Student- Led Conferences

Last Thursday and Friday I held student-led conferences in my classroom. The students were in charge of the entire conference….not the teacher like in a traditional conference setting. The students led their parents through our different stations and shared their learning for each subject area.

Welcome to student-led conferences in my classroom!

The students rotated through science, social studies, reading, math, writing and goal setting station with their parents. I loved hearing my students explain what reading partnerships are and their “shopping day” for the classroom library.

The students were SOOO excited to share the writing process with their parents. We just finished our personal narratives and the students explained each step of the writing process.

Display of bulletin boards in the hallway:

The personal narrative writing process publication is part of my file on TpT:

At the social studies station, the students identified the seven continents and landforms of each continent. They shared their acrostic poems about the continents. This was to celebrate the end of a unit study for social studies.

I found it interested that almost all the students wanted to share our learning targets with their parents..hmmm?

Of course, we saved the best station for last. If you want to learn more about why and how I started Student-Led Classroom with my students, please read about it HERE.

If you are interested in learning more about student led conferences, please click HERE.

Now that conferences are over…our state wide testing begins! Do I love testing? No! Of course not. Do I agree with the high stakes that come with the assessments? NO!!! However, since I have no choice in this matter, I try my best to encourage my students to try their best and support positive ways to MAP testing, State testing, AimsWeb….if you have some testing coming up, I hope these confidence boosters help your kiddos!

Idea One: Smartie Surprise!! I leave a Smartie acrostic poem and a Smartie on their desk.

You can download the SMARTIE poem by clicking on the button below.

Idea 2: Parent homework/Smart Little Cookies While my students were busy learning at school, little did they know that their parents were working on their own “TOP SECRET” homework!

During our student-led conferences, my students MADE SURE to take their parents to the “parent place” station. Sitting at this station was a very important PARENT homework assignment! You can imagine how excited the students were to give their PARENTS homework!!! Of course, the parents do enjoy this homework because it is actually just a little “confidence booster” for their smart little cookie

Caption for photograph above: Don’t say I didn’t warn you!!! You may get a few tears when you read the letters the parents wrote to their child. So precious! This parent even included a Mrs. Field’s cookie! We had a blast writing a recipe that described the study habits of a “smart cookie.”

Lookie, lookie, I’m a Smart Little Cookie!

If you are interested in this resource, click on the image below to purchase it from Teachers Pay Teachers.

Save 10% by purchasing directly from my website.

Idea 3: Pair up with another class and make a fun, encouraging poster for them! This group of second graders from last year (who do not take the take) delivered an adorable “smart little cookies” poster! We posted it on our door and it will serve as a nice reminder throughout the week.

Idea 4: Rock the Test!! My good friend (and fellow fourth grade teacher at my school), Becky, blogs about some great ideas for test prep. Click on the pictures below to visit Becky’s blog, Dots N’ Spots!!!

After Becky teaches her students about the test taking strategies, she has the test takers create kid-friendly strategy posters that they hang up in the intermediate hallways to help remind kiddos of how to be successful. Here are some of Becky’s favorites:

Becky also has a super cute “Rock the Test” file on TpT. Check it out by clicking below. What is your favorite confidence booster for your students? Tell me your ideas!