Portfolio Night

For some reason, elementary schools have done away with having two parent-teacher conferences per year. Instead they hold the conference in the fall (perhaps to nip study habits and behavioral issues in the bud) and the spring meeting is called a Portfolio Night.

Portfolio Night is really just a "show and tell" for the child. The fourth-graders at Grant Elementary School actually spent a good part of their day yesterday preparing for last evening's event.

Jim was pretty much knocked out by a nasty head cold so I went solo. Carter took me on a guided tour of his classroom, demonstrated a science lab on magnetism, then walked me through a thick folder of school work reflecting his progress this year. The teacher did a good job of including a mix of everything -- perfect score papers and homework practice sheets where he got less than stellar results.

I have to say I was pretty impressed with his creative writing. There was the "Cat Escape" story that started out something like, "They say a cat has 9 lives but I think my cat used one of them this week..." and the how-to paper on "How to build an ice cream sundae," which ends with something like, "And the final step, which you MUST do, is sit back and enjoy it!" I can't wait to get my hands on these at the end of the school year. We could type them in and that could be the start of Carter's blog!

Before leaving the classroom, I asked the teacher if there was anything I needed to know (I mean this was really informal). She said Carter is a "little chatty" but she enjoys his sense of humor. She also said he's a sharp kid, which I guess is important to hear since we were in a school setting after all.

When we were done, Scrapbooking Mom asks for a picture with teacher since that is tradition. The teacher obliges. It wasn't until I snapped the photo that I really paid attention to what Carter was wearing. He had a spray-paint type t-shirt on that said in bright pink letters: "That's Hot!" At least he left the bling at home.