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conulyApparently she's been stealing the fun-tac to fidget with (we'd noticed the fun-tac, but she'd managed to imply her teacher let her have it!), and she filled the inside of her desk with glue (!!!), and she put her hands on her head during play rehearsal instead of keeping them by her side.
At the last one, I can only imagine the teacher is just getting frustrated, because seriously? I don't think that deserves a note home, or even PART of a note home. Certainly not when compared to the glue...!
The teacher said she's "still having trouble with reading", and I'm not going to bore you with my opinion on that again.
I also still don't get how she can spell words mostly fine when I dictate them to her at home, but then fail on the test. She's supposed to "write the words without looking" once a week, but the truth is that I never let her look at the words. It's probably different with other children, but if Eva's copying, she's not thinking. (And what's really funny, I'm starting to realize, is she's more likely after the test to misspell her predictable "word study words" than her unpredictable "sight words"... maybe because she's more familiar with words like "know" than like "peg"? Her misspellings there are more likely to be transposed letters than skipped ones.)
But what really, really bugs me is her math test. See, the very day after this note we got a math test home. She has a perfect score. In her "open response" portion (where they're supposed to explain their thinking, the bane of Ana's existence) I actually think she did that better than her older sister does!
On one she was supposed to pick which student had measured the page correctly with buttons, and she picked the ones where the buttons went in a straight line, touching, across the page. "I think Rodrigo put the buttons on crele (correctly) becus his buttns are steratocrus (I think this is supposed to be "straight across") and do not have the spasis."
Ana probably would have said "I picked him because his go in a line. And that's the right answer. So I wrote it down." (But you know, Ana can be awfully passive-aggressive, especially when there are explicit or implied rules about how many words or sentences to write.)
So why is it we get note after note about how Evangeline "can't read" (no comment, no comment, no damn comment) but none of them mentions, even in passing, how her math is doing? When I was an underachieving kid, nobody ever held a parent-teacher conference or dragged me into guidance without first starting with "Connie is a very bright student" and spending a few more sentences talking about the particular strengths they thought I had. And THEN they talked about how I didn't do my homework or my classwork or whatnot.
The end result of this is that I cringe a little when people start extolling my virtues, anticipating the worst, but that's beside the point. Isn't it a little basic to start off with a softening compliment before you get to "what needs work"? (Even on Supernanny, the conversations with the parents all seem to start that way!)
Anyway, in other news, yesterday I told the nieces the story of how Ana, on her 4th birthday, slid down a very very tall firepole at the playground. (I can touch the platform if I stand on my tiptoes.) And I told, in dramatic tones, how when I saw Ana up there I wanted to scream and yell, but I was scared that if I did she'd just FALL, so I kept my mouth shut and, afterwards, pretended I hadn't seen her. And I reminded them that I rarely say things like "Don't do that, it's dangerous" because I want them to listen when it's dangerous, but at that age so many people still followed their kids around on the playground and it really irked me because the kids played less safely when their parents did that.
Ana: And anyway, if you follow your kids around and say "No, no, no, that's not safe", when do your kids get to have an adventure?
Eva: Yeah! And when do they learn anything? Like my classmate, his parents treat him like a baby! And they come to EVERY event at school and even tell him how to spell words!
(Maybe this is why the other kids spell better than Eva does! "Sound it out for your own self" has been the rule here since Ana was in kindergarten, followed closely by "This word is wrong. Go look it up" now that she's older! Seriously, Evangeline sounded like she was revealing that they spoon-feed him purees or wipe his butt for him, not that they help him with his homework!)
At the last one, I can only imagine the teacher is just getting frustrated, because seriously? I don't think that deserves a note home, or even PART of a note home. Certainly not when compared to the glue...!
The teacher said she's "still having trouble with reading", and I'm not going to bore you with my opinion on that again.
I also still don't get how she can spell words mostly fine when I dictate them to her at home, but then fail on the test. She's supposed to "write the words without looking" once a week, but the truth is that I never let her look at the words. It's probably different with other children, but if Eva's copying, she's not thinking. (And what's really funny, I'm starting to realize, is she's more likely after the test to misspell her predictable "word study words" than her unpredictable "sight words"... maybe because she's more familiar with words like "know" than like "peg"? Her misspellings there are more likely to be transposed letters than skipped ones.)
But what really, really bugs me is her math test. See, the very day after this note we got a math test home. She has a perfect score. In her "open response" portion (where they're supposed to explain their thinking, the bane of Ana's existence) I actually think she did that better than her older sister does!
On one she was supposed to pick which student had measured the page correctly with buttons, and she picked the ones where the buttons went in a straight line, touching, across the page. "I think Rodrigo put the buttons on crele (correctly) becus his buttns are steratocrus (I think this is supposed to be "straight across") and do not have the spasis."
Ana probably would have said "I picked him because his go in a line. And that's the right answer. So I wrote it down." (But you know, Ana can be awfully passive-aggressive, especially when there are explicit or implied rules about how many words or sentences to write.)
So why is it we get note after note about how Evangeline "can't read" (no comment, no comment, no damn comment) but none of them mentions, even in passing, how her math is doing? When I was an underachieving kid, nobody ever held a parent-teacher conference or dragged me into guidance without first starting with "Connie is a very bright student" and spending a few more sentences talking about the particular strengths they thought I had. And THEN they talked about how I didn't do my homework or my classwork or whatnot.
The end result of this is that I cringe a little when people start extolling my virtues, anticipating the worst, but that's beside the point. Isn't it a little basic to start off with a softening compliment before you get to "what needs work"? (Even on Supernanny, the conversations with the parents all seem to start that way!)
Anyway, in other news, yesterday I told the nieces the story of how Ana, on her 4th birthday, slid down a very very tall firepole at the playground. (I can touch the platform if I stand on my tiptoes.) And I told, in dramatic tones, how when I saw Ana up there I wanted to scream and yell, but I was scared that if I did she'd just FALL, so I kept my mouth shut and, afterwards, pretended I hadn't seen her. And I reminded them that I rarely say things like "Don't do that, it's dangerous" because I want them to listen when it's dangerous, but at that age so many people still followed their kids around on the playground and it really irked me because the kids played less safely when their parents did that.
Ana: And anyway, if you follow your kids around and say "No, no, no, that's not safe", when do your kids get to have an adventure?
Eva: Yeah! And when do they learn anything? Like my classmate, his parents treat him like a baby! And they come to EVERY event at school and even tell him how to spell words!
(Maybe this is why the other kids spell better than Eva does! "Sound it out for your own self" has been the rule here since Ana was in kindergarten, followed closely by "This word is wrong. Go look it up" now that she's older! Seriously, Evangeline sounded like she was revealing that they spoon-feed him purees or wipe his butt for him, not that they help him with his homework!)
