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Herckleperckle
Member
11-20-2003
| Friday, August 26, 2005 - 1:35 pm
Sixth grade is when science and social studies get the push again. I'd recommend you familiarize yourselves with the curriculum (you should be able to get a copy of the outline of topics covered within each grade level--as it relates to the statewide testing conducted)--so you can better support and enrich your child's scholastic growth.
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Not1worry
Member
07-30-2002
| Friday, August 26, 2005 - 2:12 pm
We home school my two kids, ages 9 & 7, so I have a few ideas that might help someone. I have two very fun online math games. The first one is called MathBlox and it's kind of like Tetris with numbers. You can use it for multiplication/division or addition/subtraction. It seems to be helping my younger one with times tables, as she works on one table at a time. http://www.iknowthat.com/com/L3?Area=Mathblox The other game is just multiplication and it's called Multiflyer, kind of a space race game. You can work at a practice level, but it's much more fun to do missions. At the end, you can print out a report and it's great for them to see how they've improved. http://www.gdbdp.com/multiflyer/v02_final/playgame.html I also have some sites where you can make up your own math worksheets, if anyone is interested in those. Actually, I have several sites that offer free worksheets. Here are sites that list books by category and reading ability. They might give you some choices you haven't thought of. The have many of the older ones that I enjoyed reading, and it's great to see my kids discover them. DD is currently readin "All of a Kind Family" one of my beloved favorites. http://home.att.net/~bandcparker/reading.html http://www.classicalhomeschooling.org/celoop/1000.html http://www.thelatinschool.org/curriculum/extra/summerbooklist04-05.htm
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Herckleperckle
Member
11-20-2003
| Friday, August 26, 2005 - 2:15 pm
Great sites, Watching!!
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Schoolmarm
Member
02-18-2001
| Friday, August 26, 2005 - 5:00 pm
War, My niece really likes the "Junie B Jones" books. They are easy, but they are chapter books. Kate is in 3rd grade this year, and she started reading them in 1st and 2nd (end of 1st). They seem to be the "IN" thing, and I checked the vocab, and it's fine for Dakota's age. There are some more great books for her age. I'll raid Kate's bookcase tomorrow when I'm there for her brother's birthday.
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Herckleperckle
Member
11-20-2003
| Friday, August 26, 2005 - 5:51 pm
War, I was re-reading your post about what is expected of second graders, and I have to say, I was rather astounded. But you can help your daughter by playing a game. Whenever you're in the car, for example, make a game of, say, coming up with all the different words for 'red' or 'brown.' To give Dakota a head-start, get her the big box of Crayola crayons. (Some new words will be right in her hands.) You could use the new color names bit in a game like 'Grandma's closet.' If you've never played it, the game follows a stated theme and requires players to take turns alphabetically naming an object they have 'found' in Grandma's closet. (Let's say the theme is animals. The first person would have to name an animal that begins with 'A,' and say, "I saw an aardvark in Grandma's closet." If you are playing with colors, too, you could say, "I saw an aubergine aardvark in Grandma's closet." Course the kids would ask you what aubergine is. And then you could show them. Next person would take B, etc. til you get to the end of the alphabet. Then pick new theme. etc. And of course, once you exhaust colors, you could move on to all the words they can think of for 'smart' or 'big' or 'tired.' You should also let them know these words help describe another word (like the animal they named). You can get into parts of speech a little bit at this time--but only if they are ready to take that on. (When my mom, sister, almost-grown niece and I were traveling a long distance in the car a few years back, we played the game with our own special theme, if you get the drift. We were dying!) Btw, if you don't already have an age-appropriate dictionary at home--and the school doesn't send one home with them, buying one would be a good investment. Pre-teaching the dictionary a bit at home wouldn't hurt, either. (Topics are easier to grasp in school if you have some familiarity with them.)
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Not1worry
Member
07-30-2002
| Friday, August 26, 2005 - 6:34 pm
Wargod, I'm curious what calendar time is? That's a new one for me! I agree it's too bad that kids don't get more social studies and science. I think, especially with science, exposure at a young age can create a life long interest. I also agree with the Junie B. Jones recommendations. DD loved those! Even though she read them quickly, they were so funny. They bugged me at first because Junie uses a lot of incorrect grammar, but they were just so sweet and funny that I got over it.
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Wargod
Moderator
07-16-2001
| Friday, August 26, 2005 - 10:07 pm
Oh, Not, that used to drive me insane with Junie B. I finally figured since they were keeping Dakota reading I coud live with it. Hp, they are very tough on our kids, lol. Our kids start out in kinder writing in journals, because most of them can't write or spell at the begining of the year, the teacher starts with handouts that have sentences they trace, then later they do it without tracing, by the end of the year they were doing their own sentences. Once they get to first, they have several different journals they write in. They do daily journals (which is usually just writing about what they did yesterday,) they have reading journals, etc. They literally write all day long through all other lessons (every lesson can be turned into a writing exercise, lol, even with math they make up their own word problems.) They also read all day long in school. If they finish a class task ahead of the rest of the class, they read. If they have a few minutes until they go to lunch, they read. Group time (where the class is broken into groups and they do different things) always has a reading station. We do have an age appropriate dictionary for them. Mostly been used by Caleb, so Dakota's gonna be getting real used to it. I love the sound of that game! Sounds like a fun activity to keep her busy and teach her something. Not, calendar time follows the same pattern for our k-2nd grade classes. It's actually kind of cool because by about the fifth or sixth week of kinder, all of the kids have learned how to read calendars and tell time! It's kind of a catch all time, where they learn the things they don't really have time for in class. In kinder it starts with simple calendar exercises, talking about the month/day/date, plus they use the time to count by 1, 2, 5, and 10's, talk about color words and sight words, learn how to read thermometors, etc. 1st and 2nd grade they start talking about today's weather. They talk about the types of clouds and the temperature. They also do current events (when they start that the teachers usually stick to bringing in current magazine articles, but sometimes they find something in the paper the kids will enjoy reading and discussing.) By 2nd grade calendar time is less important, I always find that a little sad because the teachers get very creative teaching different things to them during that time. In kinder the 100th day of school is a huge deal, so they count the days (back to that counting by 1, 2, 5, and 10's.) They use coffee stirrers to keep tally marks, and then they'll use money to count. So day 27 of school, they'll pull out 27 pennies, then go through the different ways to make 27 cents (so they're learning to count and figure out money, which they just love!) 1st grade they tend to focus more on descriptions. Sally's wearing a purple skirt with white horizontal stripes and her shoes make a clicking sound when she walks. She likes soccer because she gets to run fast and kick hard. 2nd grade they focus more on local, national, and world current events. Hp, we got the curriculum last night. I already knew there was a huge difference between 3rd and 4th but if I hadn't that alone would have shouted it out to me! The fourth grade curriculum is twice the size of the third grade, lol. I haven't had much chance yet to go through either of them, but I always find them interesting. Every year I'm positive they won't be able to finish everything in the booklet and every year they do! I do understand that at this age reading is so much more important, but these young school years are also the times that kids soak up knowledge like little sponges! Yesterday Dakota's teacher dissected a fish. When I picked her up the whole class was still chattering about how cool and interesting it was. She talked non stop on the way home about what was inside a fish, lol. Kids love stuff like that, so give them more, even if the teachers would send home science or social study projects that would be cool. We have a toy liquidators here (it's a Kay-Bee store) and once in a while I can find science kits that I pick up for the kids. They will spend weeks playing with them, either alone or with us and love that stuff. Oh, someone suggested to me plays for the reading outloud. So I talked to Caleb's second grade teacher and she's going to get me a list of the ones she uses in class (they were always doing them.) We started tonight with practicing the reading outloud at home. She brought home a book they'd done in class about marine life, so we read that. Flash cards won't work for this because she has no problem reading individual words outloud, it's when she has to string them together in a sentence that she has no flow or rythym. I'm thinking maybe whole sentences or descriptive phrases though instead of individual words on some kind of cards.
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Herckleperckle
Member
11-20-2003
| Saturday, August 27, 2005 - 12:57 am
Heavens, War, I'm glad I'm not in school anymore! My heavens, the kids sound crammed! Good idea on the sentence flash cards! That may help establish a smoother flow. Is she by any chance a 'finger' reader? Using a finger to hold her place often leads to choppy oral reading. If she does that, give her an index card or short ruler instead. If it's not the finger, then the choppy reading means could mean she is so intent on pronouncing each word correctly that she is not thinking--not caught up in the story--and, in fact, missing the meaning. That type of issue, naturally, causes comprehension problems. Typically, such readers just need individual attention to build their confidence and the chance to relax as she reads--instead of feeling she must perform.
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Wargod
Moderator
07-16-2001
| Saturday, August 27, 2005 - 1:48 am
Hp, last year during back to school night, Caleb's teacher told us they expected every 3rd grader to have some kind of breakdown before the end of the year. Expected it enough that they taught yoga, deep breathing exercises and stress management throughout the year.....to 8-9 year olds! She told us then that starting at 3rd grade they push the kids hard. In all honesty it starts much younger during kindergarten. I remember me and my sister being advanced for our ages when we went into k reading! Most of the kids if they got out of k counting to 100 and knowing their abc's were doing good. K was fun time, painting and playing and silly songs and activities. These days they come out knowing how to read and write, they're doing simple addition, they work hard and have homework. No finger pointing for her, but she's never been one to mouth words as she silently reads either. She's just always ahead of herself. Her brain works faster than her mouth, but it's not only in that. I can watch her doing stuff at home and her body's always ahead of her brain. She never stops moving, never stops thinking, it's always go, go, go. Wonder if a short ruler or card would force her to slow down some?
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Secretsmile
Member
08-19-2002
| Saturday, August 27, 2005 - 6:42 am
Just a side note about the science and social studies issue in early grades. I know that the teachers in my family work those into the over all curriculum, for example when Kota's class made jam, it was not only math but science. And the reading classes expand on geography and history by reading stories set in different times and places. Just because those subjects aren't listed doesn't mean they aren't being taught. Teachers are just more creative when feeding it to the young children.
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Herckleperckle
Member
11-20-2003
| Saturday, August 27, 2005 - 7:22 am
Very true, Secret! Good point. War, has she ever heard herself reading? Maybe it would be a good idea to record her reading and play it back to her. Then, when she improves the rhythm, record it. Play the two recordings (sentences or paragraphs) sequentially so she can hear the difference herself. Side Note: When my FIL had speech problems as his Parkinson's worsened, the speech therapist had him practice with a recorder/player so he could hear himself. When Parkinson's gets bad, the individual speaks way too fast to be understandable--and, on top of that, they trail off at the end of their sentences. Very, very hard to communicate with them normally. I remember nodding my head to him sometimes--as if I knew what he was saying--when I could see he was getting tired and frustrated with repeating himself to no avail.
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Texannie
Member
07-16-2001
| Saturday, August 27, 2005 - 7:51 am
War, our girls sound very similar. My dd's brain works faster than the rest of her sometimes! LOL She had a reading delay for years. Thankfully, she was identified as having the problem right out Kindergarten so she was in the Reading Recovery program for 2 years, and then Literacy support till 4th. One of her problems was not reading every single word in the sentence. She would look at the first two letters then sort of assume and go on resulting in sentences that didn't make sense when she was reading aloud. We had to force her to slow down. First, we used easy books then she had to use her finger and point out every single word. We then graduated to using a note card and/or ruler for each line. By 5th she was reading/comprehending well beyong grade level. She is doing great now in 6th. We do still to remind her to slow down sometimes.
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Texannie
Member
07-16-2001
| Saturday, August 27, 2005 - 7:52 am
Secret, I really love that school is so intergrated now. It isn't 'we learn science only in science, reading only in reading' ect. I think it really helps the children learn better too.
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Secretsmile
Member
08-19-2002
| Sunday, August 28, 2005 - 5:15 am
I was thinking about how I got my kids to read out loud. I couldn't remember, my kids are old and I'm getting ancient. I was laying in bed last night and I kept going over it in my mind and finally I thought of it. You know I did home daycare for all those years, I had my children read easy books to the babies. Those books made it easy to find rhythm, Kota has young cousins that she can practice on right? Pull out the books you read to her over and over when she was little, she'll have them mostly memorized so she can concentrate on the way it sounds more than the words on the page. For us it was The Little Engine that Could. This is have the added benefit of showing Kota why she would have to read out loud in real life and maybe even give you a moment of free time since babies love the attention of older kids.
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Happymom
Member
01-20-2003
| Sunday, August 28, 2005 - 10:21 am
Thanks all for the quick response! Sewmommy and Not1Worry, thanks for the website links! I will investigate further! She does really like to play on the computer. She sometimes plays some math game we have, but she won't challenge herself much. We'll see. Variety and new things will probably be interesting to her. Thanks Herckle and Escapee! That is a good idea about the race with math problems. I think I'll see if she wants to do this, I will time her against herself. She does respond to this trying to best herself concept in other areas of her life sometimes. Herckle, this kind of ties in with your excellent suggestion of tracking her progress visually. I like that! I think I will reward her with a little money, she doesn't go for rewards much, but I think she will with money because she loves shopping and never has enough money and does little jobs around the house to get more. War, that was a great idea about walking away with some cash! Thanks! Herckle, that is a cool website...the Nat'l Geo one, I bet my kids will love it! War, I really like that calendar idea of activities every month. My oldest had a teacher that did that (1st grade). There was one activity per day such as count all the pillows in your house. Thanks for looking through it for multiplication activities! Re: the science and soc. studies taking a back seat in the younger grades...Like others posted, our district incorporates them into the reading and writing which do take up most of the day. Every teacher always explained this at back to school night in Sept. They seem to leave math until after lunch. I don't especially like that, but not everything can be before lunch. I wish they'd alter it though. Thanks for the math scrabble idea Teach! Of course my very unenthusiastic youngest didn't say much but my older two got very excited at the idea. It sounds like a great game. The reviews on Amazon had college kids/grads. giving it good ratings, they still play it! (even though I think they have it listed for K-7th grade.) I'm going to order it if I cannot find it in a store in the next couple of days. Re: the word bank idea that Herckle has, my oldest was very fortunate to only have 6-7 kids in her K class. She also had a great teacher. They had word banks. They choose any word they wanted. The teacher wrote it down on a slip of paper. They would pull a word out and practice reading writing and spelling it. Every so often, the teacher would quiz each kid one on one. This was a reading and spelling activity. It was amazing what the kids could spell by the end of the year! Stupendous was one of my daughter's first words for her word bank. The kids really liked this because they were all words they had chosen themselves.
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Wargod
Moderator
07-16-2001
| Sunday, August 28, 2005 - 2:57 pm
Ran to B&N today, one of my favorite places of all time, lol. I set Dakota down in one of their reading areas with a book and was able to keep an eye on her while picking out a couple things. She got a new dictionary (Caleb got one a year or two ago) and I picked up some chapter books for us to read together. Then we went looking for books that were a little easier to read for the outloud reading (she ended up picking up some fairy tales for those.) She might enjoy the tape recorder. I used to hate that as a kid and the mere sight of one would bring me to tears, but I'm thinking since she doesn't have the speach impediment I had she won't mind so much. Good idea about having her read to the younger cousins! She loves to spend time with the baby and play with her so I'm betting she'd enjoy that as well. They do do a lot of science and social studies through language arts, but most of the time don't have time for the hands on stuff. Happymom, two of the calendar activities for this month are adding doubles and Before and After. I'm going to have Caleb multiply doubles (2x2, 3x3, etc.) Before and After in addition use have one number (like an 8) and the kid has to say what comes before - 7 and after - 9. I'm thinking we can tweak it for multiplication. Multiply by various numbers, so like 6, start out with 36 and he'll have to figure out what 5x6 and 7x6 is, or something like that, lol. That's the only math activities for Septmeber that I see. I'll check the other months later on.
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Herckleperckle
Member
11-20-2003
| Sunday, August 28, 2005 - 3:24 pm
I love reading about what you all are planning. Sigh, I almost miss those days!! Please let us bystanders know how things go with your lovies!! 
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Wargod
Moderator
07-16-2001
| Sunday, August 28, 2005 - 10:17 pm
Ya know, HP, one of the best things about quitting work to stay home with the kids has been being able to spend time in their classes. I always know what they're doing, I know their friends, I see first hand how their teachers teach. Mostly though, it's the kids, especially the younger ones. They are so sweet and so eager to learn. Sometimes I don't realize what I'm seeing, lol. When Dakota was in kindergarten, I'd spent most of the year volunteering one to two days a week. I was used to the kids reading and working on math problems and it really didn't seem that extraordinary to me. Our assemblywoman had planned a trip to visit some of the schools and ours was chosen, with Dakota's class being one of the ones she was to come to. Well we spent a week or two getting the classroom ready, and the teachers worked with the kids teaching them songs and explaining the plans for that day. How when she came in they'd sing a couple songs and then break into organized group activities so she could talk to various kids and the teachers while the rest were busy. Day comes and the teachers get the call that she was running behind and might not make it all to their class, so they had the kids sing to us parents (a few of us had offered to go in and help) and then they got the kids back to their regular schedule. An hour or so later, the assemblywoman comes in. She looks around the room and here's several small groups reading to each other, another group working on math worksheets and the last ere writing journal entries....and she was shocked! They were reading and writing and doing math, with very little help from the adults in the room. That was one of the moments it really hit me how much these kids had learned in the first six months of school...5 and 6 year olds and most of them could read full books on their own, they knew how to write sentences and paragraphs and they could do simple addition, how cool is that??? It's such an exciting thing to watch happen. Now, much as I enjoy being in their classes and will do whatever I have to do at home to help them do well in school, I'd never have the patience to teach, lol. I'd be the flaming nutcase red head running out of a room full of kids duct taped to the walls pulling my hair out! Teachers have my full respect, because even doing homework with my kids can be hard work, I couldn't imagine doing it all the time!
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Wargod
Moderator
07-16-2001
| Monday, August 29, 2005 - 11:42 am
Happymom, I did a little more reading through the calendar and found a few more things that can be adapted to older children. If I repeat something I already said, sorry! Two different activites, greater than and less than. For the little ones you give them a series of two numbers and let them figure out which is greater than (or less than.) I'm thinking instead of just two numbers, for ex: 9 and 19, using math problems. Which is great: 10+9 or 4+5? and doing it also with Caleb's times. 6x5 or 4x8? Another was fill in the blanks. For the little ones the problems were things like 10 + ? =17. So for Caleb, I'm going to do problems like 6 x ?=24. One of the days they ask you to write out the problems, another to not write them, so that could work when you're driving in a car or sitting in a restaurant. Theres another where you give your child 3 or 4 numbers and ask them to pick a few numbes and add them with the ones you gave them. So I'd give her 2, 6, and 8, and then she'd pick 4, 5, and 9 to add to each of mine. I'm going to start working with Caleb on flash cards this week. I know with the addition and subtraction ones they were grouped..doubles, + 1's, 2's, 3's, etc. I figure we'll start the same with with his multiplications. Not, thank you for the websites! I added those to the kids favorites on their computers. I think they'll really enjoy them, especially once they figure out learning games don't count towards their computer time, lol. Caleb will definitely be more willing to do it since it's computer time!
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Escapee
Member
06-15-2004
| Monday, August 29, 2005 - 2:33 pm
I found a couple of box car children books high up on a shelf. It will be a long time before my DD will be interested. I'd be glad to send them to ya War. I think it's book 3, 4, and 6, but I'd have to check.
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Wargod
Moderator
07-16-2001
| Monday, August 29, 2005 - 9:43 pm
Let me check and see the latest box my neighbor sent over first Escapee, those may be in there. We've got a great thing going, lol, when her older kids outgrow books she sends them to us and my sister and when they outgrow them we send them back for her younger ones. Now for a big duh moment. I went to pick the kids up today, and oh hey guess what? They're sending Dakota to speech therapy class. She can't pronounce an "r." I asked and asked last year to get Dakota tested and kept being told she spoke like all 1st graders. What really makes me want to scream is it wasn't the teacher who pushed it (last years) or this years teacher that brought it up (I'll give her a pass she's ony had Kota for a couple of weeks.) The speech therapist went to the classroom to discuss another childs appointment times with the teacher and overheard Dakota talking! She pulled her aside and talked to her for a few minutes and put her in the class. Teacher didn't know much more than that, other than I'd be getting a letter or a call to set up an appointment with the therapist sometimes soon. Dakota's totally excited about it, she thinks it's cool she'll get out of class, lol. I'm guessing it won't be too often as it's only the one letter she has probs with. My niece has it once a month at school, most of her work is at home. My nephew on the other hand, has 3 hours a week, though his impediment is much worse than either of the girls (he sounds so much like I did when I was a kid that both mom and I encouraged them to get his hearing tested!) I won't know much of anything til I talk to the speech therapist, so I'm not going to freak out yet! I know it helped me, but honestly all I remember is the frustration of it all. Like I've said though, I know Kota doesn't have the same problems I had and I don't think she's looking at the years of therapy that I had, so it's not that bad.
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Happymom
Member
01-20-2003
| Tuesday, August 30, 2005 - 11:36 am
War, thanks so much for the math ideas. I am going to try them all with her. We've been doing some every day and she isn't quite so resistent to it. (...baby steps...sigh) I am having her write every multiplication answer and the corresponding problems ( ie 72, 9x8, 6x12) so that she can see that it's not as overwhelming as she thinks. Even though you have to learn 0-144, a lot of numbers get skipped. Thank you too for posting that when your kids play learning games they don't count toward computer time! I don't know why I didn't think of that! (I even think this rings a bell with me, like someone posted this before at some point in time...and I forgot about it!) She will be more inclined to play computer games. I do feel lucky that I don't have to worry about her math conceptually, but she really needs to have these facts down to be able to keep up in doing the higher math. I agree that volunteering in the classrooms is great! Unfortunately, I couldn't do much of that last year, but I did for previous years. I spent a lot of time in my middle daughter's classes in when she was in grades 1-3. (I wish I could have spent more with my oldest, but there was always someone too young (and disruptive lol!) to be in there much.) Anyway, another benefit is actually seeing that they do a lot more than you realize if you mostly base what you think on the homework they get! Her 2nd grade teacher gave very little homework. (Only about 15 spelling words per week that they had to write x number of times...maybe a sentence for each one, I cannot remember, and several projects over the course of the year based on books they read. That was it!) He said at back to school night in the beginning of the year that the kids are still little ande need time to play and time to have free time and they had the rest of their school lives to have lots of homework ... and if we wanted them to have more homework, we should talk to them and listen to them and play games with them and read with them! (That school requires parents to sign a paper saying they will read 20 min per night to their child for most or all grades anyway.) I loved that teacher! Anyway...my main point was that I thought the spelling words he was sending home for homework were way too easy for my daughter and many others in her class. But because I was in the classroom, I saw how much he really taught them about spelling using those words. I was in the classroom a lot when my youngest was in K. In 1st, she became too disruptive (really wanting my attention) whenever I was in there! I helped the teacher a lot, but it was all cutting paper etc. in the office. I'd much rather work with the kids! During 2nd grade she (dd) told me she really didn't want me to regularly be in her classroom. I respected her wishes. I did miss working with the kids in her class though. I still miss it. She just started 4th grade. There isn't so much to do for parents now especially in her class. But, we'll see. I helped my oldest daughter's 5th grade teacher a lot, but, it wasn't working with the kids mostly. My oldest was in a program in grades 6-8 where they went on field trips a LOT! It was very interesting being around those kids. I wasn't in the classroom in a learning environment so much, but they do learn a lot on those field trips. Seeing them develop socially is really a treat. I liked it a lot. My middle daughter just started that program. If parents have kids that do not want to be with their parents, they do not have to be in a group or car with their parents. This never happened with our oldest and I doubt it will with our current middle schooler. When my youngest goes into this program, I hope we can continue to be with her! We'll see. Now that my oldest in in HS, I barely know her teachers (and for this year, I've only met one of them so far) or the kids she only sees at school. I really miss that. It also is not the most comfortable feeling to me...part of life though. I do hear some during the carpool times that I drive. It is interesting! They grow up too quickly! Anyway, I do love volunteering in the classrooms especially when I get to work with the kids. If I was wealthy, I'd spend a lot of time helping my favorite K teacher and holding babies in the hospital! I used to love Box Car Children books! My kids didn't like them as well. I'm wondering if some of that has to do with tv. They don't watch a lot of tv. But none the less, I still wonder. I'm glad Dakota is excited about her speech class! Talk about "mom's intuition!" You knew it all along. My sister used to have speech therapy after school at a speech therapist's house. I remember her having to practice her r's and s's ...lots of sammy snake talk in our house. I know that I used to think the sound my voice sounded weird when I was a kid. (when I used to hear it played back.)I didn't like it. From the amount of video tapes of themselves that my kids have seen, it barely phases them. So, maybe Dakota would like to hear herself read. But then again, I might worry that she would expect herself to sound like you and other adults. Does she get to hear other kids besides Caleb read out loud?
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Wargod
Moderator
07-16-2001
| Tuesday, August 30, 2005 - 1:17 pm
Caleb's kindergarten year I didn't get to volunteer at all. For that matter, I didn't get to when the kids were in preschool because I was working. We were very lucky though that both my mom who took care of the kids when we were at work and hubby who worked odd hours could volunteer, so they've always had someone there. I quit work the last day of his kindergarten year so starting with his 1st and Kota's last in preschool started to spend a lot of time in their classes. Last year I really didn't get to volunteer much in Caleb's class. I was so busy watching my nieces and nephews and after talking to both their teachers I decided most of my volunteer time would be in Kota's class. His teacher pointed out that in 3rd grade volunteers mostly did grading, filing, and office work, while in 1st volunteers actually worked with the kids and the need was greater there. I'm hoping to do more with his class this year even though it's just grading and filing. I figure the more time volunteers spend on that kind of stuff the more time the teacher has to teach my kid, lol. I agree about the multiplication facts! I'm positive that the reason my kids have done so well in math is because the addition/subtraction facts were such a huge focus. Without knowing the basics, they have nothing to build on. In 4th grade their getting into algebra and if they don't know those multiplication facts they'll be lost. My kids are so neglected, and I'm such a mean mommy, or so they say, lol. We are pretty strict about tv/computer/video game time, especially with Caleb. He gets one hour a day and has to chose what he wants to do or how to split up the time. Kota gets half an hour, but we're not quite as strict with her because she may spend 45 minutes today watching tv and playing a computer game but tomorrow she'll be too busy playing in the sprinklers or riding her bike. Caleb is definitely my prone to couch potato child, lol. With the start of last year his teacher asked for internet resources when they were doing projects and the kids were allowed to type papers rather than writing them. I figure they may be on the computer playing a learning game or reading but since they're learning it's not the same as playing on Nick jr. com or something. Calebs so much more willing to study when it's on the computer! Yep, she gets to hear other kids besides Caleb read. They do a lot of group reading in class, plus have their reading buddies (this year Dakota gets to be both a reading buddy, reading to a kindergartener, and have a reading buddy, a 4th grader who will come in and help her read outloud.)
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Escapee
Member
06-15-2004
| Tuesday, August 30, 2005 - 3:11 pm
War - When I was in third grade, the school speech therapist pulled me out of class to "chit chat" for a while. I don't know if someone tipped her off that I had a speech impedement, but it was never discussed at home. I had a really bad lisp. I can, however remember my dad teasing me about it, but if you are the one who has a speech impedement, you can't hear it. He would make me say things that had several S's in it then laugh. I never understood why he was laughing until the day I had the meeting with the speech therapist. They did speech therapy without telling my mom. My mom figured I would grow out of it. Now, with the situation with the R's, my cousin, neice and sister all spoke where they couldn't pronounce their R's properly, they never went to speech therapy and eventually grew out of it. I have never heard of an adult who had trouble with their R's unless they were deaf. I am glad the speech therapist caught it. My problem was fixed before the end of my fourth grade year and it was fun.
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Teachmichigan
Member
07-22-2001
| Tuesday, August 30, 2005 - 6:41 pm
I have a student who is a senior in HS, has perfect hearing, but can't say his "r's" to save his life! He was in our musical last year -- and one of his lines was "Disturbances will not be tolerated." Oh myyyyyy -- I could understand him because my brother has issues w/r's, but the audience looked like he was speaking Greek! LOL Great kid, he knows he can't say his r's -- and doesn't look like he'll "outgrow" it any time soon. 
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