Changes Again...

Sometimes life gets a bit overwhelming and you just need to change things up a bit! We have decided that due to the craziness around here lately, we are going to cut back to 3 full days, 2 light days of lessons and NO work on the weekends! This is our first week of trying this routine and so far it is already feeling like what we needed. It basically works out that the days that we have the Littles will be our light days and the days that we don't have them are the full days.

I have changed up some of her workload as well to accommodate this schedule. One of the new things that she has been enjoying is Brain Pop! She really likes the movie clips and activities. I really like that she can email me the quizzes and it is one less thing that I have to really think about. She is using with the Physics kit and has been searching the site for the key words in her manual to correlate with the program - LOVE IT!!! She is taking her own initiative to expand on the subjects - HOW GREAT IS THAT!

She completed the Writing Strands 3 & 4 and did a really fantastic job on them so we have also decided to take a break on formal writing and focus more on prompt writing. We will be using 350 Fabulous Writing Prompts and 100 Quickwrites both by Scholastic. They are great prompts and readings that you go over and then allow a set amount of time to write without stopping or correcting. This gives very little time for editing in the head before getting it down on the paper and allows for more of a flow of writing. You can go back later and edit or redo something if you want to, but right now it is more about just getting her to write and not feeling pressure about it.

KM has also decided that she really doesn't like the Ancient Greece thematic unit from Teacher Created Resources. We have tried few different ones with varied success and I thought that she would like this one because it was a more challenging level, but there were some errors in the mapping section - like it tells you to locate Egypt on the map, but Egypt was not shown on the map - and therefore she has no faith in the content. I am also wondering if she is just getting sick of the Ancients, so we are going to stick with the lapbook, more of the multimedia things, - another reason why we splurged for the BrainPOP subscription - and of course the myths, because she loves EVERYTHING about them!

She has also begun to use the Tell Me More Spanish - which we got during the Homeschool Buyers' Co-op group buy last summer - and she REALLY is enjoying it. I think that the voice recognition is such an incredible key to her confidence in it! This program really seems to cover all aspects of recognition, memorization and understanding. She has been doing it daily without any qualms or complaints.

As always we will be constantly evaluating and reorganizing our path, but hey isn't that one of the many reasons why we homeschool - to give our kids exactly what they NEED WHEN they need it!

almost back...

We will be back to lessons starting Sunday. I am trying to take the rest of this week to get myself, my house and my coop responsibilities under control before we delve into lessons here. I am waiting to see what happens with the Littles. I am having some anxiety over it, but I know that it will all work out in the end. We have decided to do a few things on Sundays, as they are generally slow get things done and ready for the next week days around here. KM agreed and thinks that if it will make me feel less pressure with the Littles during the week she is all for it, so we have picked Health and Cultural Studies to do on Sundays. We will wait and see how things really turn out with the kids and how much we can get done before we decide to switch things out anymore. There has been some talk of making the days that we have them more like weekend days, but I really need time that is neither lesson or daycare time - wow what a CONCEPT! Does such time actually exist?
I am bound and determined to find it! Anyway we will be back in full force next week and I am working on coming up with some sort of themes like Science Thursdays that we did during the Summer, but I will have to keep everyone posted on that one!

What will you do differently this year?

This question was posted on one of my favorite yahoo groups and I thought hmmmm.....what a great blog entry! Here is my list:

1. I feel like I am getting to the point that I am really comfortable with our home learning process, but KM is in the midst of her "middle school" years and I need to really let go a bit to allow her some more independence in her studies. I took her opinion into consideration when I made all of her curriculum choices and allowed her to make the final decision on which programs we would use. This will also be really helpful since I will have not one, but two little ones around my house this fall so she will really need to be a bit more responsible for her own time management.
   
2. I am going to be more flexible with our schedule. I upgraded to the Homeschool Tracker Plus late last spring and I have spent all summer inputting lesson plans and outlines so that I can reschedule things with a click of the mouse! We are also getting to the realization point where it suddenly dawns on you that lessons really don't have to be only Mon-Fri. There have been times this summer were KM has opted to get her lessons done on a rainy Sunday so that Monday she can spend the day in the pool with her friends - and it has worked out FABULOUSLY!
3. I am going to be strict about 3 Stay Days a week! This is for my sanity as well as KM's attitude, as she tends to get REALLY cranky when she is overscheduled. We will also really need to stick with this in order to stay on track with her lessons, as there will be times when we can't work on something with SC running around and wanting to be right in KM's space - see #4.
4. Setting a routine with the little ones. Last year SC got really into coloring and working right next to KM, but as our summer has progressed SC has gotten to the stage in development where she wants KM to stop what she is doing and get right into what SC wants her to do - this is not going to fly come the fall! The tricky part to this is dealing with the newborn -GC- and my sister's rotating schedule so that I don't have the kids the same days each week. I think we are going to work it out where we will have a Week 1 Schedule and a Week 2 Schedule. On week 1 I will have the little ones Mon, Tue, & Sat and Week 2 Wed, Thur. Since our coop is on Mon I think it will work out that we will have the first day be our go day and the second our stay. So that Wk 1 Mon & Wk 2 Wed will be GO Days and I will plan somewhere - park, playground, library, museum something every other Wed and then the Wk 1 Tue & Wk 2 Thur will be STAY days and I will plan art and craft activities, backyard science things, and games for SC to do in the morning while KM works independently. Then I can work with KM in the afternoon during SC's nap. I am optimistic that GC will still be little enough, at least through the winter that I can have her either in the sling or seat right with us. Come next spring when she is starting to crawl we may need to rework a bit again, but for now I think this plan is going to go very well! KM has her lesson books in baskets on a shelf organized by subjects and I am thinking of setting up a somewhat similar system for SC - with like play-doh in one bucket, art stuff in another, instruments in another - so that she feels like she is doing the same type of thing as KM.
   

Our homeschooling experience has brought so many wonderful changes to our family and our lives. As each session goes by and we prepare for the next it is so exciting to see how our lifestyle has changed since we began this journey and how much we continue to grow with each passing season!

What will you be doing differently this year?

Lesson Completed -

Our proverbs lesson "April Showers Bring May Flowers" was completed this morning and I think the lesson that I needed to learn was completed as well. The title alone could not have been more perfect to me. We started this a while ago and at the time had no idea where it was going to lead us, so I thought I would share the incredible results that have come from this very simple art project.

I have expressed how much KM disliked the process of writing many times here on my blog and in real life to nearly anyone I can think of, so when I was looking into curriculum choices for next year I decided to speak to my all-time favorite homeschool guru, who also happens to be a published writer and has a daughter who received a perfect score on the written part of the SAT, so I felt she surely would have some incredibly wise words of wisdom for me and sure enough she did.

After a long discussion of what the situation was and how KM behaved when given any sort of writing assignment, we came to the conclusion that she was self-editing in her head as she was writing and this was causing her to be blocked right from the get-go. She was so worried that it wasn't going to come out perfectly the first time that she wrote something down on paper that she just wasn't able to cohesively express herself through the written word. So my guru gave me some tips and exercises to try.

The first suggestion that really made sense to me was to have her write for two minutes - either giving her a prompt, word or whatever - she was to just write for the full two minutes whatever came into her head. She shouldn't stop, erase, correct anything, worry about punctuation, spelling or anything else. She just had to have pen to paper for a full two minutes. Well this made so much sense to me, if she was not worried about it being corrected it should alleviate the blocks. So we started doing this every few days using the proverbs that we had written out for our April Showers Bring May Flowers project. It worked like a charm. KM would pick a proverb from the bag, think about it for a minute and then I would set the timer for 2 minutes. She would just write and write and write, what she thought the proverbs meant. There were times when the timer went off and she wanted to continue writing. It was as if I had another child sitting there with a pencil in hand.

The results have baffled me. Although of course they are not perfect grammatically or content wise, she has written down at least 3 to 4 sentences each time. There have been no complaints, arguments, or begrudging stares. The more we have done it, the more she grabs a new proverb out of the bag in the morning and wants to do it.

She is growing so much and truly becoming an independent learner. She is very happy to take the books and go. She wants to be able to learn these things on her own without someone hovering over her. When she has a set assignment she is completing it with no problem. Who is this child? How can this be the same individual that I had to stand over and watch her complete every word she wrote down to make sure it was done - just a year and a half ago? She is not the same child. She is a homeschooler, even better a home learner now. She truly enjoys learning and wants to find out more about EVERYTHING!

So this morning when she grabbed the last proverb out of the bag, it literally brought tears to my eyes...

One today is worth two tomorrows.

This is one of my favorite proverbs, the truest to my heart. You must cherish today because tomorrow may not come. You must love life for it can be taken away in an instant. You must enjoy the time that you have with your family because they could be gone at any moment. Though I do not want to live in constant fear of losing everyone or of tomorrow never coming, it is good to remember those that I have lost in order to remind myself that I need to cherish the people that I have in my life while they are hear.

I cannot tell you how proud I am of her accomplishments. I can tell you the joy that I feel in my heart when I see her completing a project and suddenly the light goes off in her brain. She got it! Something made the concept click and now she truly understands it. She does not remember long enough to complete the test and then proceed to dump it to learn the next information, she truly and completely is becoming educated! Every day that I spend with her I learn more about her and myself. I am truly grateful this path that we have chosen has brought us to such an incredible place.

Why do some things just have to be so difficult?

I am really have a hard time trying to get KM to understand the basic concepts of writing. I have tried several different methods and approaches. I am at the point of giving up right about now - I think we are going to just drop the formal writing and try to focus on what she needs to write for her other assignment areas and try to strength those answers. I am thinking in this way it would be more cohesive and if it is connected to something else then it would be more meaningful. I had such high hopes and was really impressed with the Writing Tales curriculum. She even really liked it, but she just was not progressing and we both felt that the content was a bit dry for her age.

I am trying to find different articles about when to start formal writing and composition lessons and pros and cons of different ages so if any of you wonderful devoted followers have any insight or any suggestions at all I would be greatly appreciative as I am just utterly at a lose on this one -----

Changes...again...

We have been revamping how things work again!
~~~ BIG SURPRISE I KNOW~~~

The first thing is our vocabulary program - KM has been using Wordly Wise 3000 second edition, since I brought her home from PS last year, as she "really liked the way it was set up." Last year they had let her keep the workbook copy that she had started with and since it was a fairly inexpensive system and she did seem to be learning from it we kept it going this year. However over the last few lessons, I noticed that she was having more and more problems with the testing part of it. She just did not seem to be understanding the definitions, when they were taken out of the content of the book or if she couldn't check the definitions. You see the workbook is set up with the words and definitions listed at the beginning of each lesson, then through out the week you do one part each day Monday through Thursday and then you test on Friday. So I sat down with her and had her show me exactly HOW she goes about doing the work. What I found was that she was never actually "reading" through the definitions of the words, she had been taught/instructed by her PS teacher in 4th grade on how to figure out the answers to the different sections using different types of context and scanning clues. Great for building "TESTING" skills, but not so great for "VOCABULARY" skills. I spoke with CJ about this for awhile this afternoon and we have decided to scrap the Wordly Wise for the time being. I am by no means knocking the product at all. I really do like the way it is setup and the different approaches, but my daughter has been trained to cheat her way through it and that just seems like busy work to me. By the way on the test she doesn't have the definitions available and that is why she can't use the system that they taught her in order to pass this test, so I wonder how well those testing skills do actually work?

So in lieu of the Wordly Wise for vocab skills we have decided to try a few different things. For one I had gotten her the My Word Coach for the Wii for Christmas - before the price shot through the roof, guess people found out how great it is!! - so we are going to incorporate that in, as well as some really cool free sites I have found online for vocab building including -

1. Number2.com
2. Free Rice
3. Learning Vocabulary Fun
4. Prepme.com

We have started Ancient History and I think the outline that we have planned is going to work really well. The hands-on project booklets, lapbook sets and ancient science are going to tie the information from the textbook together really well. I downloaded the audiobooks of the Story of the World from our library network site and I think that as we get into each section I will introduce it by using one of the stories from the set. I am stressing to her that they are stories though. I know that many, many, many people have said that SOTW is a secular program and I get why they think that since it covers all religions. At the same time, in my opinion, the way they present the stories just doesn't feel right as a "History" curriculum. However the stories themselves are great little tidbits of "this is the type of stories that they told at this time" or "these are the things that they believed at that time." I will be sure to post pics as we get more into our ancient science and kits that we will be using.

We are also adding in some more math practice review days as she is starting to get into some unfamiliar territory. Each time she comes across a new concept I am shocked at how much I thought she had learned at PS, but she really never even touched on the subject. She is using the Teaching Textbooks Pre-Algebra as that is where she tested into in the system and she really likes how the system is set up, but it also assumes that you have a really good understanding of a lot of the basics and while she does in some areas she is REALLY lacking in others. At the moment we have taken a step back and are spending some extra time with percentages. These can be tricky little buggers and she just doesn't seem to want to follow all the steps in the process. She starts out fine and gets so close to the answer, but somehow gets tripped up on one or two steps. The weird part is that each time it seems to be different spots as well. So we will be taking this next week to reinforce the concepts with some hands on things and real-life math problems to see if I can get her to understand that completing ALL the steps is the only way to get the right answer. As I have said a gazillion times before, I really do not like to bash the school system, but they teach the kids that any answer is better than no answer. You see on the MCAS test they get points as long as they put something for an answer. If they leave an answer blank they get 0, but if they at least take a guess, even if it is the complete wrong answer, they get 1 point. If they take a guess and get the answer that is "almost" the right answer they get 2 or 3 points. If they get the right answer they get 4 points. ---hmmmm

I adore math! I always have and the 1 and only reason for that is that math is not a subjective topic. The answer is either right or wrong, even if you can have more then one solution to a problem ~ i.e. name a prime number that is less than 11 - the answer could be 1, 3, 5, or 7 ~ the answer that you give is either right or wrong. There is no arguing about it. There is no teacher saying that THEY don't interpret it that way. It is a truly black and white subject. So it baffles me that things like this are going on in our school system and I am having to retrain my daughter's brain.

When I started typing I never intended for this post to turn into another rant about the PS system - HONESTLY I DIDN'T! Since it has been a year out of that system I really should be beyond that by now - shouldn't I? But the more I am thinking about it, the more amazed I am that I am still discovering things about the system that I somehow missed when she was there. I also think that the scary part of that is that I was a very involved parent ~ I was even a substitute teacher for a while at the school and volunteered all the time ~ so how much are the uninvolved parents missing. The parents who barely have time to read through the mass of papers that come home from school or to check their kids homework. I am not saying that they all choose to be that way or making a judgement on them, but it is a little bit frightening to me to think that their kids are just being shuffled along and taught strategies to get through the test instead of being educating in order to be a productive and prosperous member of society.

I do apologize for the twisted route that this post has taken...I guess you just never know where you will end up once you start out -or what kind of changes you have to make along the way - so maybe I didn't get so far off topic as I thought I had!

pro·duc·tiv·i·ty

Noun
Definition:

1. rate of production: the rate at which a company produces goods or services, in relation to the amount of materials and number of employees needed
2. ability to produce: the ability to be productive

This is a word that has been being discussed a LOT lately around here. From the kitchen remodeling, to the chaotic situations that have put our "normal" life on a hold a bit, to the economics coop class that KM is take to prepare herself for another visit to Exchange City.
This word was mentioned again today, by a father who just does not want to grasp the concept of natural consequences for his child. He has been working around the house for the past week and I think the cabin fever is beginning to get to him already.

Here was the situation:
KM took an EXTREMELY long time getting herself together this morning, she couldn't make a decision on which cereal to eat, she was allowing SC to distract her every chance she got, was picking out "just the right outfit" for a day when we were not planning on leaving the house and just generally dawdling about her business as most 11 year old girls tend to do from time to time.

Things like this don't really bother me on days when I know that we don't have anywhere to be, but for some reason CJ just can not stand this dilly dally behavior. He just kept prodding her along until I finally pulled him aside and had to explain to him again that no matter how long it takes her to do her work, she will get all of the work done today.

There are days that she gets everything done in under an hour - generally on days there is something SHE wants to do planned - then there are days when it takes her four hours to get the exact same amount of work done - these are generally days when we HAVE to be somewhere that I need to be. Regardless of the amount of time she will get all of the assigned work completed.

I am always with in earshot of her and if she needs help I jump right in there to point her in the direction she needs to go in, but I do not stand over her. She wants to be independent, she wants to learn most of these things on her own, so that is how her morning work is done - I give her the morning daily assignments and she does them as I go about playing with SC or getting my daily cleaning, baking, work and what not stuff done.

When she has completed her morning things she has free time to go on the computer, play with SC, work on an afternoon assignment or just do whatever until after lunch. Then in the afternoon we work on one or more of the following topics - either Literature, Science, Social Studies/History or an elective - art, music, Spanish, current events, etc - together. I try to keep the lighter fun things for when SC is there as she really likes to participate with us for art, music and Spanish. History and Science is saved for two of the three afternoons that we don't have SC so that we can really focus on what we are studying and can get engulfed in it. When we are done with that KM is done for the day.

Therefore if KM chooses to not focus and get her work done, she does not have as much free time. This is the natural consequence for the behavior. As I was explaining all this to CJ, KM came by and handed me her completed work and said "See Daddy if my productivity drops, I don't get to have the benefit of a friend coming over this afternoon. Since there is no Public School today, I can probably have a whole afternoon visit!"

CJ was shocked. In the amount of time it had taken me to explain to him how this all works, KM had finished her entire math reading and practice assignment. She was totally done for the day.

She also told us that when she was putting the date in her daily notebook she remembered that it was Veteran's Day and her neighborhood friends would be home - see there was a benefit for her to be productive! I know for sure know she FINALLY understands the concept and I think he may be getting it as well!

Saved from a relapse of insanity!

So Friday night I began having a slight meltdown, nothing to horrible, but I KNEW it was only going to get worse. In the last week or two CJ's business went from ridiculously slow to OMG HOW ARE WE GOING TO DO THIS busy! Which in construction is very common. First signs of spring everyone calls for estimates and believe me I am not complaining about it, but the first few weeks of transition get a bit crazy around here. Scheduling issues come up, KM feels like she never sees dad and I of course get the dread of he is going to be working 40 hours a week at the job he took because business was slow and now nights and weekends with all the sidework he is getting calls for! Mind you this happens every year, but we haven't been homeschooling every year!

Insecurities creep into the brain about choices we have made, my new found sanity begins to wander away and I begin to go into panic mood. This has not happened to me in a VERY long time. At the time CJ was at an estimate and there was no way I was going to interupt that, so I raced through my support system in my head and of course the one at the top of the list can't be called upon - not physically anyway. These are the times when I miss her SOOOO much it feels like it was only yesterday that she passed. When Noni was here I could call her day or night and she had just the words to bring me back to earth again. So on the verge of total mental breakdown I sat down in my room and closed my eyes to breathe through it for a second. When I opened my eyes and lifted my head there in front of me was the answer.

I hadn't realized, when I stopped to sit, that I sat down in front of the picture of the two most important women in my life - Noni and DD.

I immediately knew what to do - I picked up the phone and called DD. I did not know what I needed from her but I knew at that second I needed to hear her voice. We made plans for her to bring SR over Saturday afternoon so that she could be with KM and DD could be with me.

An unbelievable feeling of calm came over me and I had recaptured my sanity!

Saturday morning I got up and had my yearning for spring cleaning come back again so I decided to go with it. KM and CJ helped out here and there I went through a lot of excess stuff that has been collecting around the house to get ready for a donation run. DD called and said everything still looked good and they would be over later in the afternoon. I continued to wade through the piles and a few hours later I got a second call from DD, SR was not feeling well and didn't think she could make the ride, so DD was coming alone. Well, now I have to break this news to KM. She got a bit upset and clingy for a few minutes then a light went off. I called CJ (who was out picking up something from craig's list for a science project we have to start this week) and shared my new thought up plan with him. His reply was "What every you need me to do!" He is SOOOO wonderful.

So DD arrived and her and I went out to dinner, while KM and CJ went out to dinner and a movie.

That was exactly what I needed. Dinner with DD. I love her so much! I don't know if she knows how much that short amount of time really recharged me. I thoroughly enjoy spending time with her. It doesn't matter if we go out to eat, sit and watch a movie or play card games on the computer, I completely enjoy the time that I spend with her. I am so blessed to have her in my life. Thank you, thank you , thank you!

New Schedule

We have started a new schedule in the house and it seems to be working.

We gave up all time restraints and guidelines for the most part. KM kept getting so caught up on the times were suppose to do things, that she wouldn't focus or would just not give any kind of flexibility to anything. If she was suppose to get into the shower at 7 and she finished her reading at 6:52 instead of getting up and going to the shower, she would say I still have 8 minutes before I am suppose to get in the shower. Now we have 5 sessions of schoolwork during the day, breaks in between, and things that need to be done before or after other things. The breaks have estimated amounts of time like 15-20 minutes so that she doesn't get focused on it. So far it really seems to be working.

I know that it is not something that can be used constantly as there are days when we need to be somewhere at particular times, but we have never really had any kind of problem with that. I will keep you posted on how it goes in the long run.


By the by...crystal still in jar!

OMG!!! 2-3-2008 Part 2

So I am calmer now than I was earlier, but I think I am even more frustrated with the school.
I really, really, really have tried to not bash the school that KM was attending, but this whole writing thing has driven me crazy today.
I have spent the last three hours trying to find a writing program to help as the curriculum that we I thought would work is just not going fit right now.
I have discovered something interesting.
I was adopted as an infant, but am in close contact with both my biomom’s and biodad's families. (see abbreviation entry for more info on this) I have a brother and sister both of which are two years younger than KM and a brother who is two years older than her. I bring this up because for the last few years I have heard how my three youngest siblings have been doing book reports all the time. KM has never done one…EVER. Not one.
So this evening in my search for the answer to my writing curriculum issues, I discovered that the majority of teachers, parents and homeschool educators all feel that kids learn how to develop their writing skills by doing BOOK REPORTS!!! Ok so now on top of everything else I am stumped at the fact that her school never did book reports. I have been mentioning this for months to both DD & LP and now it has come back to me.
SOOOOOO…we will be spending a good chunk of this week learning how to write a book report!

Are You Kidding ME?!?!? - 2-3-2008 Part One

Ok so I am just going to vent for a moment!
I am totally frustrated by a writing assignment right now! I don’t exactly know even how to begin with this. KM and I were working on this assignment on Friday, we decided to put it aside until Sat because it just wasn’t clicking. So Saturday came and we were still having some trouble getting her to express what it was that she was trying to say and we decided we would step away again. This afternoon was the last straw for me. We spent two hours working on it and had barely gotten through the first paragraph.
Now I really thought this was something that was going to go very quickly even though this is KM’s worst subject area. She just does not like writing! The assignment was to write a persuasive essay. We chose the topic rather quickly, but every time it came to her answering simple questions she became sheepish and shy. (If you have met my child you know that is not her norm, by any means!!) I asked why and you could tell by the tears welling up in her eyes she honestly had no idea what to answer.
I am at my wits end. The reason I am soooo frustrated is that for the last three years my daughter has been having problems responding to writing prompts at school. She is very intelligent (I know that a lot of parents say that but she has always been at the top of her classes, reading at the highest levels and comprehending what is going on.) but for some reason when it comes to her expressing what she is thinking it is just not making a connection. I brought this up several times to her teachers and they just said “oh she is lazy“, “she writes so large that it takes her a long time and she gets tired“, (That one drove me crazy!) “she can do it she is just not applying herself“.
Last year they had MCAS for long composition and her teacher kept making this huge deal about the size of her writing and how they were concerned that she would not have enough time to finish the test because her large writing takes such a long time to actually write. So we spent weeks trying to get her to write smaller and the teacher kept hounding her about it. Finally after receiving a progress report stating that they were getting “seriously concerned” about the size of her writing and that they wanted to consult an OT/PT specialist about it I went to the assistant principle and asked what happened if she didn’t finish it in time and the assistant principle said “The long composition section isn’t timed, if it takes her three weeks to finish it then that is how long she is given!” WHAT!?!?!? She also informed me, as the head of the SPED department that the size of the writing has no correlation to the amount of time that she is taking to complete the writing. WHY IS THE TEACHER HARRASSING ME AND MY DAUGHTER ABOUT THEN? She of course could not answer this question. As it got closer to the time for the test they started having after school groups for the children that needed more help getting ready for the MCAS. KM was not asked to participate in these sessions so I assumed that the problem had been resolved. She took the MCAS and said she thought she did great. She finished it in a good amount of time and that was that.
UNTIL the first progress reports came home this year. This was my point of breakdown with the school system. The MCAS results are sent home with the progress reports you see and my daughter was in the bottom of Needs Improvement Category for ELA. I asked a teacher to explain the scoring and let me know where the biggest problem area was so that we could work on it. She said that KM was having her biggest issues in the Long Composition where she scored a 1 out 4 possible points in every category. She got a perfect score on all the other areas. ****Now meanwhile she also scored in the high Advanced Level for Math.*****
Not long after scoring was sent home the school sent home a notice saying they were going to start a Homework club that was by invitation only and would focus on specific problem areas for the MCAS. I thought oh this is a great idea, take the kids that really need to focus on one area and put them together to try to work out and understand the problem. So KM got her invitation to attend and I signed it right away so that she could start the group the next week. Monday afternoon I picked her up and she said how great a time she had. I said oh what did you guys go over. Her response was oh we played a few multiplication games and went over some fractions. HUH? why are you doing math games in the ELA group?
You guessed it she was placed in the Math group. Her teacher got her mixed up with another child whose name starts with a K and assigned her to the wrong group. So we easily fixed that situation, she was going to be attending the Tuesday group which was for ELA.
The next day I pick her up from the group and she says again how great a time she had and how she got to sit with “this one” and “that one.” Well “this one” is a fourth grader and “that one” is a sixth grader. Why do they have all of these kids at different levels in the same group, because they all need help on the ELA MCAS! It doesn’t seem to matter to the coordinators that these kids tests are all completely different. They are going to do the same games and learning strategies with all of them and it WILL work! Don’t think so.
KM’s teacher and the coordinator for the group both expressed how they thought she was making great progress and they had seen a huge improvement! When her report card came we were expecting to see low As - high Bs after hearing how great everything had been going. What we saw instead were Cs. Now for a child who had never even gotten a B+ this was a bit of a shock. The teacher said oh well she is having problems with her writing assignments. My head nearly BLEW OFF!
So anyway…this whole situation was the NUMBER ONE reason why I took my daughter out of school. The system is screwed up! I have a child who got straight As on all her 4th grade report cards for all ELA subjects, yet she can not complete the 5th grade writing assignments and got Warning/Needs improvement on her MCAS. She can not write a complete paragraph! She can write a “$3 dollar” sentence without batting an eye, but she can’t make it fit into a report with any kind of flow or cohesiveness. I now have to go back and figure out where to start teaching her from. Thank goodness for the ability to stop and change things around to fit my child.
This is the first really big bump in the road and I apologize for having rambled so crazily through most of this entry. Which really was a long one. I thank any of you who are actually still reading at this point, because I probably would have stopped reading after the third or fourth paragraph.