Eric's First Conference

At our local elementary school, instead of the traditional parent-teacher conferences where the parents sit down with the teacher, they have "student-led" parent-teacher conferences where the student sits with their parents to show a folder of expectations and work done. Eric had his first one this past Thursday. Patrick, the fantastic husband and father that he is, knew that I was on call Thursday, and so scheduled the conference in the morning so I could also attend.

I've been telling friends recently that Eric is the perfect youngest child because he lets me get some cuddle time, even though he is already almost six years old. This was not the case with his older siblings. When he saw Patrick and me approaching his classroom, he ran to me with a big smile, and gave me a hug. Isn't he a sweetie?

We got there a little early, so we waited until the rest of the class could go off to another area of the school. Only four or five kids were left awaiting their parents in the classroom. When his teacher came and got us, she said, "They're all very excited." I could imagine a bunch of five and six year olds bouncing off the walls, excited and nervous about their first conferences. When we walked in the classroom, Eric was sitting at one of the tables. When he saw us, he gave us a huge smile and again ran up to me to give me another hug. Love! He then proceeded to show us his binder full of his work. One of the worksheets showed that one of his goals at the beginning of the school year was to be able to draw dinosaurs better--a surprise, I know. He had colored in almost all the boxes showing that he drew dinosaurs many times. The goals were simple. Another one was to be able to trace his hand better.

This book was at the end of the binder. Of course the pages are illustrated. Eric was practicing his goal of drawing dinosaurs. The title is misspelled, but reads "Tyrannosaurus Rex Dusent Cair" (Tyrannosaurus Rex Doesn't Care). The book only has three double pages in it. On the first page, a Spinosaurus roars and says to a T Rex, "I Wel eet you up" (I will eat you up). On the next page, a Giganotosaurus tells the T Rex "I wel eet you up too" (I will eat you up, too). The T Rex replies, "I Dont Car" (I don't care) in both of those first two pages. On the last page a Tyrannotitan says, "I wel eet you up too" (I will eat you up, too). This time the T Rex replies, "I ran away from a Spinosaurus Gigantosaurus and I will run away from you." I'm not sure how correctly he spelled everything on the last page, because all the letters and words were running together and it was hard to read. That's what he said the page said, but the words don't read that way. He also had to tell me what types of dinosaurs were on the pages because of course, I don't know as much about dinosaurs as he does.

On the table was also a sheet for parents with suggested questions to ask their child about their work/presentation, but after what seemed like only a few pages of his binder, he was done. He didn't feel like answering any more questions. He had probably expended his nervous energy on what he had already presented plus the title page had lots of big words that were difficult for him to read.

I asked Patrick to take a picture of Eric and me before we left and he took the first photo above. I was happy with that, but then Eric said, "I'm going to hug Papa too." My hands must have been a bit steadier than Patrick's, because the first picture was a bit blurry. ;) I took the second picture of Patrick with Eric. What a sweetie!