Parent Teacher Night

Went to Aaliyah's Parent-Teacher night yesterday. She has a bigger and better classroom than last year. She showed me around, showed her different folders, her work bins, and the activities that the class is currently working on. I met other parents, spoke to the class teacher about Aaliyah and then in the gym, the Principal introduced all the staff members. It was nice to know the teachers from the different grades. Earlier they were just faces I used to see in the hallways now I know who teaches at what level. There were too many of them for me to remember individual names.
Just like her Kindergarten classroom, the whole Grade 1 classroom was
organized into stations. There was an art station, a pattern station, a reading station, and a games station. New this year was the computer station. I am sure every kid already knows a lot about computer navigation but having one in the classroom, the teacher can direct the kids to some useful websites. One such website that Mme Ardanaz has as her homepage is the Richmond Public Library's website. One of its webpages called the Tumblebooks has a collection of online reading materials in English and French. I knew about this webpage but Aaliyah did not seem too interested at that time. Now that she has it at school, maybe she will take an interest in it at home too. One of the parent plans on letting her daughter use it on her i-pad. I thought that was a neat idea.

I am not sure if I would let Aaliyah browse the Tumblebooks website. I would rather have her continue with our library visits and actual book reading than the e-books. She will easily switch to a princess video on Youtube or Netflix and it will be hard to monitor her. But having access to a computer in the classroom is a good first step. I'm glad that the school is emphasizing the importance of technology in the classroom. The school does have a separate computer lab but I am not sure what grade students use that. I haven't heard Aaliyah mention any visit to the school's computer lab as yet. With many public schools slowly and steadily switching over to Smart Boards, a computer in the classroom is quite a humble beginning.

We then joined the Principal Mme. Pendharkar in the gym where all the other parents and teachers had gathered. Mme. Pendharkar introduced all the new and the returning staff and spoke about the school goals for this year. The two goals will be communication and social responsibility. I feel they are very pertinent goals. She also mentioned that some of the older grades have already started some counselling sessions with a local nonprofit on anger management. It was good information.

After the assembly in the gym, I went back to Aaliyah's classroom and finally got to speak to Mme. Ardanaz. She told me positive things about her. She mentioned that Aaliyah just needs repetition when it comes to following directions. Otherwise, she is a sweet girl and there is nothing not to like about her. Hopefully, Aalliyah continues to be in her good books. As for me, I will do my best to support Aaliyah's education in every possible way.