Small steps towards success

We just sent home Mid-Quarter Reports and we still had one conference we had not been able to make happen. Since we utilize the family model at our school, me and the other fourth grade teacher have been able to conduct all 41 conferences together. Today marked number 41! We reached 100% by conducting a home visit in which the parent was positive and supportive!

I guess you could say I am excited because we reached every parent in our fourth grade family. It may not seem like a big deal to others, but for me, it feels monumental. I choose to believe that the investment we are making now will benefit the students for the remainder of this school year and subsequent years in their lives.

I must celebrate these small steps because I know these are building blocks towards success with our students!

Mid-Quarter Reports

As I have been working on mid-quarter reports for my students this weekend, I found myself smiling as I added comments to their reports. I became excited inside because I realized so many of my comments were about improvements the student had made since mid-quarter reports from the first quarter. A lot of the comments were about my students taking more ownership of their learning and about them applying themselves more. Wow. . .it feels good to say that!

Sometimes we become distracted with the every day disrupions from learning and teaching because the little things can seem so big, however, stopping to review each child's progress helps me put things into perspective. As I digest the progress of each of my students, I have to ask myself, "How am I progressing?" I would say I am improving just as my students are. . .we are taking learning step by step.