I am always proud of my kids, but sometimes I am just so proud I have to brag about how amazing they are. We went to Parent Teacher Conferences tonight. While we waited we saw Kadence as George Washington. During first grade it was always obvious that she was a little behind in the work put in the hall as far as neatness and penmanship were concerned. Not this time! I was proud before we even got to the teacher.
The PTC was mostly student led and the teacher added input and circled some things. Kadence can read 109 words per minute with 100% accuracy. (Goal is 72 for the class) Kadence made a goal to improve by 11 words per minute by the end of the year. Kadence also scored VERY well in the SRI testing. She scored 754 which puts her as advanced. (She was proficient at the beginning of the year)
I googled the score to see what it meant and she basically tested "proficient" for fifth grade. Wowza!
Last PTC we found out that Kadence was REALLY struggling with math. We worked with her and she did great! Kadence went from completing 21 subtraction facts in 5 minutes to 44. That is a great improvement but her addition facts went from 28 at the beginning of the year to 98! I love how she doesn't get discouraged and just keeps working hard.
There's room for improvement still of course. She will be working on subtraction. She more than doubled her score from the beginning of the year, but the goal was 80 so she still has a lot of work to do. Below also shows that she hasn't quite mastered even half of her subtraction facts yet. We'll get there!
Kadence read 109 words per minute versus the goal of 72. She read with 100% accuracy versus the goal of 96% and her retell knowledge scored a 28 versus the goal of 21.
The part that made me the most proud wasn't that she excels at reading or took on a challenge to drastically improve her math skills. It was that her teacher thinks she is on task, respectful, responds immediately, etc. Then as we were walking out of the class Mrs Wright said, "I wish I had a class full of Kadence's" which made us so proud.
Then it was on to Shelby who was having "the best day ever!" Who wouldn't be? She got to be the line leader, they had a school wide Valentines tea party where they all dressed up, her class had their Valentine party AND she got to take home the class pet Ted.
Shelby had some art work in the hall too along with about 15 other Kindergarteners.
Shelby led the PTC as well and even introduced Mrs Cook to us. "Mrs. Cook, Here is my mom and dad but I call them mom and dad their names are David and Leanne." It was so funny.
Shelby did GREAT on her dibels test and is well beyond the goals set.
She improved from 50 at the beginning of the year to 255 which is an incredible jump!
Shelby knows all her letters and their sounds, all numbers to 21 except "12" and can write them all. She knows all 35 Kindergarten sight words and 25/77 of the first grade sight words. She then pointed to the ones she missed and said "I know that's HER, that's OUT...." Mrs Cook laughed and said "Well, obviously this isn't an accurate score." Shelby showed us a few books she made and illustrated. One was about how some families are nice and others are mean but it only matters that you are nice. I then explained that she is learning that not all homes are nice and not all parents are nice as I train to work with abused and neglected children as a CASA volunteer. I also put out a warning that she may mention her mommy has to go to court and that isn't for me, but for the children I will be helping. Ha!
Shelby too has ways to improve and goals she set for herself. She will be working on adding more details to her pictures and learning all the first grade sight words.
We again were beyond proud to hear that Shelby is a good worker, a sweet girl and a friend to everyone. Mrs Cook teared up when she told us about an activity they do regularly. They pick a friend to work with and Mrs. Cook tries to pay attention to children that aren't picked first very often. She paired Shelby up with one of the little boys not often picked. She got "weepy" as she explained to us how much the little boy thrived and that to him, that moment, he felt like he was on top of the world. She said that Shelby just brought out the best in him and she is continually amazed with her thoughtfulness of others.
David and I always buy the girls a book from the book fair as a reward for a good PTC. This time we didn't feel that was quite enough especially since the girls were dressed up with nowhere to go. We decided to take them to Firehouse Pizzeria to celebrate them being smart, kind and respectful.
I love these crazy kids and am SO proud they are becoming kind little people. I tell them all the time that I will never be disappointed in them unless they are unkind to someone. Being kind is my number one priority. I of course have other goals in mind, but to me I will feel like I raised great kids if I raise kind, thoughtful and giving girls. So far so good and I can only pray it lasts.
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