They're not much on their own, but with some butter, etc they're amazing :)
Elise loved preschool; she has not loved kindergarten (has hated it some of the time, actually, and been lukewarm the rest). Either way, regardless of what she liked, I never intended for her to stay in school forever - preschool being mornings only last year was basically her extracurricular, and I feel kinda guilty honestly because the main reason she had to stay in the first half of K despite BEGGING to stop and me seeing some possible detriments there, was because it was free, reliable babysitting while I was in college :/ I just needed to get this last semester out of the way at MDC. Leaving Ananda, Aaron and Jake alone for 5 hours twice a week was not a big deal at all. If Isaac and Elise were here, it would have been a totally sketchy disaster - they are not autonomous in the same way, but they also throw off the group dynamic big time.
Anyway, my two main problems with her being in have been:
-she's getting down on herself, more and more as time passes, because of how she was failing their sight word and spelling tests on Fridays. I couldn't possibly give a shit less about that, because she was pointing sight words gone by out as I would read to her, and writes spelling and sight words down constantly, even doing things like writing, "I see a..." and then asking how to spell "tree," etc. Elise has some borderline language delays and I suspect there might be a short term memory thing at work here with how she acquires language skills, and basically you keep drilling and she catches up in fits and spurts in amongst falling behind here and there. I'm ok with that; she's on par with where she should be for her age. But it makes for "bad grades" and a teacher all stressed about the bad grades and Elise sad that she isn't getting the rewards the good grade kids are. My opinion, as you may have ascertained, is "fuck grades, I want her to learn to read and write and to feel good about herself."
-I think it was actually hurting her speech, to be in a situation where she got in trouble for talking and was influenced by a bunch of 5 year olds talking every day. It's been 3 weeks since Christmas break started, that she's been home, and in the last two days Annie and my sister have both remarked on her amazing language leaps, which I think about and see every day - and I'm sure it's partially because NOW, she's engaged in one on one conversations with adults and older kids all day every day (whether we like it or not...)
There were also some increasingly irritating behavior issues that I totally see as "school kid" kinda things...if you've spent much time in groups of homeschoolers and then gotten back around kids that go to school, you probably know what I mean. And they were telling her a bunch of annoying hoohaw about gender roles/stereotypes, and constantly feeding her corn syrup crap snacks, treats, etc. But I would have dealt with everything in this paragraph, if not for the bullet points before it.
Isaac is really thriving in school; it's kind of amazing. I just met with a social worker there yesterday about getting him allowances on the FCAT, for his reading disorder and anxiety (like no time limits for the reading part, and having the math and science portions read to him). We're working on his science project, he's got a crush on someone and a circle of friends now, he comes home energized telling me all about his day. I love his teachers and meet/email with them regularly. It's always been like this with him, though - he wouldn't sleep until we got him out of our bed, wouldn't stop throwing fits all day long until I weaned him, wouldn't get along with his siblings in a functional way til we separated him into his own room, and didn't take off academically til I put him in school. *shrug* They're all really different.
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Date: 2013-01-10 12:37 am (UTC)Elise loved preschool; she has not loved kindergarten (has hated it some of the time, actually, and been lukewarm the rest). Either way, regardless of what she liked, I never intended for her to stay in school forever - preschool being mornings only last year was basically her extracurricular, and I feel kinda guilty honestly because the main reason she had to stay in the first half of K despite BEGGING to stop and me seeing some possible detriments there, was because it was free, reliable babysitting while I was in college :/ I just needed to get this last semester out of the way at MDC. Leaving Ananda, Aaron and Jake alone for 5 hours twice a week was not a big deal at all. If Isaac and Elise were here, it would have been a totally sketchy disaster - they are not autonomous in the same way, but they also throw off the group dynamic big time.
Anyway, my two main problems with her being in have been:
-she's getting down on herself, more and more as time passes, because of how she was failing their sight word and spelling tests on Fridays. I couldn't possibly give a shit less about that, because she was pointing sight words gone by out as I would read to her, and writes spelling and sight words down constantly, even doing things like writing, "I see a..." and then asking how to spell "tree," etc. Elise has some borderline language delays and I suspect there might be a short term memory thing at work here with how she acquires language skills, and basically you keep drilling and she catches up in fits and spurts in amongst falling behind here and there. I'm ok with that; she's on par with where she should be for her age. But it makes for "bad grades" and a teacher all stressed about the bad grades and Elise sad that she isn't getting the rewards the good grade kids are. My opinion, as you may have ascertained, is "fuck grades, I want her to learn to read and write and to feel good about herself."
-I think it was actually hurting her speech, to be in a situation where she got in trouble for talking and was influenced by a bunch of 5 year olds talking every day. It's been 3 weeks since Christmas break started, that she's been home, and in the last two days Annie and my sister have both remarked on her amazing language leaps, which I think about and see every day - and I'm sure it's partially because NOW, she's engaged in one on one conversations with adults and older kids all day every day (whether we like it or not...)
There were also some increasingly irritating behavior issues that I totally see as "school kid" kinda things...if you've spent much time in groups of homeschoolers and then gotten back around kids that go to school, you probably know what I mean. And they were telling her a bunch of annoying hoohaw about gender roles/stereotypes, and constantly feeding her corn syrup crap snacks, treats, etc. But I would have dealt with everything in this paragraph, if not for the bullet points before it.
Isaac is really thriving in school; it's kind of amazing. I just met with a social worker there yesterday about getting him allowances on the FCAT, for his reading disorder and anxiety (like no time limits for the reading part, and having the math and science portions read to him). We're working on his science project, he's got a crush on someone and a circle of friends now, he comes home energized telling me all about his day. I love his teachers and meet/email with them regularly. It's always been like this with him, though - he wouldn't sleep until we got him out of our bed, wouldn't stop throwing fits all day long until I weaned him, wouldn't get along with his siblings in a functional way til we separated him into his own room, and didn't take off academically til I put him in school. *shrug* They're all really different.