A note about conferences...

Conference time can be a very crazy time of year in an early years classroom. Helping 25 children prepare 25 portfolios is always a challenge... but worth every second and every effort! Over the past two weeks, the children and I spent lots of time talking about our year so far, reflecting on the things they've learned, setting some goals for next term, choosing just the right pieces for portfolios, and practising sharing learning with others. The night and afternoon of conferences can be quite hectic, but also very rewarding. I love eavesdropping on the children in my classroom as they talk their way through their portfolios with their families. Hearing the children explain their work, talk about their favourite books, teach their families a new math game, and laugh about something they remember about a project is my favourite part of the night. Seeing them explain, reflect, and discuss all of their learning makes me feel very proud. Watching parents look at their child's work, ask them questions about their learning, and congratulate them on their accomplishments is also very rewarding. It was another AWESOME week.

On Friday afternoon I came across some interesting tweets while I was checking my professional Twitter account. A number of the educators I follow were at a conference where author Peter Reynolds was the keynote speaker. (Peter Reynolds has many great children's books including "Ish" and "The Dot") The tweets were sent by Tony Baldasaro and many were quotes from Reynolds' keynote speach. Here are 4 of the tweets Tony sent. I thought they came at a perfect time. I love it when that happens :)

Here they are:

The last one was my favourite. Simple. To the point. True in everyway. Every child is amazing. 

-Erin



Fix Up Portfolios

Sydney R put stuff in my portfolio because I was painting. We put some stuff that we did for inquiry in it. -Kendall
I put stuff in Jolene's portfolio. My favourite thing is the map book. -Jonathon
My favourite books were "The Haunted Castle" and "101 Cool Jokes". Only one of them were Geronimo Stilton. -Cole
Today we made a huge Christmas ornament. We painted it yellow. -Brandon
Today my Mom came and she helped us do our Christmas ornaments for the Christmas concert. Ours was blue. -Ashley
We put stuff in our portfolios and we did Me on the Map. -Aliegha
When my table was painting the Christmas ornaments, our colour was red. When I was painting it, it reminded me of the Christmas concert. -Jolene
Today we painted 1.5 metre by 1.5 metre ornaments. My table painted blue. We had fun. -Jadyn
Today at school we painted ornaments for the Christmas concert. Our ornament was coloured gold. -Lindsay
We had gym today. We played world cup soccer. -Sam
Today we had 2 volunteers. In the morning Madeline's Mom was here to finish our tree project. For the afternoon Ashley's Mom came to help us finish our big Christmas ornaments. -Taylor
My Mom came today. I was the first one to finish our summer tree and we did our portfolio. My favourite one was Me on the Map and my other favourite was My Favourite Books. We did Me on the Map.-Madeline
At Daily 5 we did word work at the end together. Someone came to watch us do word work. He was Mr. Walls. -Olivia
Ms. Anderlic's boss came and watched us do word work. Today I had a special lunch with Jolene. We ate and drank with a plate and cup. -Ashley