CootieBoy Is Excelling In School!

It’s funny to go with the kids to their school and see how they behave. We went yesterday for CootieBoy’s first kindergarten teacher conference. We checked in at the school office and were told to wait about 10 minutes, so we sat down to wait. At some point the principal walked into the office to speak to the receptionist, and CB stopped playing and stood at attention, a small smile on his face as he looked at the principal. The principal finished speaking with the receptionist, and CB piped up and said, “Hello, Mr. [Principal]!” with a small wave. The principal said hello, ask CB how he was doing, and after some small talk walked away. CB immediately relaxed and went back to playing. I can’t remember if I relayed this story here or not, but about 5-6 weeks ago CB was sent to the principal’s office for extreme misbehavior, so no doubt CB stood at attention in order to prove that he’s behaving better now. Too cute.

We were finally called into the teacher’s classroom and the conference went really well. She’s obviously very happy to have CB in her class, and kept praising him about how well he has been doing. He was cute when we sat down because he sat rimrod straight in his chair and just gazed at her with another one of those little smiles on his face. My heart swelled ten times its size when he continuously answered her questions with “Yes, ma’am,” and “No, ma’am.” At some point you could tell she wanted to pinch his cheeks in joy, but she was able to contain herself and said, “He’s always to bright and cheery in class, and ready to learn! I love it!”

She was thrilled to tell me that he was one of the top three readers in her class. She went to hand me a couple sheets of paper filled with sight words (ugh – I hate sight reading) and she said, “I’m going to give this to you, but I know he already can read all these words and many more.” She asked me about his preschool and who taught him to read, at which point I told him that I had used a book and taught him myself. She wrote down the book’s title so that she could look into it as a resource for her class.

She then told me that he was also very good at math, and seemed to enjoy the math games that they play in class. She had CB do a couple math exercises, but you could tell his brain was fried because it took him a couple times to get the right answer.

She said the only thing he needs to work on is his penmanship. She doesn’t want perfection – but she does want more space between each word, and less reliance on using capital letters. She showed me his journal from September and noted the improvement just in one month’s time. She showed me how he attempted to spell “trampoline” and that while it was misspelled, it was a pretty good phonetic guess (he spelled it “chrampoleen”). Same with the word room – he spelled it “rume” which, when you think about it, is correct (because the “e” at the end makes the “u” say it’s name).

In any event, I could tell that despite minor mishaps here and there (talking loudly in the halls, the occasional temper tantrum on the playground) that she’s excited to have him in her class. I’m also proud of how well he has adjusted, despite being the youngest one in his class. And yes, he still wants to be a librarian. =)

Next week: CootieGirl’s teacher conference.