Mom Is Teaching

PRE-POST UPDATE:  I am reading White Trash Mom’s and trust me when I tell you, it is an awesome read.  I may give my book away when I finish…well after my mom reads it, then I’ll give it away, so keep watching for it.

This one is probably more for the home school variety (well, I meant for it to be, but I got off tract, we will get to that one in a day or two as well because I have a couple of questions)but I do have a question for the parents of public school children as well.  If you guys remember a few days back, I asked about taking a child out of school for a family vacation. (Which we are totally going to do, four days is noting and even his teacher agreed.)   I wanted to know what you guys would do.  I had one negative response and two votes that said, “sure, most definitely”.

Dawn made the following statement:

“I’m astounded by the little amount that is accomplished each day”

I already knew how little was really being done prior to Walker starting school this year simply because I had substituted for a kindergarten teacher a couple of years ago while she was on maternity leave.  She left lesson plans for the actual learning skills for each day.  Then, she would  leave extra stuff, or “busy work” for them to do for a couple of hours.  Each child would get to spend anywhere from 10 to 20  minutes on the computer each day and the rest of the day was wasted.  I ended up playing games with them for the last hour to hour and a half almost every day. 

We played hangman a lot using their spelling words for that week.  I don’t remember what other kinds of stuff I conjured up, but I knew that those children were typically receiving about 2 hours a day of true lessons. (By the way, this was in the spring and at the time I was amazed that kindergarten kids had spelling words, then I realized, they knew how to spell them well enough to play games with the words and I was in shock.)

Here’s what Walker’s schedule looks like and trust me when I tell you, I love his teacher.  All three kindergarten teachers do their lesson plans together and basically do the same thing each day.  They have designated days for parent volunteers and they adhere to a schedule pretty well.  But, just check out this schedule:

7:55 - 8:15:  students have a coloring sheet with yesterday’s information on it while the teacher takes roll, looks through folders for notes from home and assures that all parents have signed the behavior chart.

8:15 - 10:00:  They do math as a class, they do a little worksheet of coloring some numbers and talk about numbers and sing songs about numbers.  (Now since Walker knows his multiplication facts through 3, you can see where is not very amused with this, but as long as he isn’t talking, I’m ok with not being amused.)  They also do reading during this time.  She reads to them, she teaches them phonetic sounds using really big words I think.  For instance, I saw some of the words on the board last Friday.  I asked Walker how to spell Egg.  His reply was, “I don’t know, but it makes the “eh” sound and the word elephant starts the say way, with the “eh” sound.”  So, I asked him again, what letter is that?  He had no clue.

10:00 - 10:40: bathroom break and computer time or finishing morning activities

10:40 - 11:15:  lunch

11:15 - 11:40:  bathroom breaks, change shoes for physical education and finish coloring morning activities

11:40 - 12:10:  physical education

12:10 - 12:40:  bathroom break, change out of p.e. shoes.  If time permits she works on social studies and science during this time, if not they finish the mornings activity (now trust me, they probably had 3 sheets all total, one at 8 that covered yesterdays stuff, one math and one reading (and maybe not even one reading).  She uses this time as well for children to use the computer while she works in small groups.

12:40 - 1:00 clean up and prepare for break

1:00 - 1:15:  break, bathrooms, etc

1:15 - 2:15:  I have not the slightest idea?  I do know some work on the computer, sometimes she does group time reading or group singing, sometimes they do a craft (and by sometimes I mean once a week it seems)

2:15 - 2:30:  start getting backpacks re-packed for home, get work in the backpack and get them to their seats

2:30 - 2:45:  circle time

2:45 dismissal

Now, as you can see, I should be able to do his entire weeks worth of work during Jace’s nap time each day without even a worry. 

My fear already is boredom.  He can’t go to the gifted program until he is in the 2nd grade.  Between now and then, we will do as much homeschool stuff as we have to in order to keep him out of trouble at school. 

I did want to add that the reading coach said once everyone was settled and evaluated, he would be taken to her with a group of advanced readers so that he wouldn’t lose interest.  That part I can’t wait to see happen because hopefully he will be more excited. 

Right now he still likes it a lot but when I asked him in the afternoons “what did you do today?“, his answer is “the same thing we did yesterday”  That concerns me.

As usual, I got too carried away and we will cover the homework debacle in my next post.  Sorry!

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