Parent Information Night

Last night we went to Parent Information Night. It's an adults only night, where you go to your child's class and the teacher gives a presentation about what he or she is learning. You can look through the kids' stuff, and follow the planned agenda.

Tim was not interested in going at all, so of course he got nothing out of it because he had decided before we left that it was pointless to go.

I, on the other hand, felt that there was a lot of useful information.

The one thing that really sucked was that the classes were all scheduled at the same time for grades pre-k through 1st grade. Meaning that I had to choose which child's class I was going to sit and listen to. Brooke's teacher said that it's probably more important that I go to Corbin's room, so that's what I did, but I stopped in quickly to grab a packet and sign in to Brooke's classroom, too.

I found out about the PTS (Parents, Teachers and Students; basically PTA under another name) and grabbed a worksheet for that. I filled out volunteer information for both of the kids' classes so that I can help out as much as possible.

Tim kept nudging me during the teacher's presentation, because the paperwork showed what he should know by the end of the year, and this is all stuff that he already knows. He told me that he knows that I teach the kids better than the teacher does, but definitely doesn't want the kids homeschooled, so I'm not really sure what his point is, other than that our kids are "advanced" because I've worked with them.

They both really enjoy school right now, so I'm not planning on changing anything.

The kids do have field trips coming up, and I hadn't realized it, but I'm going to have to drive Brooke to The Cider Mill, because she won't be 4 by the time the field trip happens. I was planning on going anyway, but it didn't occur to me that she could only go if I drove her, because state law requires all children to be 4 years old before riding a school bus.

I set up the kids' parent teacher conferences for 11/19. That will be a busy week for us. 11/17 is Brooke's birthday (and my parent's anniversary), 11/18 Brooke has a doctor's appointment and 11/19 are my meetings. Corbin's is at 1pm and Brooke's is at 1:45. I was lucky to be able to sign them up back to back that way.

I was impressed with the principal's stat that 100% of students for the past 3 years have had parent/teacher conferences, whereas most schools have between 40-60%. I guess they will go the extra mile, even if it means someone coming to pick you up for a conference if you have no transportation.

Also, speaking of 11/17 being Brooke's birthday, I have decided that I'm going to make and send in a card to the Sunny Side Up show for Brooke. It's a PBS station called Sprout (we don't get "real" PBS, but we get Sprout), and every day they have Chica, the chicken, and whoever the week's host is show birthday cards and run them across the bottom of the screen, too. They read the card and show the child's picture, and you put your child's picture inside of the card along with your child's favorite Sprout character. Brooke told me that Chica and Ernie (from Sesame Street) are her favorites. They choose the card based on originality and how it will show up for camera quality, so I'm going to have to make it look really fun and original. I'm thinking lots of glitter. :n) They want it at least 2 weeks before the actual birthday, so I have a little time, but I need to get crackin'.