meet the teacher night

three weeks into the school year and i finally, finally, get to meet madelyn's teacher!  unfortunately, madelyn had soccer practice so matt had to take all four kids with them so that i could go to parent/teacher night.  i don' think he was too upset.

these 'wanted' signs were hanging outside their room.

tonight is mainly just a 30-45 minute presentation by each teacher to all of the parents in their class about rules, expectations, curriculum, get volunteers for the year, etc.  i can see why madelyn likes her teacher so much.  she is fairly soft spoken, but high energy and has a relaxed approach to deadlines (i.e. homework is due tomorrow or the next day if you need more time).  the softness on deadlines was a little bit of a concern for me as a precedent but there aren't really grades so what difference does being on time have for them?  she is easy on the deadlines because the kids don't get home until after 4pm and that doesn't leave a lot of time to do homework, especially if you have something else to do that night.  she just doesn't want them staying up too late because of homework.

madelyn will start spelling tests this year.  there will be a pre-test on monday and then five days later will be the actual test.  i think madelyn has my knack for spelling (as in, she is in real trouble), but she has an amazing memory so we will see how this is going to go.

we all got to sit at our child's desk.  i was the only parent for madelyn's cluster.  madelyn sits at an island of four desks - two boys and two girls.  the boys have known each other since preschool and were split up within the first week (or so madelyn told me).  she sits with a girl named livia and calls her  her best friend.  there is an assortment of other seating arrangements around the room including a large semi-circle of desks facing the front.  her teacher said that they will change desks often because getting too comfortable with their neighbors can make them too chatty.

i had to peak inside madelyn's desk.  so that is where those headbands went!  she has mentioned that she likes to keep a spare in case she wants to switch it up during the day (like if the one she is wearing hurts her head).  i told her that i was proud of how neat her desk is (some were a mess - one mom was even cleaning trash out of her child's).  her teacher did say that the children were asked to clean out their desks this morning.

it wasn't a long meeting - 30 minutes - and i didn't get to really speak with her teacher one on one, but i feel much better about school now.  i also found out that i wasn't the only parent who contacted the teacher before the first day of school.  several others called and said that they too didn't feel good about not having an open house.

yay for first grade! love.