As I mentioned before, this week is conferences. I have only been in the classroom for about 3 of the 9 weeks, so I am not really qualified to do conferences. However, my partner managed to get a whopping case of strep throat! Most of the conferences were cancelled, but there were some parents who just had to know how their child was doing (I completely understand that.) I talked to 3 such parents today. I really enjoy doing parent/teacher communications. I think the kids need to know that their teacher and their guardian have a good working relationship and constant communication. If they know that, then they also know they can't get away with being lazy or dishonest! I think I went a long way towards developing good working relationships with these parents. If nothing else, they know that they can come in and see me with any questions they might have.

Today, in their journals, the kids had to tell me what they thought they did well this trimester and what they thought they needed to work on. I was very impressed with how introspective the answers actually were. They KNOW exactly what they are doing right and wrong. Of course, that doesn't always mean that they are going to change their behavior. But at least, I know that they know!

I love using the journals because the kids are willing to write things that they don't feel comfortable saying and I am able to hear things that we don't normally have time for. It is nice to have a steady form of communication that is non-threatening and private. I think the kids like it too.