Some hope

Despite a very rough start to the day, Carolyn had a good day.  At school they did their usual stations since it was Friday.  One of the stations they were drawing pictures and writing single words to create a story.  In other words, leaving out the connecting words.  It looks like perhaps something a Native American may have written on the teepee.  She enjoyed telling us her story when she came home, and proceeded to write out the story with all the words on our easel whiteboard.  She also came home with an assignment to take pictures of shapes around the house.  We found trapezoids, pentagons, octagons, hexagons, triangles, squares, rectangles, circles, and made our own rhombus.  I added an extension where we went through and wrote down a list of what shapes are in each picture.  It was good practice writing letters and numbers, as well as spelling the mathematical terms.  All those words that are "le" are so hard to remember.  So Carolyn has a better feeling about school at the moment.  We'll see how things go next week, although with only 2 days of school they can't be horrible.  I have sent email asking to find more extension activities for Carolyn to do to push her critical thinking skills.  Hopefully we can look over the curriculum next week and identify where that can be done.

At home we are going to focus on reading rich literature as much as possible.  This week I got some books that are stories that incorporate math.  I found a list of the top 100 children's book and another of the top 100 chapter books.  So we'll work through each list.  I'll probably get 5 or so from the children's book list each week.  We started reading Mr. Popper's Penguins today and got through 6 chapters in one sitting before we took a break for snack and other things (like the shape hunt).

I received a well-timed email from one of my former HS teachers today.  He has always been very level-headed and was very supportive as I started teaching.  He raised 3 kids in Glenview as well, so can give advice from experience.  Interestingly, he suggested the Mindset book I read in August.  He also said he got some great insights from Nurture Shock, so I have put that on hold at the library and will pick it up on Wednesday when we go.  He made some statements to try and get me to think.  I'm looking forward to continuing our conversation further, even though through email.

Feeling in at least a little better place right now.  Looking forward to a weekend of snuggles, reading, popcorn, and probably some games.  I wish it was warm enough to spend a bunch of time at the park!