Progress Reports!

The kids brought home progress reports from school last week. Joshua has all As and 1B - the B is in Science. I asked him why he thought his science grade was different than his other grades and he tells me that he might not be writing neat enough on his observation papers. I told him that it sounds like he knows what the problem is, so we'll see what things look like on the actual report card. Keith and I are both so proud of Joshua - those are great grades for starting a new school year at a new school with new friends and very new expectations. This will be our first year of the FCAT and the test preparation is a huge part of the classroom curriculum. I have a parent-teacher conference with his teacher next week.

Daniel brought home all Ss. He loves school. His teacher has a calendar that she sends home every day for parent's initials. If the face on the calendar is smiling, then Daniel had a good day, if it is a sad-face, then it means there was a discipline issue. So far, all happy faces! Shocking really, since he's such a little free-spirit!

Megan brought home 1 A (Science) 2 Bs (Math and Social Studies) and 2 Cs. Her Cs are in Reading and Language Arts. We can actually see the progression of her grades getting better as she's becoming more adjusted to her new glasses. A few weeks ago, the teacher decided to start printing out the slides from some of the classroom activities, and putting the slides on Megan's desk so that Megan won't have to look up at the screen - focus - read the words - look down at her paper - focus - write the words. Quite a bit was getting lost in translation. I was able to meet with Megan's teacher for a full hour on Monday to talk about some ways that I can build up her reading/writing skills. We are taking every opportunity we have to read/write around here. I've also pulled out some of the homeschooling materials that we've used in the past, and we are playing lots of games to help reinforce some basic skills.

I've inserted all of her spelling words into www.spellingcity.com and allow her to "play" that on the computer when she's done with her homework.

For all of the kids, the school focuses on answering questions both orally and written with complete sentences. So if the question is, "what did Paul eat for dinner last night?" the answer only gets half credit if the kids write or say, "pizza". The correct way to answer is, "Paul ate pizza for dinner last night." or "Last night, Paul ate pizza for dinner."

Megan uses her fingers for math still, and her teacher is trying to emphasize memorization of basic math facts. The second graders have these Math Minute sheets that they do - completing as many basic (1+2, 3+7, etc) math sums as possible in one minute. She's score in the lower third of her class with this. So tonight we made a math mobile to hang in her room and we'll update it every few days with more math facts as she continues to learn.
Monday there was no school for FCE. No school = no homework! There was zero humidity and the weather forcast has been calling for storms to come in tonight, so we knew this was the right time to get outside! The kids rode bikes with Daddy, while I went for a run. Then we all sat around the fire pit grilling hot dogs and making smores.