Report Cards

The kids got their report cards recently - Maria on Friday and Sam got his today. Maria's was great - A+ in spelling, social studies, language and science, A in math and reading, and S and O in her specials. The special teachers wrote comments like "is a pleasure to have in class" and "Exceptional Overall Effort." So we made a big deal out of her hard work paying off and to keep up the good work, and a little bit of money ($2 per A) for some extra incentive. (Of course, if we were paying $2 per A she wanted to know how much the "S" was worth, but I'm not sure Satisfactory" indicates the same amount of effort the "A" in math required. So she gets a pat on the back for the S). She wasn't thrilled, but knows when to cut her losses.

Sam's preschool report card in more complex and takes a while to interpret all 6 pages of it. All skills have to be assessed - fine motor, gross motor, cognitive, social-communication, etc. And there are additional strands that go with each of these skill areas. So let me summarize and say that he is doing well. All areas are above or right at where they should be. The comments are more interesting though. Here are the most telling:

"Does not like singing and dancing activities." Now he enjoys singing and dancing to Guitar Hero just fine, so maybe he just doesn't enjoy the Days of the Week and Clean Up songs. I don't think this will really keep him out of college, though, so I'm not loosing sleep over this one.

"May need verbal cues to bring attention back to group." This one was written during first quarter and underlined again for this quarter. Hopefully, it will get better as he gets older.

"Sam gets upset if others disrupt his space." Again, not surprising in the least. He's been like that since I can remember - just likes his space. I'm just glad he's not getting violent when other kids get in his way.

But at the end, her comments were as follows: Sam has really great pre-K skills. His skills have really grown and matured since September.. Keep up the good work!"

So all in all, two very successful report cards, from two very different kids!