12/09/06 Cruise Continued ~ Pirating Bananas DIS Geekorama Part 2 Part 2

[goofyforlife]

It's May and they are still making their way through the alphabet letters.

That stinks...

Devon went to catholic school until 3rd grade but in their K they did letters the first half of the year and then had a book where they started learning small words and stuff..

I know spelling wise though Devon was so bored until 3rd Grade that she never bothered to study for the tests (Usually got a 100 or 90 anyway so i wasn't pushing)

In 3rd Grade it became vocabulary and they made you do all these stupid things to the words (make a crossword, find antonyms, make stories...stuff like that)

 

[elaineteresa]

Elizabeth got to experience the fun of allergy testing today... Turns out she's allergic to most grasses and tree pollens, two kinds of dust mites, cats, dogs, and guinea pigs. The reactions on her back were huge (the scratch test). But at least she has no food issues. It does explain the wheezing during field hockey and lacrosse games (hmmm... let's run around in all of these grasses that are driving you crazy!)
Now she gets to deal with medication every day... until we find out more about immunotherapy.

I had that as a kid also. I only got shots from spring thru summer - I had them for about 10 years and have not been bothered with pollen allergies since.

Now I have severe cat allergies and dust but not as bad. I just don't want to start the shots again - but I really can't go to anyone's house who has a cat or I am sick for days. I read that I would need 3 years of shots before it would have any impact and I just don't want to do it.

 

[elaineteresa]

It's amazing how things differ from district to district. Here the K kids are reading by the end of the year (at different levels, but all of them are getting somewhere on that). Some start the year already reading, but even those who barely know their letters at the start of the year are reading and writing small bits by the end of the year.

We have 1/2 day K. This is the last year that our school district will have it. Next year is full day - I bet that class will be at the 1st grade level by the end of K. That is what is so sad for my kids.

My kids really want to read things. They tease them with starting to learn but it goes so slowly to accomodate everyone in the class, that they get bored with it. For the last 2 months they are starting reading circles where the kids will be divided into readers and non readers. I hope this will be more stimulating.

 

[elaineteresa]

That stinks...

Devon went to catholic school until 3rd grade but in their K they did letters the first half of the year and then had a book where they started learning small words and stuff..

I know spelling wise though Devon was so bored until 3rd Grade that she never bothered to study for the tests (Usually got a 100 or 90 anyway so i wasn't pushing)

In 3rd Grade it became vocabulary and they made you do all these stupid things to the words (make a crossword, find antonyms, make stories...stuff like that)

You know I am really thinking to myself that we could have more fun at home over the next 2 months - doing sentences, reading, math etc.

The have a word recognition list with 20 very basic words. My kids tell me that some of the kids just stand there when they get called on and can't answer the basic questions. It just sounds so painful. I guess we all went thru this? Maybe I just can't remember that far back

 

[brack]

Elizabeth got to experience the fun of allergy testing today... Turns out she's allergic to most grasses and tree pollens, two kinds of dust mites, cats, dogs, and guinea pigs. The reactions on her back were huge (the scratch test). But at least she has no food issues. It does explain the wheezing during field hockey and lacrosse games (hmmm... let's run around in all of these grasses that are driving you crazy!)
Now she gets to deal with medication every day... until we find out more about immunotherapy.

Sometimes they grow out of this with a little bit of help from good medicine. Here's some

 

[Jhalkias]

John & Amy...this is the big news story here today. It is across the street from where Jungle Golf use to be. That is just a dirt lot now.

http://www.witntv.com/

We thought about renting one of those units once. Sad to see they were lost - and what a cost!

 

[Jhalkias]

Elizabeth got to experience the fun of allergy testing today... Turns out she's allergic to most grasses and tree pollens, two kinds of dust mites, cats, dogs, and guinea pigs. The reactions on her back were huge (the scratch test). But at least she has no food issues. It does explain the wheezing during field hockey and lacrosse games (hmmm... let's run around in all of these grasses that are driving you crazy!)
Now she gets to deal with medication every day... until we find out more about immunotherapy.

Oh Marielle, Sophia, Alex and me all feel that pain. HATE those scratch tests - immunotherapy did not work for me. Sophia is on Claritin daily, and breathing treatments at the change of season when the asthma gets worse - or Advair.

 

[87Heel]

We have 1/2 day K. This is the last year that our school district will have it. Next year is full day - I bet that class will be at the 1st grade level by the end of K. That is what is so sad for my kids.

My kids really want to read things. They tease them with starting to learn but it goes so slowly to accomodate everyone in the class, that they get bored with it. For the last 2 months they are starting reading circles where the kids will be divided into readers and non readers. I hope this will be more stimulating.

I hope it gets better quickly. Hannah was the last class of half-day K in our district, but all of them were reading or at least recognizing lots of "sight words" by spring of K year.

 

[87Heel]

We really did not think the allergy tests would show much (except the cat and guinea pigs, because we discovered that reaction when we've gone to someone's house; this just confirmed it). We have two dogs (longhaired dachshunds) that never seemed to be an issue. And we did the testing because she's had some exercise-related asthma episodes recently. This was all quite surprising (and she couldn't blow out all of the computer "candles" on the breathing test... guess kids just manage).

 

[lbgraves]

Good Luck with your search Lisa. It is so sad that the school cannot meet his needs. I am beginning to see that schooling will be sort of like having a job. There will be some moving around when the expectations are no longer being fulfilled. By 4th grade, our schools are allowed to put 30 kids in the classroom. We have 13 now in K. I hear 4th becomes a very tough year because of this.

I just had to ask Jaea's teacher if she could kick it up a notch with the homework or I wasn't going to ask her to do it. She has a full time assistant in the classroom; someone can come up with a homework sheet that is a little more challenging than "Circle the W's in the wagons". It's May and they are still making their way through the alphabet letters.

Jaea told her father this weekend that she hates school. I know she is bored at this point. Alas!!

I resent the fact that I do not trust their school to meet their educational needs. This should be easy and not require that I shop for a school. I pray that we don't live here when they are ready for middle school.

 

[lbgraves]

That stinks...

In 3rd Grade it became vocabulary and they made you do all these stupid things to the words (make a crossword, find antonyms, make stories...stuff like that)

DS started with the stories in first grade. It became a game. I had him start doing that again in January for second grade to be challenged. He takes the pretest on Tuesday so he doesn't need to take the Friday test but he still needs to work on his writing. We go over the word list together and I come up with a topic that I think 8-10 words would go with. Tonight it was taking a ride in a car. Last week it was economics...the bonus word. We googled it so that he could find out the technical definition and read about it. He then used the other words to write a paragraph about it. Maybe you could do that with her on your own to help her get use to using the words.

 

[MrsMork]

thanks for the advice Angie.

I thought Storytellers looked fun too - Passporter recommends it.

I remember you were planning a trip to DL but I was pretty sure it was later in the month. Hope you all have a great time.

We are mostly going to take Giona to Legoland. Ken has a meeting in San Diego and we are working around that.

We were talking with Aaron on the phone tonight and he told us he wants to go to Legoland. Dennis told him there are no "good rides" there like Tower of Terror. Aaron of course will NOT ride on the scary ones so that argument did not convince him that DL is better.

 

[MrsMork]

Lisa, Aaron asked about William tonight when we were talking with him. "I like playing with William", he said. How cute! He is getting excited to see Savannah at DL, but really, really wishes William could come too!

 

[elaineteresa]

I resent the fact that I do not trust their school to meet their educational needs. This should be easy and not require that I shop for a school. I pray that we don't live here when they are ready for middle school.

I am already planning that we will have to move. Six years actually goes by pretty quickly - so any improvements we do will be with a move in mind. We live in a really idyllic spot with land, elevation and a view and we will have to give it up to move to suburbia - OMG!!!

They are threatening to get a new middle school but at the pace our district moves I'm sure it won't happen in time for them.

I don't mind shopping around; I mind more having to take funds allocated for college to pay for grammar school. But I don't want them to have a second rate education either. I just have to decide at what grade level that really matters.

 

[elaineteresa]

We were talking with Aaron on the phone tonight and he told us he wants to go to Legoland. Dennis told him there are no "good rides" there like Tower of Terror. Aaron of course will NOT ride on the scary ones so that argument did not convince him that DL is better.

Passporter highly recommends it. Jennifer said they liked going before they had kids. They are very into theming and the cuteness factor. I like the idea that it closes at 5pm and we will have the whole evening free - oooh, did I say that?

Giona will be in his glory - he just loves putting Lego sets together.

 

[elaineteresa]

I bought one of those Post-it books where you can draw a picture and then write a 3 sentence story about the picture. We do that several times a week. Giona needs the mechanical writiing practice. It is good for both of them to learn how to formulate sentences and take a story concept and develop it. They tend to tell the story in one sentence and we are trying to work on elaborating more. LOL. They really like to sound things out phonetically plus we talk about sentence structure and punctuation.

 

[brack]

Good morning my friends!

 

[lbgraves]

Lisa, Aaron asked about William tonight when we were talking with him. "I like playing with William", he said. How cute! He is getting excited to see Savannah at DL, but really, really wishes William could come too!

I will send you William's email so that the boys can get back in touch. He likes emailing.

 

[MrsMork]

Good morning my friends!

And a good morning to you too!!

 

[lillygator]

Good Luck with your search Lisa. It is so sad that the school cannot meet his needs. I am beginning to see that schooling will be sort of like having a job. There will be some moving around when the expectations are no longer being fulfilled. By 4th grade, our schools are allowed to put 30 kids in the classroom. We have 13 now in K. I hear 4th becomes a very tough year because of this.

I just had to ask Jaea's teacher if she could kick it up a notch with the homework or I wasn't going to ask her to do it. She has a full time assistant in the classroom; someone can come up with a homework sheet that is a little more challenging than "Circle the W's in the wagons". It's May and they are still making their way through the alphabet letters.

Jaea told her father this weekend that she hates school. I know she is bored at this point. Alas!!

Is this a K class? Wow, Samantha's preschool has already gone through the alphabet for the year.


Lisa - out of curiousity, why are you against uniforms?