End of term assessment

I went to the parent teacher meetings today...

Ike is doing well for his group, apparently he has gone from being quite aggressive (pushing and biting) in the beginning of the semester, not knowing the new teachers to a boy that understands he won't have friends if he is hostile. He's talking alot more and so I think not only can he express himself better, his teachers have learnt "ike-speak".

He is ambidextrous and uses both hands to color and the samples of his coloring have greatly improved. When he is doing art and craft, on the stuff he likes, he really excels. I think he has gotten alot of one on one attention and that has improved his growth. He is starting to gain lots of vocabulary including chinese but his pronounciation is still off. LIke he says Chinese as Kainese. We just need to correct him before it becomes a habit.

Nate's strengths were reiterated, he has a superb memory, very good math skills, able to put together words and soon sentences. He is gotten over his reluctance to write or make mistakes writing, he seems to fear making mistakes in writing in the past but has gotten over that hump. He also likes to please but seems to have a very black or white view of life so good and bad are black and white to him and not shades of grey. The combination results in him "blaming" others as he wants so much to be good but as a 5 year old he is also cheeky and playful.

Both classes do not emphasize homework at all but learning thru play and they seem to play all day, I think they will like the Finnish school system! New literature on writing and reading apparently do not require rote copying. Hmmm... wonder how that would work for chinese.

I feel like Ike is ok where he is, in fact the school and small classes are beneficial for him, whereas Nate may not be challenged enough as I think he could do more but I guess as children they should be playing, so play they shall...

While waiting between the meetings... I spotted that the school is building a pool, maybe there will be swim lessons in school? I got to spend 30 mins with both teachers per class, ie and hour in total, was told by my cousin that they only get allocated 5 mins per child and if their report card says they are doing well for their grade, the parents don't even come in to see the teachers.