Parent/Teacher Kindergarten Meeting

We had another meeting last night - just the parents and the teacher.
I am becoming more and more impressed with Josh's teacher. She's going to run a tight, but loving ship. :)

She told us she's going to teach the kids the "old" way and not the "new" way the state insists on them teaching (not quite sure what that is). She said that the old way is working better and she's sticking with it. :) Woo hoo!! There will be a real concentration on letters and phonics (what a concept).

She also has a homeliving section. She said the county/state told the teachers they needed to get rid of it (the kids didn't need to play according to them). Well, she said, "If they want to come take it out themselves, that's fine. But, until then, I'm keeping it and the kids are going to play in it!". She said that the most interesting conversations come out of that seciton - gives the kids time to use their imagination.

She said most of the classroom setting will be verbal - some writing, but more verbal. They will learn to write alot more than they do now, but that will come later. She said that they will also be reading by the end of the year, too.

Josh will have homework every week...he'll need to cut out pictures that start with his letter of the week and glue them to a shape that she gives them. He's really excited about that. :) He turns that in on Wednesday and then on Thursday, they share their homework with the whole class. I did cringe a little bit about that because I'm not sure how Josh will do getting up in front of the whole class. However, I think this will be very good for him and give him some self confidence.

Josh also has a vocabulary list that he will need to learn over the next year...these are "sight" words. He'll just need to know these by sight and not sounding them out. They'll start with 1-2 letter words and then move into bigger words.

I am really liking her - everything that she said I was already thinking. :)