Thursday, January 14, 2010
Balance
And no I am not talking about the type of balance that was required of the biggest loser contestants this week (Go Kohli!!!!!) I am feeling the stresses of balance with Jamison and her schooling. I was feeling it already this week, and then she got her report card yesterday. She is doing much better, and though her teacher said she has made marked improvements from the beginning of the year, she emphasized that she needs to read every night and do high frequency words every night too. My struggle...we already spend at least 30 minutes a day doing phonics and spelling. James practices spelling at least every school day, sometimes twice and still struggles. I do not even get to the sentences on the back, just working with the 12 not so easy words she has. Today as soon as she got home from school we spent 1 1/2 hours and still have not done reading and HFWs...and we need to practice more spelling for the test tomorrow. I want her to do well, but more so I want her to have time to be a kid. It is hard when she is at school 7 hours, and upon arriving home only has 4 1/2s to do homework, eat, bathe, do chores and be a kid before she has to be in bed...seriously, not much time for playing if you ask me. It is so fun to watch her progress, but I had no clue my kids schooling would cause me this much stress so soon. She is at the level she needs to be, at the bottom of it according to the tests, but still on target...so I have to tell myself she is good and just let her be a kid...easier said than done. So I am trying to find my balance as a parent that highly values education and enjoying life at the same time. Good luck to me!
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5 comments:
Spelling is over rated! They invented spell check for people like us.
I know what you mean! We have struggled with Dec at her age, and Decota for years (even now at times). The more I can ways to make games out of it, the better we both have felt. It is a very tricky balance. Just remember all kids hit their stride at different times and none of them are perfect in every subject. Let them be great where they are great, and let them learn to find success in their struggles- not stress in their struggles! She will be just fine :-)
2nd grade is usually much better. they don't usually have as much home-work, so we can look forward to that. we just have to survive 4 more months of 1st grade.
I'm often confused as to why 1st graders have more homework than 2nd graders--that does NOT seem fair at ALL. As for spelling--I always felt like the more reading you did, the easier spelling came--so I just read a lot. I know how FRUSTRATED you are--I really do. And I don't know the solution, but you could talk James' teacher and see what is REALLY necessary--she is only six (right?) Good luck.
As some one who has been in those teacher shoes and is worried about making sure every student is where they need to be, here is my advice:
Forget about all the extra stuff! If you are doing what you feel is possible and you don't get everything done, just stop and let her be a kid. Every child develops differently. Why we expect them all to be at the same level at the same age screams "CRAZY" to me. She is obviously interested in reading, but maybe it will really click next year. As long as you are trying to do what you can, her teacher will understand, and if she needs a little more help, they should be giving that to her at school.
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