Yesterday DKC and I had our very first parent teacher conference. I’m happy to report it went glowingly. TRC is leaps and bounds ahead of the other students, apparently–he already has mastered everything Kindergarten has to offer him. I’m really happy with his teacher’s approach to him–she’s giving him more challenging work, pushing him to the same extent that she’s pushing the other students. For example, the rest of the class is working on counting. TRC can already count to however high he wants to. (He told me a few months ago that he could count to 440. He was very proud of this.) So his teacher, Mrs. K., is having TRC do addition instead of just counting. The rest of the class is given a picture of a number of balloons and asked to count them and write the total number of balloons–TRC is given a picture of groups of balloons and asked to write an equation that shows what’s there. Another example: the rest of the class draws a picture and is asked to write a word beneath the picture. TRC draws a picture and is asked to write two sentences beneath it. He does a great job with it.
Anyway–it was all good news at the conference. One interesting side note: it looks like TRC is going by just the first three letters of his name as a nick name. I think too many people were having trouble pronouncing his name, so he decided to just shorten it. I asked him if he wanted me to start calling him that, and he shook his head and told me I know how to say it right, so I can keep calling him by his real name.
Happy weekend, all!
LOVE it – as if it’s any surprise that he’s sharp as a tack, though. 🙂 I also got a kick out of the name issue. Shows he’s secure in his identity that he recognizes it annoys him when people mispronounce and that he made a decision about it. What a little man! So proud of my nephew. He will be a glowing example for his little cousin!
-Gretel
Thanks! We’re proud of him, too.
Huge fan of PTC myself. Our school has a lot of areas where that type of curriculum is built-in, but it’s important to remind yourself that a LOT of what’s learned in Kindergarten isn’t reading or numbers, it’s about learning to get along, meeting new people. I have had a lot of people ask me what on earth spencer is learning — and I just remind them that he’s learning plenty of things.
I love Kindergarten.
{sigh}
Yeah–TRC is learning a lot. No doubt about it. And he’s got a great teacher.