Conference Day

I've been thinking a lot about parent/teacher conferences this week. Mainly because I was able to meet with all of you this past Tuesday, but also because on Friday this week I had my first experience on the "other side" of the conference table when I went to my daughter Aili's first parent/teacher conference. It was an interesting experience to be the parent rather than the teacher and it made me realize just how important it is that parents and teachers work together to help our children grow and learn. I often think that I have the best job ever because I get to spend my days with these amazing little people who keep things so interesting and exciting. I absolutely love their enthusiasm for learning and after meeting with all of you on Tuesday it's easy to see where that enthusiasm comes from. These are children who are loved beyond words and supported both at home and at school. While each conference on Tuesday was different, there were a couple of common themes which I thought I'd address here.

XtraMath: I learned on Tuesday that a lot of second graders are not big fans of XtraMath and after talking to some other second grade teachers, I discovered that this was a common sentiment across the grade level. The main challenge with XtraMath seems to be the timer feature. A lot of students feel "stressed out" by this timer, which is causing them to avoid practicing their facts. If XtraMath works for your child then definitely keep using it! As a teacher, I like it because I can see how often students are accessing the program and can track their progress. However, if your child is avoiding practicing his or her facts because of the timer feature on XtraMath, check out Fact Dash at http://www.mhschool.com/math/2009/ca/assets/factdash.html. In Fact Dash you can turn the timer on or off and you can also print out a list of the facts you got wrong. I will add Fact Dash to the list of math links on the side of our blog so you can always access it easily there.

Reading at Home: A number of families expressed concern that their children were either not reading at home or were often choosing to read books that were either too hard or too easy. If your child is having difficulty finding "just right" books to read at home, please do not hesitate to let me know. I can either send you a list of books you can find at the library that are at your child's independent reading level or I can set up a book borrowing system between home and school using our classroom library. If you are finding that your child is tired on some nights, it is definitely okay to read aloud to them instead of having them read a book on their own. Listening to text read aloud by an adult exposes children to good oral reading fluency and also exposes them to vocabulary that may not be found in text at their just right level.

Enjoy your long weekend! Spend some time practicing math facts and reading, but also just spend some time enjoying your children. They are all awesome kids.