Back to School Night

Last night was "Back to School Night" at Boo Jr's school. I attended by myself while my wife stayed home with Boo Jr. My wife is sick so that's another reason why I went instead of her. Back to School Night is an opportunity to see and hear what your child will be learning while in Kindergarten. There was a general half hour presentation in the Gymnasium that talked about the overall syllabus. One good thing I was happy to see is they will be incorporating phonics into their reading lessons. They will still have the kids memorize some sight words, but I was under the impression that ALL they did was word recognition. Our baby sitter was taught that way when she went through school, and she has trouble reading and figuring out new words. Boo Jr should do well with this since he already has a head start from my wife doing the DISTAR program with him. Another thing I like about the school is they heavily emphasize being a good citizen and promoting "community". One cool thing is the Kindergarteners are paired up with "reading buddies" from 3rd or 4th grade. Once a week, the older kid reads to the younger kid and then they ask questions to test their comprehension skills. They have the same reading buddy all year. so it's cool that they develop a relationship. The teachers also praised the parents for having their kids ride the bus, talked about how lunchtime works, and reviewed some of their new safety procedures. The main one is that you have to show an ID if you come to school to pick up your child.

After the main presentation, we broke into groups and headed to your child's classroom to meet with the child's teacher. Boo Jr has Mrs. Gopher. I really like her. She's been teaching for over 20 years and has lots of experience as a reading and special education teacher. Mrs. Gopher probably has the best background to work with my son's issues. The teacher got into more detail of how their day goes and talked about some of the lessons they've done so far. Each child created some artwork that was at their table. The artwork was pictures of "this is my house", "this is my family", "this is me", etc. Some other cute notes - The artwork also included stuff like, "I live in Virginia" (with a colored in picture of the state). On his own, my son had written "Rgina" obviously doing his best to sound it out. Even more impressive, he spelled "Midlothian" (the town we live in) correctly all on his own.

After the meeting ended, we had an opportunity to wander around the classroom and see the artwork and projects they have worked on so far. I'm really proud of my son!