More on independence and working ahead

We are making good progress with working independently now that we are very familiar with how all the lessons work. We learned something in our conference with her teacher last week — if she knows the subject matter well, it is okay for her to not complete each lesson in the unit or all of each lesson. We also learned something else. It is okay for her to work ahead. Being able to skip parts of some lessons has enabled her to do a little more catching up and working ahead. Here is a picture of her working with her teacher and the other kids in her class during the conference last week.

Earlier this week she did an entire unit of science in about an hour. It was something she had already covered in school and we were having fun so we kept going until we were tired of it! She really enjoys science. We did some extra work on spelling and language this week as well. With her not starting in the school until a month and a half after everyone else did she has a bit of catching up to do but a good portion of this material she already knows because she had it at school.

A friendly letter

My daughter was working on a short unit on writing friendly letters and she wrote a letter to her grandparents. They've received it by now so I'll share it with everyone else:

(Written just as she wrote it, with all the corrections made, notice the date :D)

Tuesday, Oct. 31, 2010

Dear Ma and Pa,

I want to tell you about how I am doing in school. I am doing very well on everything except math. I have a little trouble with it. I think it is because I don't like it as much as I do everything else. I do very well on everything, and because of that I get stickers on every worksheet almost! And best of all I'm home schooled. Well see you next time I come to your house or next time I write a friendly letter.

Your granddaughter,
***

Independence

Schooling at home is going great now that we are on our fourth week. She is really enjoying it and I'm learning how to do her school and my work at the same time.

A couple of weeks ago I spend a day or so working on improving her speed and independence, but quickly gave that up in favor of encouraging independence. Her pace is quite unhurried and I thought I'd gently nudge her into working quicker in areas where she knows the subject matter, but it didn't really work out that well. I know her well enough to know to back off before she got flustered, which happens easily when she is hurried. We'll pick that up later (I guess).

Encouraging independence is working out well and of course my being more familiar with how the program works helps in that area too.

She is going to speak with her teacher tomorrow for the first time and she's excited about that. In the meantime I have to make sure the computer has whatever programs it needs for the conference and that I know how to operate them.

She has a paper that she's been working on for about a week and when it is finished I will publish it here.

What I learned in third grade today

I learned a lot in third grade today. The lessons include:

1. It's very easy and kind of expensive to have a very impressive collection of whiteboards and pens. But you need them all.
2. Ditto on the "post-it" products.
3. Teachers ask for plastic baggies on the school supply lists because they are excellent for storing everything.
4. If your science lesson that you started yesterday during school hours didn't go so well then, it's probably not going to go much better if you resume it after school hours today.
5. Math is much more fun when you can play with cubes and cards while you do it. And had I been able to play with neat stuff during math class way back when, I might have learned something.

Lots of assessments!

My daughter had lots of lesson and unit assessments today and did really well on all of them! We have added a large whiteboard to our growing collection of whiteboards and it was really useful today for displaying the assignments and checking them off. Tomorrow I will do a better job of organizing it and making it look more cheerful.

The school day went really well but afterward we tried to finish up a science lesson from yesterday but could not. It had an unusually large amount of information and an uncharacteristic lack of materials for her to read and study so we are going to work through it the rest of the week. That one lesson is about a week's worth of information for a third grader and the school normally has not seemed to put very much in one lesson so the whole thing was kind of odd. I made her some study sheets and practice sheets and am looking for photos online. Until now the school has provided all the study materials she has needed and then some.

First day of school with books!

Today was our first day of school with books! Our books and other assorted materials came yesterday evening so we were able to have a full day of school today. We have student and teacher books for almost every subject, along with all kinds of other printed materials. She's got modeling clay, an impressive artist's kit, a tambourine, a scientist's kit with goggles and a thermometer (she's fascinated with both) and more little plastic colored shapes (for math) than a preschooler's toy box!

Class went well today but I'm going to have to tweak our schedule — we need to get started earlier and not take so many breaks and I have to start doing all my work in the evenings and at night. I think we should have all this ironed out by the end of the week.

First week of school

Our first week of school at Arkansas Virtual Academy has been a whirlwind for sure! We got a phone call on Saturday, filled out online applications that night, filled out paper applications and got more paperwork from their schools on Monday and dropped it off at the ARVA office in Little Rock, and fielded phone calls from school representatives that evening. We went from elation at getting the phone call, wondering whether or not the girls had been accepted for sure, to disappointment that only one got in, all within a few days' time.

A massive amount of documents and instructions was dumped into my email on Tuesday, and I spent the rest of the week trying not to drown in them. Earlier today I was finally able to catch my breath and finish all the training so they could put my daughter's lessons up for her. Just as I was finishing watching a million orientation videos she said she was starting to get worried about school and that she felt she was getting behind. I assured her that she was not behind and that I was almost finished with what I had to do so that they could give her something to do. Sure enough, at around noon today, they put her lessons up and we got started!

Here she is doing a math lesson about odd and even numbers. We used pennies for counters because her supplies haven't arrived yet, and some index cards from a math game at her old school (and some I made just for the lesson). We also did spelling and of course she did her other work that I gave her that she's been doing all week.

Testing

We did testing yesterday, an assessment in reading and math that will help my daughter's school know where she is on everything. It was not timed so she was not pressured to perform. She got out her scratch paper for math and was reading everything out loud. I think she did well and she seemed to enjoy herself. I hope it gives her teacher and school a better picture of her abilities than the standardized test she took last spring shows. She did not do well on that one as she does not respond well to time limits; they fluster her and she still doesn't finish. There was a lot that she did not finish and some things that she would have done better on had she not been under tremendous pressure. Her report card from last year shows all A's all year long and that does not jibe with the average (and a few below average and a few above average) scores on the standardized test. So for those reasons I'm glad she took this untimed assessment.

As for me, I feel as if a ton of bricks has been dumped on my head with very little guidance as to how to navigate through it all. I'm trying to learn my way around the website for her school but it's quite frustrating and terribly overwhelming as there is so much there and I'm not sure what either of us is supposed to be doing. I'm getting a little help from her teacher but it's not nearly enough. I do not enjoy this feeling of inadequacy on my part but hope that things smooth out soon. I would have liked to have received some training on how to get through all of this and how to teach my daughter but it looks as I will be figuring that out as I go along.