Conferences!

This week the kids have conferences. At Horizons, this means each child has an hour to "present" their work to their parents. Guided by their teacher, the child prepares writing samples, math work, book reviews, art, Spanish, poetry etc. At the Kindergarten level, it's mostly the teacher gently urging the child to read, play a math game, etc., but by 3rd grade, it's all them!
Ted had a great conference. His work has certainly improved in the last few months. His writing is neat and beautiful (not all the time, but in his "edited" work), his math is spot-on (when he takes the time to do the problem carefully), and his reading is at the top of his grade level (taking into account that he began 2nd grade below grade level, he has advanced 3+ levels in under 2 years. Rock on.) We are going to have to keep him on it this summer. It's not hard to read every day (the library always does a neat Summer Reading program that we've done each year) and it should be fairly easy to do some writing each day too (a journal, a written response to a book we're reading, a letter to a family member) and math can be math games, which all my kids love. The challenge will be making time for it on camp days. Ted has 5 weeks of camp and the little ones have 3. There are only 8 weeks of summer vacation this year, so while that's sad to me that they're starting so early in August, at least they will have less time to forget what they've learned!
Sam is doing great in school, though he is very silly and needs to learn to reign that in. Heh.
Mae is also going great though we just found out today that she'll need glasses for the same reason Ted did: her eyes don't converge or track well at all. A summer of vision therapy and (adorable!) glasses for reading and computer, and she should be good to go by 2nd grade. Ted no longer needs his glasses, so I am a devout believer in Vision Therapy and the accompanying glasses. I'll have a pic of her with them as soon as we get them!
So, a summer plan for my kiddos ... should be fun!
(The pic is Sam' self-portrait. I love it!)

Passover & Rosa!

It's been a busy few days! Between Easter rehearsals for my church gig, Rosa visiting (remember, we were sick all of March so finally able to move again!) and hosting a seder, it's been lively around here. Rehearsals have been long and slow (those tenors are l-a-m-e!) but the payoff will be good (extra rehearsals mean extra money!). Rosa's visit was great - lots of catching up, some hikes, brunches, lots of coffee and even a massage and pedicure! I can't wait to see her in June when we are in Chicago. We hosted a seder this year and Rosa helped prepare all the food with me - thank goodness! Ted's teacher and her family joined us this year. It was one of my favorites for sure because Ted (and Aria, Julie's daughter) took part and read a lot. I have one copy of A Children's Haggadah and we've xeroxed it and used it each year. This year I made a few more copies and highlighted "parts" for everyone to read. The kids were so proud to be part of it. Besides the reading, my favorite part was watching the boys act out the plagues. Too funny.

Today was a big day in Ted's classroom - the wrapping up of their Egypt studies. Called "a living museum," we were invited to tour the classroom and view all the things the kids had learned about and created (including the chicken they mummified, the 1/100 scale pyramid they constructed and the model of the Sphinx they created out of clay.) Very cool. Tomorrow Ted will give a presentation about the different types of pyramids that were built. This will be videotaped and put into his file for school. He is very nervous - which I think is cute. They are also at work on their play - Ted's play is The Epic of Gilgamesh and he is Humbaba- the monster. My mom, who taught this for years, likens Humbaba to the Black Smoke of Lost lore. The costume aspect of his role frightens me a tad. *gulp*

Rosa flew Southwest this time and informed me of the truly amazing low fares they offer. I checked it out and they are nuts! $69 one way! I am definitely going to fly home from our summer vacation this year! So, if you want to fly somewhere, forget Travelocity and those places and just check Southwest! It's free to check bags too (up to 2 I believe.) Hooray!

And .... it's melting

Tonight was the TKD Halloween party. We went with the zombie look for all 3 kids (some "Vulcan Zombie" Star Trek *may* have been at fault...) Our crazy snowstorm with over 22 inches of snow is perfectly melted: dry streets and big heaps of snow on the grass. Perfect for trick or treats!

The boys had their conferences today. Sam is still too shy to fully "let" his teachers know where he's at - she thought he only knew 19 letter sounds. Ha! He can sound out words better than Ted! But til he loosens up, he refuses to read in class, so they can't adequately evaluate him. Luckily he's my 2nd and I'm not worried! His math is pretty amazing. They are doing things like "what are the different ways you can make 10?" and he'll reply (using his fingers, heaven forbid he SPEAK!) "5+5, 2+8, 4+6" etc. I think that's so cool. All in all, he's happy and doing fine. Cutie.

Ted's conference was intense! He had picked out 3 selections from each notebook to share with us. They have writing notebooks, journals, math, science, and probably more. I was overwhelmed. I am most impressed with how MUCH writing they do. In K/1, the only writing, other than a one-word reply, was the 15 minutes of journaling they did in the morning. Here in 2/3, it's all writing, all the time! He is still reversing letters but his writing is MUCH neater and cleaner, which is a direct result of his teacher gently encouraging to do his best work at all times. I LOVE this teacher! We set goals together (Ted, his teacher and parents). They included working to make sure the letter reversals are corrected, always using neat writing, esp in homework assignments, agreeing to check over his work in timed tests (they do Fast Facts and he'll usually have about 3 wrong (out of 100) that was just carelessness - since he finishes those tests early, use that time to re-check, not to pull out a book.) All in all, he is ROCKING. We've had private meetings about his reading and I feel confident that between his teacher, his tutor and his DAILY reading group (!), he is getting the support he needs.

I came down with a cold yesterday and spent last night and most of the morning in bed with the aches. I feel better tonight and the post-nasal drip is helping with the sore throat. Oy!

Tomorrow is pumpkin carving, soccer and Trick or Treats!