I cannot be as relaxed as you guys, even if I'm doing this ten years from now. Kim, you know your student and whether or not your chain is being yanked or if there's a legitimate problem. Where spelling is concerned, my Jeannie started missing words on her tests, and I dug around and found spelling activities for her to do so she'd get more exposure to the words. It's plenty of extra work for me putting these together, but I want her to exceed. As for handwriting, Jeanne started cursive last week. Her printing is a lot like Jennifer's kids' writing, with going above the 'belt line' here and there. The belt line is the dotted line, in case you didn't hear that before. It really is a thing of practice. I also think you're right to be vigilant. I'll never be relaxed about how Jeanne's education is going, until the child is graduated... from Yale.
Becky, Jeannie will be sitting in the Oval Office, and you'll still be at home, worrying if she has enough Socialization! LOL!
Jen Girl, we're sisters! My DS was born at 27 weeks. 2 lbs, 3 ozs. No problems except hernias from the prematurity. Preemies are just naturally precocious is what I was told at the University/Medical Center where he was born!
"So, when we wonder if our children are "measuring up," we should be asking--according to whose standards???" by Prairie Mom Oh that was So good! Yes exactly! What standards do we personally have for our children, that of the world or thier individual gains? I try to see that I dont look at other kids to measure mine but ithelps to know when things are an age thing too. So where do we draw theline?
I had similar problems with hand writing spelling etc, and this year a purposely looked for a curriculum that had teacher materials that walk me through this. I chose Explode the Code (ETC) (which your reader might be to far along for?) because I like that the teachers manual had separate activities that help me teach vocab, spelling etc, comprehension etc. I would look at teaching materials that give you more guidance in the areas that you feel are lacking. You might look for some books that are intended for elementary teachers in your public library. Looking at what classroom teachers are doing might be insightful, and give you ideas that will add variety to the tasks at hand, or that will challenge the student enough that he will not feel so far ahead of mom/teacher. LOL For example I was getting resistance with reading so I made cards with letter blends at the beginning, and other cards with a vowel and consanant at the end. Br, Cl, Fl, etc and others with ess, ap, ot etc. We make up silly words and read them with random combinations, and also see how many real words we can make from 5 from each pile, and other activities. THey make these for purchase with ETC, but I had not bought them and was sorta disregarding these activities. I later realized I was missing getting to push the easy button by doing so and made my own. I am also starting to be more serious with spelling and plan to start a spelling notebook this week. I found some great ideas about this by reading here and other places after googling spelling elementary and teaching spelling. Handwriting is getting better here with the explode the code materials, and they might be useful if only for that purpose for a student who already knows phonics rules. We need a bit more work with dolche sight words before we can do much "creative writing" type activities. Again I look for ideas online and or check out books at the library. I also go to the university library 2ce a month and look through books for ideas on things and to see what we might be missing. THey have ed. degrees to PhD so there are many many books to peek at with a notebook in hand. One writing exercise that might be interesting is to type out in large print a few simple sentences with a word missing at the end. Then have student copy on to lettering paper and complete sentence. I went to a shop to get a .......... The dog licked a ......... My ball is stuck in a .............. Or put two blanks in small sentences and have student pull papers with words on them from a hat to fill in the blanks with. Silly is always fun. Pulling words from a hat and combining into sentences then writing sentences. Using words in the hat for a spellling test at teh end of week. Just take a step back, figure out where the weekness are, do research and planning, then regroup and go forward. You can keep the same pattern for a few days while you do this. Don't be discouraged. THe need for change is often a sign that progress is taking place, or that you have identified a weekness that needs remediated. You have a student that is reading? Your student might have made more progess than many HS students. LOL
I was just reading thru thinking I will probably be the same way. In 10 yrs I will not BE ABLE to HS DS hopefully because he will be WAYY too smart for me to actually teach, lol! I worried about the social skills thing for about ...........2 hrs too, after many doses of 'other children's' behavior, haha!
But remember, you grow and learn with them, and by the time they ARE too smart for you, they're able to handle the work on their own, or maybe the husband is good at that subject, or a friend or tutor. My ds15 is way too smart for me! But I can quiz him, grade papers, give advice, help to a certain extent, and dh does the math now. We're getting along great! So never give up there ARE ways to homeschool through highschool! **Doesn't mean I think you HAVE to, just saying it CAN work out if that's what you want!
Try looking online for some spelling games. My dd got big fat F's on all her spelling tests last year. Ok, maybe a D or C- somewhere in the mix. I thought I was going to go nuts. Then I had to play games with her spelling words. She had letters on index cards and then had to make her spelling words out of them. After that all A's. This year, we are using Bob Jones, it is ok, she is getting A's without games now. Bob Jones has kinda easy words and they are all in word families. Like, Jump, bump, lump and so on. Then another set of a word family and another---about three to four sets and a sight words. So, that I think has helped her, since she hates spelling.
TeacherMom, I may ask our librarian to inter-library loan some of Dave Pilkey's books. Is Animorphs the name of one of them? And what is the title of the latest edition? Thank you for the suggestion. Someone once said that "Nothing succedes like success," & if ds gets more skill in decoding, then reading tends to build upon itself.
Well.... My! On any other forum I wouldn't look twice at these books, just because of the titles! I'm almost embarrassed to ask the librarian about them; but you've got me interested now, & I'll keep my eye out for them. 'Not promising that I'll get them, but I'll look at them, if I get the chance. Thanks!
Teacher Mom, I reread my post, & it sounded kind of sassy. You have to know I was laughing when I wrote it. We'll probably laugh when we read the books. That's one disadvantage of not being able to talk face-to-face: we miss the inuendo of expression.
hey, no worries! To tell you the story, when I first found the book I was emberassed to check it out for Daniel! I was really in a mood because of the fact he was "Not going to read..." stubborn and being strong willed about it. I looked for the most wild title I could find and though, hmm, this should do the trick to shock treat him into reading! To my chagrin it worked! ANd with the Animorphs, he read one, forget when or where but totally was into them after that. I was a bit worried because of the morph part, but then decided they are basically harmless and considering he is surrounded by Bible stuff I know he knows what is truth. Thank the Lord I swallowed my pride!~ He reads on a college level now, according to testing he did at his private school! Wheee hooO!
