Meeting the teacher

Gayla has a great post up at Supernanny Rules on how to make the most of meeting your child’s teacher. We sort of met the teacher informally two days before school started when they had an orientation for parents of Kindergarten students. It was a group meeting though, not one on one. I also see her informally when I pick my daughter up from school, and I chatted with her about volunteering today when I went to the Terry Fox Run in the morning. However, we haven’t had a formal meeting yet, and this list will be useful for me as I head to my first parent-teacher night.

You can do the following things to prepare yourself for the meeting:

1. Ask your kids first if they have any particular concerns or questions they’d like you to address.
2. Watch your kids while they’re doing homework and listen carefully when they talk about what they do in school and with their friends so you can address anything that is bothersome.
3. Write down anything you want to bring up so that you don’t forget.
4. Find out what strengths and weaknesses your child has shown
5. Go over what you can do at home to continue with the stronger points and tackle the weaknesses, then go over them with your child (in a positive way, naturally).
6. Find out your child’s best learning style – visually, orally, sequentially, etc. – and then learn how you can work with your child in that manner.
7. What expectations does the teacher have, academically and behaviorally?
8. Find out if there are other resources such as online websites or books that you can use at home to work with your child.

I can’t wait to do my first meet the teacher meeting!