First Trimester Report Cards

We finally got the "official word" on how the kiddos are doing in school.  For the twins, it was pretty anti-climatic, a sheet with pluses and a few minuses for both guys.  Greg needs to work on appropriate emotions and both boys are "a joy to have in class."  Both boys have minuses on "Cleans up activity area" and I mentioned that to them when their teacher leaned over and confessed that all the kids received negatives on cleaning. 

Priceless.

Ean received three "Os", three "Gs" and one "S".  For those that don't remember the system, "O" is the highest grade, meaning the student's work is "Outstanding".  "G" is the respectable "good" rating and "S" stands for "Satisfactory".  Satisfactory being the lowest rating before there is noted concern.  Ean's single "Satisfactory" was received in penmanship, Kent and I aren't exactly concerned and this proves what we knew all along, anything that was noticeably lower then his other grades would be so because he's simply not concerned about it, not because he doesn't have the ability to do better.

My seven year old smarty-pants.  :)

Kate did very well receiving several "A's" and several "B's"  Kent and I have noticed from her work that she's bringing home, she's obviously working her little heart out.  With grading Kate, there is the problem, that if an individual teacher doesn't know how to work her IEP, she'll be penalized academically and this report card showed that.  In the two classes of Science and Social Studies, my girlie had D's.  Both classes are graded by her main teacher and unfortunately this teacher and I have butted heads in the past when Kate was in first grade.

At that time, she expected an extraordinary amount of work from Kate when Kate was still in pre-reading skills, expecting a written report on some mammal of her choice that was far beyond her abilities.  Kate's learning disability wasn't even diagnosed at that time, but unfortunately this teacher leaned towards believing Kate's inability was due to lack of effort.  This of course is non-sense, Kate's an extremely hard worker and we just didn't know at that time, what helps she needed.

So I let Kate know that we knew she was working hard and weren't concerned about the letter grades and I also knew that in a little over a week I'd be able to address those issues at her IEP review.  Thankfully that review went well and Kate now has modifications in how she'll be tested that should better reflect what she's actually learned.

Finally there's Jane, who even though she struggled with getting incredibly behind in her pre-algebra homework, managed to not only pass all her classes but also pulled some decent grades.

I'm very proud of all five of them.  They're finding success, they're learning, they're growing into such neat people.  This is what gives me the most joy in parenting, sharing their triumphs no matter how big or small.