We do family conferences twice a year and we have a set layout and follow a set standard of goals and achievements. Our curriculum is loosely based on creative curriculum and so our conferences and assessments come from their forerunners and steps. Every year when I write these conferences I feel like this could be a child and when I report to the families they just agree and it just doesn’t feel personal. I wanted to find something that I could show the parents some hard evidence of their child achieving rather than a paper with all the goals and steps they have achieved.

I was really intrigued to read about preschool stories. When I was reading Crossing Boundaries: A Variety of Perspectives on Preschool stories, I was very interested on actually seeing one but I was worried that it would be a long report and just unrealistic for a teacher with 20something children. When I actually saw Sarah’s preschool stories, I thought it was a great idea and makes assessment more personable. It would also be a great part of the child’s portfolio at the end of the year that would showcase who they really are. It does require trust on both the teacher and the child. I was thinking the teacher would have to have built some kind relationship and attachment to the child because if it were a new teacher, the stories wouldn’t be as accurate.

I also like the idea of having a clipboard with notes about each individual child. There is many times where families will ask how their child is doing and right at that moment I draw a blank. It’s a hard question to answer because families are not looking for a “he’s doing good” answer they want an indebt look at how their child is doing at school. If you had that clipboard, you could just refer the family to the clipboard.

I think this is a great tool for the children with challenging behaviors. If we were to conduct preschool stories on each child, it would cause the teachers to step outside of the “teacher” role and just observe the children. Once I do that, I seem to have a different perspective of that child. We write and collect positive information on those children, we can remind ourselves about all of the child’s positive characteristics and help us get through those tough moments, or days.