May 17,2011

Today we went to the public school for a field trip. I haven't really processed it all yet; but it was very interesting. The teacher was actually great. She goes to the same church our therapist goes to (and the principal too). She treated the kids well. We sat in on "Writing" b/c that is our dd's worst subject currently; and that just happens to be Mrs. Johnson's favorite subject. She did a very good presentation on comparing and contrasting and how as adults we are always trying to compare and contrast to make good decisions. Her example was parents looking at new cars/vans and how we research and research until we find the best one for our needs. Later when the kids went to Recess I asked to look at one of her students writing folders and saw some examples. The folder I read actually had a story that the girl had written about what she would do if *she were President* and the first sentence said how she would make 'all students homeschooled, and they could sleep in until 10 am'!!!! How funny!

This student had written long complicated stories; with great spelling and imagination. I was impressed with her ability. But, the teacher had specifically picked out this student's folder b/c she said she was one of her best students. The teacher said how ISTEP (Indiana's State Regulations of some sort) regulates or requires all third grade students to be able to write for a minimum of 50 minutes without stopping. Yikes, read that sentence again. It must just be me; but I know my dd could NOT do that. I know how she rocks in certain areas (geography, history, bible), but this was definitely a big blow to us. We really need to work on - I need to work on teaching dd how to write stories and/or write her thoughts down. I don't know if WWE and FLL will get us there or if I need to look at adding in another 'extra' that could teach me how to teach this to her. Any ideas here would be appreciated. If any of you have found a good curriculum that helps frame up how to write ideas; please feel free to educate me. I really need some help here.

The teacher had 30 students; broken up into 6 groups of 5 students sitting in a pod/grouping. There would be one 'teacher's helper' in each pod/group that would go get things for the group. When they were working on the writing exercise, the teacher's helpers would go up and get the small dry-eraser boards for the other kids in the group. They did their brain storming on the dry-erase board and wrote down final ideas on paper and put those in their writing folders.

The teacher had a "smart board"; or is it "smartboard"? We actually had just used one at the Children's Museum last week. It is a touch screen on the white dry-erase board. It is like the screen on our computers/laptops but on the board where our teachers use to write with chalk. It was very high-tech and impressive.

I couldn't really say anything bad about the experience. The only thing was that they did a Science class after their Recess class and it was very condensed. She covered some major science topics (force, gravity....) very quickly. I just wonder if that is all she had planned to spend on those big concepts. We would have spent a lot of time going over those ideas at home and she just tackled them fairly quickly.

Dd opinion was that in some areas they are ahead (writing) and in some areas she was ahead. Dd was pretty happy that the teacher told us she hasn't had the time to teach cursive handwriting. That is one area I have really been focusing on the past few months and here these p.s. kids didn't even know how to do it!

Dd said that she thought if she went to p.s. she would probably learn more. Why? dh and I asked-- she said b/c they spend so much more time there than we spend at home on our lessons. We tried to clear that up and also give dd the idea that we would be happy to spend more time each day on our lessons; but she (dd) really has to work on her attitude being more positive.

We didn't get to see any history, math, recess, english, grammar, spelling, reading....She had planned on doing something after her science class; but some schedule got switched around and they had to go outside and do another recess or something like that. If the kids do things right; they get incentives which they can add up to get another recess, or something like that. I decided we didn't need to stay to watch the kids playing when we had a long drive home.

Literally after we had been in the classroom 45 minutes dd was complaining that this seat was too horrible and she really needed to get up. I told her we had to wait; and imagine those kids having to sit there 7 hours a day...yikes. That part was the hardest on her; just sitting. But then it seems like the teachers have that planned out too; kind of; they seem to do 45 minutes intervals of each subject.

I don't know if you all wanted all that detail, but their you have it. The thing I took away from it was that I definitely have to get better at teaching writing. It would be so much easier if dd didn't act like she was having a root canal every time she has to write for more than 5 minutes. I should admit that she is getting a little better about it every week. I do see improvement in the amount she can do without complaining. I also need to work on being more PATIENT with her.

*side note on the therapist-She has NO idea about homeschooling and hasn't been able to help us AT ALL. I wanted to try it and see if it would help; but it hasn't. We did get this public school field trip idea from her and that maybe the only good that came out of the experience. She can't see how us mom's can put on the loving/nurturing hat and then be able to put on the teacher hat too. She doesn't understand it and that makes helping us about impossible. I think that if I could find a local/experienced actual hs mom that has done this longer than me; and knows what it is like dealing with a 'challenging' kid that would be the best way to learn how to improve my teaching and my parenting skills.