So the plan for this year
Oct. 14th, 2017 04:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
conulyis that the boys get picked up from school by the mother of one of their classmates, and then I pick them up and transport them to a third babysitter until their mom gets home.
This is probably saving their mom $$$ in daycare, but the kids have had some time adjusting, in particular the older boy, because all the kids are either much younger than he is or dedicated high schoolers who focus on their homework.
So one day a week I'm trying to get them early so I can tutor him a bit, and really this is because I want to tutor Eva's best friend and I think she'll work better if she has another kid in her grade to work with.
But maybe he needs his own tutoring, because he bombed his first math test of the year, this after swearing that he had no math homework all month, which is a load of bull. (Babysitter 1 is asking his teacher tomorrow, and if she agrees that she didn't assign math homework, I'll buy him a soda.)
Anyway, I picked him up today and asked, as you'd expect, if he'd finished the reading comprehension packet that was assigned last week and is due tomorrow. "He told me he'd done all his homework!"
Uh-huh.
On the way to Babysitter 3, I set out a new rule. "If a grown-up asks if you have homework, and you're not sure, don't say no. Just open your bag, look in your folder, and check."
"How did you know I say no when I'm not sure!"
Um, I've met you? Also, I was a kid once.
"Oh, so when you were a kid you didn't want to do your homework either?"
No, when I was a kid I didn't do my homework*, but the difference here is that when I was your age, I never got a 27 on a test either. I got straight 90s and 100s.
In other news, today I taught him cursive f, m, and n. As he noted, he can now write "a dirty word", because he knows all the letters for it. All he has left to learn is o, p, r, s, x, y, and z. Oh, and the capitals. Tomorrow we'll do y and o, Wednesday we'll do p, r, and s, Thursday we'll do x and z. And next week we can start capitals, which the girls should review too anyway.
* And I lacked the appropriate skills and structure to do it either, but I didn't want to delve into that one.
This is probably saving their mom $$$ in daycare, but the kids have had some time adjusting, in particular the older boy, because all the kids are either much younger than he is or dedicated high schoolers who focus on their homework.
So one day a week I'm trying to get them early so I can tutor him a bit, and really this is because I want to tutor Eva's best friend and I think she'll work better if she has another kid in her grade to work with.
But maybe he needs his own tutoring, because he bombed his first math test of the year, this after swearing that he had no math homework all month, which is a load of bull. (Babysitter 1 is asking his teacher tomorrow, and if she agrees that she didn't assign math homework, I'll buy him a soda.)
Anyway, I picked him up today and asked, as you'd expect, if he'd finished the reading comprehension packet that was assigned last week and is due tomorrow. "He told me he'd done all his homework!"
Uh-huh.
On the way to Babysitter 3, I set out a new rule. "If a grown-up asks if you have homework, and you're not sure, don't say no. Just open your bag, look in your folder, and check."
"How did you know I say no when I'm not sure!"
Um, I've met you? Also, I was a kid once.
"Oh, so when you were a kid you didn't want to do your homework either?"
No, when I was a kid I didn't do my homework*, but the difference here is that when I was your age, I never got a 27 on a test either. I got straight 90s and 100s.
In other news, today I taught him cursive f, m, and n. As he noted, he can now write "a dirty word", because he knows all the letters for it. All he has left to learn is o, p, r, s, x, y, and z. Oh, and the capitals. Tomorrow we'll do y and o, Wednesday we'll do p, r, and s, Thursday we'll do x and z. And next week we can start capitals, which the girls should review too anyway.
* And I lacked the appropriate skills and structure to do it either, but I didn't want to delve into that one.
no subject
Date: 2017-10-11 04:21 am (UTC)The Z, I can explain! You rotate it about 45 degrees, then give it a tail so it doesn't look like an N, basically. ...I can only explain it because it's in my name, so I've stared at it a lot, going "what the heck is that thing doing? ...ohhhhhh".
S is just S with a stroke up through it, from tail to top (that gets drawn first), and the little version loses the top.
This is why I'd be inclined to teach both at the same time, if focusing muscle-memory on the cursive -- many of them do have the bones, and being able to connect the cursive you're learning with the text that you read in books... It might help dispel the whole "cursive is another language" thing.
(The "same bones" is probably why some people got the bright idea to teach printing first -- "it's just printing with the letters connected!" ...except when it isn't.)