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Friday, November 8, 2013

Conferences!

So we had our first Parent/Teacher conference today with Ethan's teacher. It went really well! At this point he can write his first name, is working on his last (he keeps wanting to leave out a letter lol), can count to 59 consistently, knows all his letters lower and uppercase, he knows the sounds of 14 of the 26 letters, can read 6 of 9 sight words, can recognize numbers 0-10 (and then some), he is improving with rhyming words. As far as behavior goes he is improving. He completes his homework but needs to complete the work he does in class. His biggest issue is focus. He has a hard time focusing on what he needs to do and stop worrying about what others are doing. This goes in conjunction with completing the work he does in school. They are now working on doing work independently and Ethan tends to pay more attention to what others are doing instead of focusing on his own work. To help make that issue better she has him sitting with 3 other kids who tend to keep more to themselves when they are doing school work and that seems to have helped some. She also has come up with a paper that will help Ethan see how well he is doing or not doing on focusing more on his school work.

A few weeks ago we had received a letter in the mail telling us that Ethan is not on track with his reading skills and that if he continues at the pace he's at he will be set up to fail the 3rd grade. We brought this up with his teacher and she said we need to disregard that letter. They were forced to take this test in the 2nd week of school. They had to sit on the computer and answer 29 questions. She said most of the kids struggled just with using the mouse. She was not happy that they were being tested so soon into the school year when so many of them were still having adjustment issues and they hadn't even begun on working independently yet. She assured us that Ethan is doing just fine in reading.

He has been having a bit of a problem with a boy in his class who is a bit of a bully (in my opinion). We have been working with with his teacher to resolve the issue as peacefully as possible. I was unaware that there was a problem until a couple weeks ago. Ethan has never made mention of it to us. A couple weeks ago I was walking Ethan to school and we crossed paths with the kid. When Ethan refused to say hello (I am aware he does not like this kid and does not want to be friends with him) I just explained that he should always say hello back when spoken to. That's when the kid began bad mouthing Ethan to me. I gave him a warning that he was being very rude then I gave him the same tone that I give my own children when they speak to me disrespectfully and told him that my children don't get away with it and neither will he. When I got home I sent an email to the teacher letting her know what had happened. Ethan doesn't want anything to do with this kid so we are doing what we can to keep them separated. If he approaches Ethan at school Ethan will just tell him that he does not want to be friends with him or that he is not allowed to be around him. We had a second incident which was handled. We talked about it with the teacher just to be sure that all seems to be quiet between the 2 at this time. She says she doesn't need to intervene much that Ethan is very good about keeping his distance from this kid (he really doesn't want to have anything to do with him) and that he is very straightforward in telling the kid he wants nothing to do with him. So it appears that the issue has been resolved.

She also let us know that she has been taking extra care to read labels to any snacks that come through the classroom to make sure that they don't have an fake sugars in them. There are 2 other kids with allergies in the classroom so she takes the time to make sure that any brought in treats are OK. She sent home a letter at Halloween asking parents to please not send any treats that have fake sugars, eggs, or milk. One parent sent in sugar free jello so she just gave Ethan an applesauce in place of the jello. She said Ethan is very good about sticking to what we pack in his lunch that he has no interest in what others have in their lunches. He helps pack his lunch each day.  He tells me what kind of sandwich he wants and then he choses between applesauce or yogurt and he gets to pick out his special treat. I usually pack an chocolate almond milk for him to drink. He's eating exactly what he wants so naturally it's all he cares about LOL.

So over all I am very happy with the report we got. He is doing well and is continuing to move forward. We are very proud of how well he is doing.

Here is Ethan's school picture. He is so handsome!