The Imperfect Community

supergirl · Posted: Sat Dec 23, 2006 7:15 pm Post subject:

Hunter is in full-day kindergarten. He has homework most nights except Friday. For each letter that they study, they have one night where they have a handwriting sheet of capital letters and another night of lowercase letters. On the back of each of those, he's supposed to cut and paste or draw three or more words that start with the letter. Then, I have him label each one. Usually, we just print them off the Internet after he tells me what he wants, so it's pretty quick work. That's the worst of his homework. The rest is just worksheets - sometimes matching words with pictures or letters with pictures or short "math" worksheets. His homework usually takes anywhere from five to twenty minutes to complete, depending upon how focused/interested Hunter is or whatever else is going on. I also make him study his sight words several times per week, and we try to get through two books per week for Accelerated Reader quizzes. I don't think Hunter minds the work, and I think he'll be prepared when his workload begins to increase. Our biggest problem is in the fact that I usually work late, and he goes to extended care. We don't get home until about six and then we have to eat dinner and take bathes and get to bed....doesn't leave much time for fun after you add homework in the mix. Once I start my maternity leave, things will get better in the fact that I can pick him up from school at dismissal and get all schoolwork done well before dinnertime.

Jessica · Posted: Sat Dec 23, 2006 8:05 pm Post subject:

Janna, I have just spent the last hour reading over the links you provided. It kind of ticks me off that someone on the internet was the one to hook me up with that invaluable information and not his teachers/school, although they might at his IEP.

It is so interesting because for the longest time, I was convinced that Graham had OCD and come to find out on those links you provided me, that is very common in the "twice exceptional" child.

Now that conference that you linked to, I didn't get how I sign up for that, maybe I didn't look hard enough, but I didn't see the fees for it or anything.

I'm going to sign up for the SENG message board and call them next week. I am so excited. I really need to talk to other parents who have children with similar bahaviors as Graham. I'm at such a loss.

Thank you so much for that. I've been meaning to write you privately, but didn't want to impose.

PP, I feel much better about the potty training given the experience you've had with your kids. At least I am less stressed that it's not as abnormal as I think.

ExCareerGal · Posted: Sat Dec 23, 2006 9:23 pm Post subject:

Jessica,
I am glad I could help. I did not know you were unfamiliar with the term. Just so you know teachers are not really taught about this in school (one paragraph in one chapter of one class) so they may not know. Also it is very hard to determine twice exceptional until the child is school age so you figuring it out at 4 is ahead of the curve. Remember I am bit more knowledgeable than the average teacher on exceptional kids so it should not be too surprising to learn about it from me. But for you or anyone on the board with questions about exceptional kids you can always ask me, I really do not mind helping even if it is my job. I do not do it for the money (believe me) Smile

PP
CLUE is an enrichment program that exposes kids to problems solving and cool cultural activities to stimulate them. It does not give them more of the same work or accelerate them. It is not necessarily the best gifted program I have seen but it is good when done well and my daughter loves it. I am getting a little tired of driving to the field trips but what she has been seeing (art museums, historical places) has been good for her. She does miss class for two days a week but since almost half of her class is in CLUE the teacher does not cover anything too hard to catch up on.

Here are some of my rules on homework for teachers:

1) There are only two purposes for homework:
A) To practice a skill so the child can go from aquisition, to proficiency, to maintenance to generalization.
B) Added enrichment on a topic that you would like them to spend more time working with.

2) Never give homework on work the child could not do in class with you. (Has not acquired) It is my experience that the bus driver does not teach it on the way home. Also, why would you want a child to practic it wrong for one night so you can unteach it the following day!Always have alternative homework available (usually reviewing the prerequisite skill).

3) To practice skill, usually a person does not need to do more than 10-20 problems, words, repetitions, etc. before they stop caring. After 30 repetitions of anything people make mistakes. On some skills only a few repetitions are necessary. (Some of this depends on what you are practicing, but when there are 50-100 math or spelling problems something is wrong!)By the way, people are only capable of remembering 7 things (plus or minus 2) in one chunk. Best is if it is in smaller chunks.

4. Younger children should only get homework equivalent to 10-15 minutes a grade. This is not a hard rule but a general guideline. It is more important that the quality of homework be good than the quantity.

Anyhow here is some of what I try to have teacher follow . . .

Janna

ExCareerGal · Posted: Sat Dec 23, 2006 9:35 pm Post subject:

Jessica- here is the cost and registration:
http://iagcgifted.org/conventions/2007/10.4Con%20broc..pdf
Janna

Scout · Posted: Sat Dec 23, 2006 10:09 pm Post subject:

Oh, Janna I was thinking she was at Campus. It sounds like that may be a better fit for J.C. That was my first choice if we hadn't done Downtown.

PP, I second what Janna said about CLUE. Calvin and Somerset both really enjoy it. It's more creative, problem-solving type stuff and not just additional work. I was in the county system's "gifted" program (we have two school systems here) and it totally sucked and was a joke.

kenna, why do you work late all the time? That sucks! My ass leaves at 2:30 erryday. Very Happy

supergirl · Posted: Sat Dec 23, 2006 10:27 pm Post subject:

[quote="Scout"]kenna, why do you work late all the time? That sucks! My ass leaves at 2:30 erryday. Very Happy

[/quote]

Well, I am definitely jealous! I haven't had the pleasure of working for a decent administrator yet. We have afternoon duty until 3:30 daily. Every Wed., we have faculty meeting until five. The other days, I stay until five because we have four administrators that are total asses giving us busy work 24/7. I try not to take work home with me, so that's the only time I have to do anything. I have to pick up both boys on the way home, so it works out ok. Trust me....I am definitely counting down the four or five weeks I have left to go to that hellhole every day! Smile

ExCareerGal · Posted: Sat Dec 23, 2006 11:16 pm Post subject:

[quote="Scout"]Oh, Janna I was thinking she was at Campus. It sounds like that may be a better fit for J.C. That was my first choice if we hadn't done Downtown.

[/quote]

Scout,
Jessie went to Grahamwood Optional with all of her JCC friends. It may work for JC, may not. I like Campus School too. But Jessie wanted to go with her friends and Campus is not optional so more acommoadations would need to be made for her. I am thrilled to hear you are so pleased with Downtown. If I lived closer I may have looked more into that.

Supergirl,
That totally sucks having to work so late. One day we need to find you a good job! I hope you around your family are catching up on some time together over the holiday.

Janna

Petulant Pixie · Posted: Sun Dec 24, 2006 9:21 am Post subject:

That does sound cool. I wish we had something like that here, but we don't. We live in a really wealthy area though and it's totally child oriented, so I guess they just assume that parents are doing the cultural stuff on their own with their kids on weekends and holidays. The problem solving stuff sounds interesting though!

Janna, I agree with you on the homework. The kids in the lower grades here don't get a lot. Katie has maybe 10 minutes of homework a couple nights a week. Most of it is reading and writing little book reports, which I am totally fine with. On Thursdays she does have this idiotic "challenge your mind" thing. There are 10 questions on each sheet and if you actually directed your kid to where to find the answers on their own, it would take like 3 hours. So, they say it's supposed to be a "family" activity, which means the kids are supposed to ask their parents crap like, "Name all the Great Lakes" and "Name the planets in order" and the kids write it down Rolling Eyes

it's getting real old, if you ask me.

Alex's problem, and what I understand is typical of his age, isn't the amount of homework each day, but remembering what subjects he has homework in and when they're due. He doesn't have homework in each class every day, and he has the study halls on thursdays and fridays. His math teacher has a rule of no more than a half hour should be spent on math homework each assignment, and when Alex does math it takes him like 10 minutes. Really, when *I* look over what he has to do, if he were to use his time wisely and plan things ahead, he'd seriously have like 20-30 minutes of total homework a night. But, he'll forget he has a science packet due and do the whole thing in one night, taking two hours, then the next night he'll say he has no homework, but there's an english assignment due in two days, so he'll put that off until the night before and spend three hours on it. But, this is typical of this age, from what I gather. The hard part for ME is just giving advice on how to manage things and stepping back and letting him suffer through it.

But, he did have a new system in place at the middle of November and it seems to be working well. The nice thing about semesters is that he starts fresh after the break. No carry-over from last semester, it's all new grades. We haven't actually gotten the semester grades (except for science, he got a B in science), so that kinda sucks. But, it's a whole new game come the 3'd!

Scout · Posted: Sun Dec 24, 2006 8:20 pm Post subject:

Kenna, that sucks. We have faculty meeting about once a month, and he usually tells us at each meeting when the next one will be. I love my principal. he gets teary eyes when he talks about the school. It's so touching.

Janna, my friend's son left Grahamwood after spending a week in the hospital unable to stop vomiting. The doctors said it was all stress. He is super-bright, too, but has focusing problems. They actually just put him on Focal after trying literally everything else they could possibly do, and it has totally changed their lives.