Cora and I attended the PTO meeting and ELA Night stations tonight while daddy and James were at soccer practice. We learned about the upcoming events and fundraisers at school (FYI, we'll be doing a caramel apple fundraiser sponsored by Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory, where you can spend $8 on one apple or $25 to get an apple per month - this will be a good one for our local friends!), then rotated between 3 ELA stations for an hour. I chose the STAR Exam/AR room first, where I learned how to interpret the test results, and also that AR Levels and AR Points are not the same thing (and that we need to bump up the level of AR books that James is choosing for his tests). Cora picked the computer lab next, where we received a list of good online learning game sites for kids (most of which we already list in a sidebar on our blog, but a couple were new to us, including MobyMax, which the schools pay into to allow access to their students). Cora had to teach one of the Kindergarten teachers how to close down open windows, which I found hilarious (and a little scary, actually...), as she was trying to go through some of her favorite sites. To end the night, Cora chose the writing session, which ended up being a lengthy discussion about the NEW, new grading system for K-2nd Graders in Vicksburg (which uses a 1, 2, 3 scoring system rather than grades - they dropped the 4s during the second week of school for unknown reasons). The teachers don't love it, and us parents don't understand why they had to change an age-old system in the first place. Apparently it's for self esteem issues - too many kids were upset because they were failing. I don't see how getting 1s is going to make them "feel" any better though... Anyway, I'm glad we went, even if just to figure out the STAR/AR stuff! Besides, now the kids get another free dress week, which they love. Win-win.
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