I am sure you read this title and say "um, your children are almost 7 & 5 and you are JUST now figuring this out?" and the answer to that is no, BUT I am hitting a whole new realm of frustrations.
So, Peanut is in 1st grade and several of her friends are also in her class which is great, except the one who is reading at a 5th grade level. Peanut is a very competitive type of person, and also an extreme perfectionist. I KNEW this was going to be an issue. Sure enough, it is. Peanut isn't exactly behind in reading, but she definitely isn't as far ahead as we thought she would be. She has a hard time desiring to sound out words, and she memorizes words on a sheet but doesn't learn them so when they get put in a book, she can't read them. Now, you add Bullfrog who is at the same reading level as her but in Pre-K, we have issues. So, we came to a breaking point on Monday and Jer finally took her into her room to talk to her. She told him that she wants to read on the computer like Bullfrog does during his school time and she says that she is scared to read for me. I KNEW there was nothing that she was afraid of, she just HATES learning in front of others because it shows that she isn't perfect. Well, she has been working on the computer and using Bullfrog's flash cards and is actually making a little progress. Today made me throw my arms up. She sounded a word out and I praised her, and she was so embarrassed she wouldn't read any more. Say WHAT?! You don't want me to get frustrated with you and you don't want me to praise you when you do it correctly WITHOUT help? WHAT?! I give up. *sigh* *double sigh* *triple sigh* So those of you who home school and have some really good reading ideas besides flash cards and Starfall.com, please share them. She is probably technically still at a Kindergarten reading level. She knows the sounds words make, she can read a few sight words, but overall, isn't too enthused with the idea of needing to sound out words. How can I make it fun?
Bullfrog is just much farther ahead than I thought so I am tweaking a lot of his stuff. I am going to be making a trip to Mardels over the next few months and buy items to keep adding to our collection of home school stuff. I love Childcareland.com and http://www.walkingbytheway.com/blog/ . They both have GREAT resources for Bullfrog. Last week at Science City he learned about sinking and floating. Found out that oil and water don't mix and that different paper makes water do different things: absorption. Then on Tuesday we went to see the A Christmas Carol Train Tour that was here for one day. He got to see how the movie was made, got to morph a picture of him into one of the characters (I will have a copy of it in about a week), and then watch a trailer of the 3D movie. I got sunburnt but it was loads of fun. Today is science day again so we will find out what water related item we will be learning. Last night the Beehives held a story time for the primary kids. It was a great idea, just not well thought out. They planned to read for 30 minutes while the kids ate popcorn. They never gave out the popcorn and then read stories for an hour. That is a long time to expect young kids to sit still and listen. It showed, several of the kids didn't make it to the end. Mine did, simply because they kept waiting for the popcorn! Peanut was REALLY bummed when it never came out and when one of the teachers asked her how she liked it, her response was "the paper said there would be popcorn, but there wasn't." I love children's honesty. The brought it out and Peanut said "now, I am happy, thanks for reading." Lol. What lovely kids.
No comments:
Post a Comment