of his shell as the year has progressed.  He will now raise his hand in class and participates!  Wahoo!!!!  She sees improvement each week.  And he even has 3 boys that he tends to hang with during their free work time.  Jesus, Croix, and William.  This made my day.  He's come home crying because he says he doesn't have any friends in his class and it's hard to wait until recess to see his old friends.  And for a solid week he cried saying he didn't want to go to school :(  But, I think we're finally over the hump!  I know it's been hard for him- his social skills are not the best.  And, his class is over 50% hispanic so there's a huge language barrier (some of these kids barely speak English and don't know all their letters!).  So people say, by January everyone is on the same level and then the class as a whole can progress much faster.  I sure hope so!  Now that he's used to the long days, he could use a bit of a challenge.

 



Here's some of Devan's school work from the first 10 days of November:

This is a picture of a plant growing.  It needs sun, rain, and nutrients (the grass and the dirt) in order to grow.

 These are the 4 seasons of the year

 He had to draw a monster (notice all the fur?  And a pig nose, glasses, and shark teeth)

This homework page was the hardest so far for him.  He had to come up with a sentence that used "at" or "ap" words, and then write it.