I have always loved getting a chance to talk with parents about their children. We’ve been doing conferences with our teaching team. It’s always nice to have good conversations about the children.
This year, it struck me how impressed and happy the parents were with their children’s ability to read in all three languages and speak all three languages. Ada and Efi told parents how students use complex sentences in Hebrew and French. I realized that I have been too easy on the students in journal writing. I expect a sentence or two each day, and that is about it. I have to encourage and help some students think of ideas. A few parents admitted the students don’t enjoy journal writing. I had no idea how much the children were doing with their other teachers. Efi encouraged me to raise the bar and make it more challenging for the classes.
As I sat in the conferences with parents and talked with my partners during the breaks, I started to reflect and change up some of my teaching plans for writing. I thought about previous years in Grades 3 & 4. My students wrote more on topics they were interested in. This week, we read a story about a dream house, and I let the students draw their dream house and describe it in writing. The students were excited and wrote more than they had all year.
As a class, we even talked about writing on topics of interest to us. The students admitted it was much more fun, and yes, I am already thinking of Grade One passion projects. I am loving how the students are so interested in each other’s work displayed in class.
During the conferences, we discussed the goals the children chose earlier in the year. We discussed adding some academic goals into the mix this term. I will meet with my students to incorporate specific reading, writing, and math goals. I will let you know how that goes.
It is easy to get caught up in your teaching and curriculum and not have enough time in the day in the schedule. We need to stop and learn all the things our teaching teams do. It might even connect with your curriculum. We also need to appreciate how hard it is to work and learn in three languages each day.
#We Learn Better Together