Anyway, the kids

All the time you read blogs about kids: Parenting blogs, homeschooling blogs, and just blogs that have random mentions of kids. Heck, you may even see blogs written by kids. I'm actually thinking of having my two start blogging. "Why?" you may ask. Well, there are a few reasons.

Last week we had parent teacher conferences. Amory's was first. Last year, we did his second so he felt vindicated this year. I didn't really know it was a competition, but if your kids are in the same school, you might think about it. Last year, we had a good conference and he was doing at or just above grade level in some things, and below grade level in writing. Let's just glaze over all the behavior issues. (I always write that word behaviour because it looks better all Canadian, but my firefox says it's wrong. Just like theatre is wrong.) Anyway, back to this year. We go in there expecting some of the same. I volunteer most of my day on Monday at the school. I'm in the 1st grade from 8:00-10:00 or 10:30. So, it's interesting that this kid who didn't know his letters before kindergarten, is a top reader! He is reading chapter books and I guess I didn't realize that wasn't normal. His sister was at that level at this age, so it's normal to us I guess. He's at grade level in math. I'd like him to do better at that, but he just doesn't like to sit still long enough to deal with it. Oh, and his behaviour isn't an issue this year. I don't know if it's because he has such great experienced teachers, or if it's him being better. I think a bit of both, probably. His teachers ARE excellent though. Anyway, what the main concern with him is writing. We need to catch his writing up with his reading. Again, I think it's mostly he doesn't want to sit still for it. He never colored as a preschooler. We tried getting him things he liked: spiderman, cars, trucks. Nothing worked. So, ultimately, I think his motor skills are behind. However, he can play video games like a maniac, so that slightly skews that theory. So, back to the blog idea. I was thinking of having him just write a few sentences here and there to encourage the writing process. It won't be HAND writing, so he may go for it. It will help with comprehension and getting thoughts to "paper". We'll see.

Now, on to the girl. She is very bright. However, she won't take risks. She does the minimal amount of work to get what she needs done. I've noticed lately, that means her sentences are very short and boring in most things. So, that's my goal for her. I'm going to try to get her to expand her thoughts a bit. I have no doubt this kid could be way better at most things if she just tries. She used to always be top of the class in reading, writing, math, pretty much everything. Now, she's NEAR the top I'm sure, but everyone else is catching up. I'm not saying average is bad. I'm saying EFFORT is good!