Posts
Here we are at 9 weeks! Mason has received 3 certificates of accomplishment. First, was Student of the Weeek, Second, he got one for Good Display of Character (something like that). And this past week he got one for Perfect Attendance for the first 9 weeks. I'm working hard to keep up with everything---homework, parent nights, PTO, academic nights, dress up days, and this months community donations. This month was "Sock-tober". We donated socks.....last month was a canned food drive. Now, none of that has to do with Spanish but it is part of starting Kindergarten so I like to include some of that for moms that are interested in Kindergarten in general. I know I was. This week is Drug Awareness. Every day they have a different dress up day. Today was crazy sock day.
Mason got his first report card. Which was graded by either a S, N, or a U. (Satisfactory, Needs Improvement, Unsatisfactory). He got all S's and 2 N's. Both N's fell in the Writing and Language Arts area. It's no surprise he needs to work on his writing. He doesn't like to do it and his letters are always backwards (just certain ones) and the teacher consistently comments on he needs to work on it. Which is fine. It's her job. They use AIMSweb and GKIDS as guidelines for their grading. In case your curious and want to Google the evaluating system. As for Language Arts he couldn't identify the "I" sound for English and the "ll" sound for Spanish. I asked him over the weekend what sound the "I" makes and he could tell me. Maybe he couldn't remember at the time he was asked. Of course I wanted to read one of his letter sound books to him. He was having nothing to do with it. I think they burn out on that stuff all day and he isn't interested when he is home. We had one of the academic nights that was Reading themed. We rotated through about 3 classrooms where we made site word games to take home. The only problem with that is finding time to do it. But they seem like good games. One was a board game with rolling dice and advancing forward if you could read the word. The other was flipping over letters and trying to make words, and the third game was writing site words on one end of a popsicle stick and pulling them out of a cup and guessing the site word. If you got it correct you got to keep the stick for points. If you got a stick that said "BOOM" then you had to put all your sticks back and start over. I think Mason will like that one. Mason is actually better at his Spanish site words than his English site words. I feel like I have to do something. I feel like we are just robotically doing homework and not getting anything from it. We are still doing worksheets, and reciting numbers and letter sounds. I don't think it's the content of the homework we just don't spend enough time with it. I think he is ready to be done with it like me. Which is all my fault. He hasn't been as interested in reading at night either. We've read to Mason since he was born and every night since he was 4 months old. Now that the pressure is put on him to read his attitude has altered a bit.
Anyway, every week we get a "Guided Reading" book in his back pack. One week it's an English Book and one week it's a Spanish book. Sometimes we have both. Not sure how the rotation works. But the teacher sent home a CD of a read-a-long for the Spanish books. I think this was to help out the English parents who didn't know how to say the words. It's an audio CD of one of the Dual Language teachers reading each of the Spanish books sent home. I thought that was very clever. I don't need it but it could be useful to Mason maybe. We were told to keep them and send them back the end of the year. I also recently asked the teacher to send me a list of web links to the songs they sing in class. Mason is always singing songs that I wish I knew the words to. Particularly the Spanish songs. She sent me a list. Most were on YouTube.
This week is Math/Technology night. I'm interested to see what they send us home with. Being a Title 1 school they are very resourceful and they strive to be. It's the school goal to get parent input and get them involved and the provide parents with resources to help them help their kids. They offer resources in English and Spanish. Every flyer sent home, every message I get from the school is communicated in both languages. I think Mason is learning Spanish the same way we learn English. Through songs and play and just being around the language. His first Spanish words are the same as his first English words: Colors, numbers, shapes, animals. I once read somewhere that kids born into a bi-lingual home with take longer to speak. It's because they are processing two languages at once. I wonder how that same theory might play into his learning at school. Will it take him longer to read and write because he is trying to process the information twice in two different languages? At what point do I panic if other kids his age is reading before him? Will his Math and Music abilities be more advanced than other kids because his brain is being challenged? All things that will be answered in time I suppose. I just wonder where his reading and writing would be if he had started a non-title 1 school that was primarily pushing English Reading and Writing all day. I usually have good instincts and intuition. Mine tells me to be patient.
I'm going to the school Thursday to read some of my favorite Halloween/Fall books to the kids and give them a treat bag. :) Can't help myself. I hope it goes well. I'm a little nervous to read in front of such a big group of kids. Mason loves his school and his teachers as do I. I'm still very happy about the decision I made. We are only 9 weeks in so I'm not going to be hard on myself. This is my only child. He and I are both learning things for the first time.
As always, thank you for reading and if you have anything you want to know that I'm not talking about please let me know. I may space out my blogs a bit so I don't run short on material.
Here are some links the teacher sent me:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsRKoZGaoEM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L26jwqF9Zro
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unbPV7l2_vI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99zPboqO3sw
you can search "EL ALFABETO" not sure which one she used. When I printed my email it cut half the websites off. :(
No comments:
Post a Comment