Parent/Teacher Conferences

Kate is in 4th grade, going to public school for her first time since Kindergarten. The change was good for everyone. I never have to tell her to do her homework. In fact, I'm hardly involved at all. She is her own self-monitor; doing her homework, projects, logging her reading chart, and bringing me the occasional paper to sign or fee to pay... I dont' know why she was nervous to go to parent teacher conferences. Her teacher told me she has all A's and H's, is a wonderful student and artist, and is kind and sensitive to others. Then she gave her a candy to take home.
We went to the book fair after where she chose a cute little after school snack recipe book.

Brynn and Adrie wanted to hear all about it when we got home. "Do we get to have parent teacher conferences?" they asked. I think it was the candy they were after. Anyway we decided to go with it. Kate pretended to be their mom and she brought Brynn to the table where I, the teacher had laid out some of the things Brynn's been working on for 2nd grade.
"This is a sample of Brynn's handwriting-- She's doing very well at writing and memorizing scriptures in the morning like this one...
Kate mentioned that she wasn't allowed to read scriptures in her school so I explained that ours was a "special" school. That proved to be a fun theme to run with. We went through some math assignments and literature, looking at her pictures of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table and read the story she finished about what she thought happened to him.
"Another one of the subjects at our special school is violin. I'm sure Brynn would love to play something for you." I winked. At that point Kate excused herself and Brynn's parent/teacher conference was over. She looked in the candy jar and got an "airhead" for being such a smart kid.

Then it was Adrie's turn. She showed Kate some of her Halloween artwork and the poem about Fall she recently made up and wrote in her sketchbook:

Red, Orange
Purple, Brown--
Leaves look pretty,
On the ground.

We showed Kate how she was learning about adding and subtracting in math. At the end of it she chose "nerds" from the candy jar.

We ended with an introduction to our special "chef" Kate that made healthy creative snacks for the kids at our special school. Brynn shouted, "Kate's the lunch lady!!" which Kate didn't like at all. She reaffirmed that she was a "CHEF" then haughtily donned her apron and got right to work with a pretzel rod dipped in peanut butter and topped with Cheerios concoction.