Teacher Appreciation Day 4

I'm quite happy with what the social committee (oh, yes, the school has a social committee of which I am not a member) organized for teacher appreciation week. Day 1 was a drawing from the kids. Easy. Day two required each kid to bring a flower. We picked an iris for each girl from our yard.

Yesterday was to bring a treat. We baked brownies and brought one each for the teachers. Some parents misinterpreted the directions and brought enough of their treat to feed all the teachers in the school. Nice, but overkill.

Today was to present the teacher with a memory dictated by the child. I had the girls tell me and typed their responses. Could I have gotten Inwe to write hers? Yes. Call it laziness after a long day.

From Larien:

I love Ms. B because she takes care of me when I play. She helps me build things that I like. Ms. B always, always, always will give me a treat.

Ms. C helps me build a tower when I like it. She likes helping me and my friends.

From Inwe:

Mrs. M, I like when we have reading groups. I love when you thought we were in college. Thank you for being my teacher.

Ms. Cd, I like when you help us. I liked when you checked on us when we made a page of our math books.

Every day is Earth Day

The girls' school had an Earth Day celebration today.

I'd show you pictures, but I seem to enjoy helping with activities instead of recording the fun that occurred.

There was lots of dirt digging as one of the parents built four huge flower boxes on the field. I'm pretty sure that flowers and vegetables were planted in them. I don't really know as I didn't help with that. Finwe was with me and decided that he needed to be attached to me so that he could breathe, because breathing without me is so difficult. He's really got to learn to do this better.

There was a small pile of dirt left over from filling the boxes, so the kids dug there as well.

Someone brought a can crusher and aluminum cans. This was way cool for the kids to do.

The kids also made concrete stepping stones decorated with shiny stones and bits of ceramic on top. When these are set, the school will put them around the flower boxes.

What did I do? Pine cone bird feeders. Instead of using peanut butter due to a few kids who are allergic, we used shortening for the goopy part. I directed the kids on what to do and attached the pipe cleaners once the bird seed was applied. Finwe sat on my lap for the first ten pine cones, but soon realized that he could leave me and not suffer some panic attack.

He pushed a kid sized wheelbarrow and carried two of the bird feeders around showing them to anyone who cared to talk to him. At this school, it means everyone.

Oh, we got messy.

Kids were happy. I was happy. Finwe passed out before we left the parking lot. So far, this is a good day. Too bad I don't have pictures.

Flourish

Lately, Inwe has been really progressing with her lettering. She used to write in only uppercase letters. Now, she mixes the cases properly. And, if that wasn't enough, now she is adding flourishes to her lettering as evidenced in the picture above.

On a side note, she has finally decided that she isn't good at gymnastics and would like to try something else. Mid April will be her last day of gymnastics. We have discussed trying dance lessons again as well as art or music lessons. "I'm really good at those," she stated.

Winter Break

Today and tomorrow are days reserved for Winter Break.

Translation: we will be lazy, watch TV until 10am, and eventually do a forced march outside. Fiwne will be our leader on the march. At some time I will feel guilty that the girls aren't learning something and will direct a reading lesson for each one. Larien is just learning the sounds of the letters. Inwe has been reading "Are you my mother?" with Phill. He's made flash cards of the words that challenge her. He left me with that assignment to do today. We'll see.

We may also label items in the house with words as a way to learn core words like door, sofa, refrigerator, floor, window. You know. Or maybe you don't, and you think that we have gone batty. Possible. Really possible this last month.

With the lice, the emergency room visit, and watching everything Finwe does so he doesn't have any reason to go to the doctor's for any accidental trauma, I am quite batty. And, there is no more chocolate dip with strawberries. Truly a loss.

100 Days Approaching

The entire family helped Larien make a poster with 100 flowers (her choice). Here she is writing her name as Inwe spells it for her. 100 days of school is on Friday.

mom in the class

I wrote about this on my other blog. Go there to see what I was doing.

Memorization

On Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday, Inwe brings home a book to read. We laugh at the term 'read' as she is just going through the book from memory. We do what we are supposed to do--make her use her finger to point out the words. Maybe she is really reading some of the words.

On Monday she brought home some flash cards with core words. Those she does read, but she isn't challenged. I'm very happy that I still work with her on the reading lessons. I know that she can read. She's also very good at memorization.

Books for the Boy

The sinking feeling of being a not so wonderful parent hit me at Finwe's last well child visit to the pediatrician. The resident walked in holding a book, Goodnight Gorilla. After introducing herself she handed the book to Finwe. He didn't grab it.

"Here's a book for you, Finwe." She turned to me, "Because I'm sure you read plenty to him at bedtime."

Uh, no, I don't. Oh, crap. I'm supposed to read to him. WE DON'T READ TO HIM!

Where did we go wrong with the boy? I'm being perfectly (and painfully) honest when I say we don't read to him. He has always swatted the books with his chubby hands or tried to rip the pages. There were times when we held him in our laps while we read the three or more books to the girls at night. Does passive reading count?

Finwe doesn't sit long enough to have a book read to him. This will now be my mission--getting at least one book each day read to him.

Return to School

Although Larien's lament this morning was "I don't really like Miss B that much" after I told her today was back to school day, she left me without a backward glance.

Inwe gave Mrs. M a huge hug as she said, "I'm so glad to see you."

The house is much quieter. I didn't need coffee this morning. Finwe is happy to play with all the toys the girls don't let him touch when they are here.

Level D

On Tuesday, Inwe and I sat together to read her book from school. As I pulled it out of the folder, I noticed that the level was D. She's moved on from C already. Her aptitude at reading is impressive.

One Level More

In Inwe's class, reading is a big part of their day. Inwe is at the top of her class with two other students when it comes to reading proficiency.

Each evening the students bring home a book for reading assignment. The books are from the Scholastic Read Aloud Program. The books begin at Level A. Inwe began at Level B and is now on Level C.

I continue to do reading lessons with her from the book "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons." The two of us have found the perfect rhythm and relationship when it comes to these lessons.

Hot Lunch

The girls' school, Charlottesville Day School (CDS), instituted two days of hot lunches in October. The idea was to serve hot, healthy lunches to the children. It was as much about educating the children about good food choices as well as making it easier on parents. The head of the school eveh said that her hopes would be that the children would be open to new foods because of eating in a group environment.

Well, for Inwe, at least, it has worked. Inwe was a bit skeptical at first at some of the foods, but she watched other children eat the food--so she did. The child that rarely touches meat (bacon, chicken nuggets, and the occasional turkey lunchmeat excluded), has eaten sloppy joe, chicken parmesan, and other carnivorous selections.

The group eating strategy hasn't worked with Larien. We aren't buying her hot lunches again. She'll snack on her teacher's BLT, but don't ask her to eat a full hot lunch. Oh, well. There'll be time later for hot lunches.

Blinded me with Science

Today the girls asked to repeat the "chilly hand" experiment from Halloween. I don't keep latex gloves around the house, but I told them that we could do the chemical reaction with a soda bottle and a balloon.

The vinegar goes in the bottle. The baking soda goes into the balloon. Attach the balloon to the bottle with the balloon flopped to the side so that the baking soda stays in the top of the balloon. When you are ready to mix hold the balloon up to start the reaction.

The first time we did it with the normal proportions. I then had Inwe predict what would happen with twice as much. Larien tried, but she didn't quite get the prediction part. We then tripled our proportions. That's the picture that's above. Tomorrow we'll probably quadruple it.

I love teaching my girls science. You get vocabulary (liquid, aqueous, solid, gas, reagent, reaction, expand), math, prediction based on observation. So much good stuff. Love it!

Classroom Science

Here's a picture of Larien holding our chilly hand experiment. It's really simple. It's a reaction of acetic acid (vinegar) and sodium bicarbonate (baking soda). Mixing the two together results in the release of carbon dioxide gas that fills up the latex glove. The reaction is endothermic; you can feel the chill of the reaction. The real trick is to make up a spooky story while you hide the limp, chemical filled glove behind your back. After I do the demonstration, I let the kids make their own chilly hand. We had fun.

Here's the chemical equation:
NaHCO₃(s) + CH₃COOH(aq) → CH₃COONa(aq) + CO₂(g) +H₂O(l)

Parent Conference Part 2

Yesterday I had a conference with Larien's preschool teacher. This was the conference that most interested me. Larien is a challenge for both Phill and I. My dear friend, Trixie, would also agree.

The teacher started out by saying, "You already know that I adore your daughter." She was referring to last Friday when instead of playing outside with the other preschool children, Larien was sitting with her teacher in the workroom playing quietly. Her teacher explained to me, "She asked so nicely. She's irresistible."

Next, I listened as Larien's teacher read some notes she had made about Larien. The adjectives were enthusiastic, delightful, affectionate (with her peers and teachers), and attentive. I was expecting at least one defiant, problematic with transitions, or maybe a high-spirited. None of those were used. She reserves her defiance for mom and dad. How special. I'm touched.

On the academic front, Larien knows all of her alphabet and has very good fine motor skills. She can copy any letter that the teacher shows to her. Larien is also a whiz with pre-math skills like pattern recognition and pattern building.

All I really expect out of preschool is the development of social skills. Larien is doing well with this. That doesn't surprise me at all. She can make a friend with anyone. That's a good strength to have.

Student Evaluation

This week at the girls' school is parent conference week. Each student's parents get twenty minutes with the teacher to hear about the progress in the class and ask questions. Today was the conference for Inwe.

You know it is going to be a good meeting when the teacher opens with "I wish I had 12 more Inwe's in my class."

Here are the highlights of Inwe's school progress:

• She has an "extensive vocabulary" and "uses the words perfectly".
  
• "Socially she is very adept" and "is a peacemaker". (Inwe apparently won't let cliques happen in her class.)
  
• "She should rule the world when she's older."
• "She's very confident in herself and expresses her opinions freely when we discuss a book or anything else."
  

I was also shown her results for the PALS (Phonological Awareness Literacy Screening) instrument used in the state of Virginia. I can't remember all of the actual scores for the subtests, but I'll attempt it.

• Rhyme Awareness: Inwe scored 10/10. The benchmark is 5/10.
• Beginning Sound Awareness: 10/10. Benchmark: 5/10.
• Alphabet Knowledge (lowercase letters): 21/26. She didn't know q and mixed up her b and d. Called the lowercase l an I, and called the u an n. I don't remember the benchmark.
• Letter Sounds: 21/26. She couldn't remember the sounds that Ch, Sh, and Th make, although she self-corrected on the Th sound. One of the letters that she couldn't give a sound for was "G". Weird. I forgot the other letter she didn't remember the sound.
• Spelling: She could write the first letter of each of the five words, but didn't do well with the rest of the sounds in the word, although she is beginning to distinguish the ending sound. I think her score was 5/20. That benchmark was 2/20.
• Concept of Word: All I can remember is that she did really well with this one. The specifics elude me.
• Word Recognition in Isolation: This is an extra test given to children who show some reading prowess. Inwe did well with this subtest, but again I can't remember the specifics.

The website link above to the PALS explains the tests briefly.

Field Trip

Today I was chaperone on Larien's field trip to Carter Mountain Orchard. We had a good time playing on hay, picking apples, taking a hayride, and then eating lunch. Of course, the temperature was 87! Very hot for apple picking with 12 three year olds running around.
Larien also got to choose two small sugar pumpkins that we promptly made into a pie and muffins this afternoon.

FLA #2

This week we had another family learning activity (FLA) to do. We brought it home on Tuesday. The due date is Friday. It's been done since Wednesday. Inwe is not a procrastinator.

This FLA involves reading, sight reading, and key pictures to help the child recognize the word. It is a book with a sentence on each page. Here are the sentences.

Kindergarteners like to play.
Kindergarteners like to count.
Kindergarteners like to sing.
Kindergarteners like to _____________.
Kindergarteners like to _____________.
I like to _____________.

Inwe filled out the last three blanks with eat, listen (because they don't want to get in trouble), and draw.

Larien Leaving School

I have figured out why my lovely, little Larien doesn't like to leave school on Wednesdays. She wants to stay longer. She doesn't like to leave right after lunch to go to gymnastics. She wants to stay at school.

Wednesdays are early release days for the primary school. I thought that would be a good time for gymnastics instead of right after school, in the evening, or on Saturdays. However, Larien is having such a great time at her preschool that leaving before the normal 3:30pm time on Mondays and Wednesdays is quite difficult. I think the remedy for this is to let Larien finish this session of gymnastics and not sign her up for the next sessions. I'll still take Inwe to gymnastics and pick Larien up afterwards. We'll see if it works.

Inwe off to school

Inwe went to school today. She had no problems at all leaving me at the door. She really likes kindergarten and all of her teachers. She has music and PE (which may be called movement, but I can't remember right now). Spanish will begin as well this week.

By the way, I have the loudest children. You should hear the noise in the background. You would swear that I have ten kids in the house instead of three.