uccomama, that sounds like a fantastic book. Your son's school sounds very, very cool.
mata, I think girls are just weird like this. I remember that at this age (or maybe a little older), I had two lists going of my friends and enemies. The funny thing is that each day, the lists would change based on trivial arguments. I just try to remember that when my daughter goes off about some slight (real or imagined).
In our news, we went to Hawaii this past week (now with Earthquake Action Inside!), took her out of school for a vacation. She learned a ton there and had fun, and today shared pictures and candied coconut with the class.
She WAS having a lot of problems socially, which I'm glad to say have now worked themselves out. She's totally happy and has various odd games going on with the kids during recesses. I.e. "Superkaratepuppy vs. the evil cabbage; The Land Before Time mixed with Little House On the Prairie (!) - and she hasn't seen either one on TV. She has playdate offers!
Her class is studying spiders and went on a field trip at a local park to learn all about NW spiders. It was awesome (me and the babe went along). I'm still not exactly sure what they do at school all day...I think art, and music (she learned some Turkish songs today) and reading...they use the TERC curriculum for math - which sounds a lot like what you were doing, uccomama. We still have no homework, other than the questions for parents to ask/discuss with the child. Today: Talk to your child about how you go about finding a good book to read.
The only thing I'm worried about here, coming up, is that the children are going to go to a nursing home and sing for halloween and visit with the elderly. I already told the teacher that my daughter might totally lose it (crying) because she has some, um, "issues" with seeing the infirm and about-to-die, and death in general. Thankfully, the teacher reassured me that this was fairly typical and that she would make sure to have some discussions, read some books, and talk with the children about those issues. And she would try to be aware during the visit of my daughter's issue too. Her teacher's so sweet!
mata, I think girls are just weird like this. I remember that at this age (or maybe a little older), I had two lists going of my friends and enemies. The funny thing is that each day, the lists would change based on trivial arguments. I just try to remember that when my daughter goes off about some slight (real or imagined).
In our news, we went to Hawaii this past week (now with Earthquake Action Inside!), took her out of school for a vacation. She learned a ton there and had fun, and today shared pictures and candied coconut with the class.
She WAS having a lot of problems socially, which I'm glad to say have now worked themselves out. She's totally happy and has various odd games going on with the kids during recesses. I.e. "Superkaratepuppy vs. the evil cabbage; The Land Before Time mixed with Little House On the Prairie (!) - and she hasn't seen either one on TV. She has playdate offers!
Her class is studying spiders and went on a field trip at a local park to learn all about NW spiders. It was awesome (me and the babe went along). I'm still not exactly sure what they do at school all day...I think art, and music (she learned some Turkish songs today) and reading...they use the TERC curriculum for math - which sounds a lot like what you were doing, uccomama. We still have no homework, other than the questions for parents to ask/discuss with the child. Today: Talk to your child about how you go about finding a good book to read.
The only thing I'm worried about here, coming up, is that the children are going to go to a nursing home and sing for halloween and visit with the elderly. I already told the teacher that my daughter might totally lose it (crying) because she has some, um, "issues" with seeing the infirm and about-to-die, and death in general. Thankfully, the teacher reassured me that this was fairly typical and that she would make sure to have some discussions, read some books, and talk with the children about those issues. And she would try to be aware during the visit of my daughter's issue too. Her teacher's so sweet!
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, now resolved ), and that's been going great, but I just don't know what to do.
. This is the part i'm trying to figure out. My dd told me she isn't sure how to use the computer to do the AR stuff and that her teacher has said that she is done showing her. And in my conversations with her teacher she is saying she needs dd to be more independent. Well if dd really doesn't know how to use the computer for AR how is she supposed to do it independently? But I don't know how much the teacher has shown her? I really get the feeling the teacher is bothered by dd or has higher expectations of her because she is ahead acedemically. My dd is a good reader and very bright but she is a not a mature 6 year old. If anything she is an immature 6 year old. But I think because acedemically she doesn't need the teacher as much as other students the teacher expects her to be more independent. And she isn't so the teacher gets annoyed with her. On top of that we're dealing with dd racing to finish her work. DD is very competitve and I think she believes being done first is best so she is doing her work really fast, asking for more (again bothering the teacher) and not doing quality work. I don't think the teacher has to love my dd but it would be nice if it wasn't so obvious how annoyed she gets by her.
It can all be avoided with a doctor's note-but I'm annoyed because they don't have a policy in writing to begin with, yet they felt they could send out this nastygram with some pretty heavy language! I feel like telling them to remove it from dd's file just on principle. And send a response to the principal that perhaps she should distribute an absentee policy in writing before she sends out truancy letters. 
How are you both enjoying the first grade material? What sorts of things are you working on together?
Please! My children will take as long as they need to be over an illness-no one benefits from a miserable (and contagious) child being in the classroom. 
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