Parent-Teacher Conference

Today was our parent-teacher conference with Abbie's teacher. We have not interacted with her very much, but she is really good and we really like her. Abbie's report card came out last week and she had A+'s in every subject, so we assumed that she was doing fine academically. I was curious to find out more about how she was doing socially and to find out how well her teacher has gotten to know her over the past couple of months. Turns out, the answer to both is "pretty well". Socially, her teacher is still referring to her as a "natural leader". This is how her kindergarten teacher referred to her last year, and we all knew that it was a code for "bossy". This year, apparently it has changed a bit in that she still has times in which the other kids perceive her as bossy, but they call her out on it, so she is learning to lead without bossing. Also, she is a very black-white sort of a person who likes to notify the teacher when she perceives that another kid is doing something that is against the rules. There seems to be a bit of "busy-body-ness" in which she spends a lot of time worrying about what others are doing rather than making sure that she gets her own work done. This idea of getting things done in a timely fashion and not getting distracted is something that the teacher is working on with her. Overall, though, she has great energy and enthusiasm, is kind, and is getting along well with the other kids.

(with Chad on Donuts for Dad day)

In other exciting school news, Abbie is one of seven lower school students who has been selected to be in the middle school musical this spring. The middle schoolers are performing The Little Mermaid and Abbie has been asked to be one of the guppies. She is really excited about it, and we think that it is a great opportunity for her. However, it also comes with a very tiring schedule during the week of the show which includes six performances over a three-day period.

As for violin lessons, Abbie had her 4th individual lesson this week and we are going to get her an actual violin this weekend. Up to this point all of her practice has been on a fake violin that is made out of a small box with a ruler taped to it and a fake bow that is made out of a pencil. The idea here is to teach students to care for their instrument before they actually have the real instrument in hand. This has seemed like a great approach to me and now seems even better after Abbie accidentally stepped on her fake violin during her lesson this week. :) She and I have been practicing every night and it has been going really well. Of course, both of us are starting to get pretty excited about the idea of moving to a real violin and it won't be long now. I expect that by the 6th lesson she will be starting to use the real deal.