flea

Casper was hilarious at dinner tonight. She told me Aydan is suspicious of her because "he doesn't like women" and also told me that she and Thomas kissed "again" today (I never heard about the first time) on the cheek, behind a tree.

And now we are having tears and recriminations, because homework is an idiotic word search. I thought Ms. C last year gave too much homework, but at least hers generally had a point or theme (spelling words based on the sound of the week). The generic word search makes me deeply skeptical about Mr. H as a teacher. (I hate word searches, not least because Casper sucks at them. And this one has some 30 word, many long and backwards and diagonal.)

And Dillo came home DRENCHED in pee. Seriously, at first I thought he'd been caught in the downpour we had, and then I had to ask if he'd fallen in the toilet.

Oy.

And you know what that means - a new crop of names!

Dillo is in a PreK class with 13 boys and 7 girls. His teacher, Ms. R., has been with the school a long time, is well-regarded, and reminds us both of Casper's old nanny Tonya. His classmates (all born before 9/1/2003): Clayton, Devin, Jimmy, Antoni, Deyanira, Dhaijah, Justus, Tekit, Brendan, Eli, Jaylen, Amos (who was the only one we met - total cutiehead!), James, Trinity, Yvana, Lizabeth, Jeimy, Kayden, Michael. The paraprofessional is Ms. W.

Casper for second grade has Mr. H, who has been at Chase since 2004 and has a good reputation as on the silly/goofy side (a major plus for Casper!), hand-on and pro-science. I've also been told he is much more comfortable with children than parents, and this was pretty obvious from our interactions. No parapro at this level. Casper's classmates from last year who are with her again are Danilo, Eliza, Angelo, Roan, and Dynasty. New this year are Owen, Anyssa, Dhuntez, Ja'Quan, Braiden, Taneia, Kourtney (too old to be blamed on the Kardashians!), Skylar, Anatasia, Gavin, Tyreon, Aydan (Siena's twin), Cassius, Da'Naya.

We registered for After School, and learned that the new after school director is about to leave, back to her old job within the school system. So they will AGAIN be basically leaderless, which is a problem. Two kids is only $10 total per day, which is a nice little bonus. There was no solid information about whether Tae Kwan Do will happen, but the rumor is yes, Tu/Th like last year. Two of Casper's friends are doing swimming at the YMCA Tu/Th, and we are thinking about that for Casper to. (Y after programs start at age 6, so not an option for Dillo.) There was no info about Girl Scouts, so I need to email a parent I know and ask what is up. If they are dying for troop leaders for Brownies, I could use my flex time from working Wednesday nights and take Friday afternoons off to do Girl Scouts. We'll see.

I'm all, like, crazy lately, so I;m making plans to keep up Casper's school learnin' over the summer. We attended the kickoff for the summer reading program at the library on Saturday (tap dancer! - get it - kickoff?) and then I came up with this in the car this morning (with kibbitzing from Casper, who picked Friday):

Math Mondays
* Money exercises
* Algebricks
* CRCT practice worksheets
* Abacus
* Wooden shape works
* Fractions (also works with cooking)

Music Tuesdays
* water in glasses to make a xylophone
* rhythms with Peter's drum
* what can we make a drum out of/kitchen musical instruments
* learn a new song (youtube, cd)

Postcard-Writing Wednesdays
* Grandparents
* Friend away for summer
* Mrs. B (girl scout leader moving away)
* Cousin R

Thursdays - TBD - I have two days to come up with something! Maybe cooking. Or bike practice.

French Fridays
* vocab
* Look for short videos online
* Look for stories online or at public library

Swimming Saturdays
* practice at the pool!

Science Sundays
* mentos and diet coke
* kite flying
* baking soda volcano
* measuring liquids
* work science lesson into house project (measuring, level)

Reading Everyday
* short books Casper reads to us (one a day)
* Long books to read out loud (as a family?)
o Rabbit Hill
o Final Spiderwick Book
o Misty of Chincoteague
o Little Princess
o fairy tales

We'll see how long it takes me to burn out. I figure I can make it two weeks...

by Casper

The title is "Dillo"

as cuute as a buoten [cute as a button]
he's as mase as a toornado [messy as a tornado]
as smart as a fox
as ranbunsht as a Jesus Lizard [rambunctious]
as crle as a vain [curly as a vine]
he's as silly as a posum [possum]

Casper's class watched a movie about Claude Monet recently, and she came home full of chatter about the China Bridge, and benches, and water lilies, and his 8 children, and painting in the garden.

Last night at bedtime she pointed to a painting made by mr. flea's grandfather, which she keeps propped on her bureau, and told me she wanted to make a painting like that. It's of sunflowers, done in a thick textural style vaguely reminiscent of Van Gogh, on a canvas board. So we talked about Monet again, and painting from life in the garden this weekend. She wants an easel and a real canvas. I think those canvas boards are quite cheap, actually, and we could get her some acrylics (we only have tempera paint and watercolors right now). An easel is probably pricey, but we talked about how we could make one using a chair.

She was full of what she would paint (our big yellow rose bush which is in bloom) and where she would position herself. Surprisingly mature, for 6, I think.

In other news, she seems rather stressed about the CRCT (standardized tests) which start next week. She seems to be doing fine on the practices, and Mrs. C told me she's only ever had one student fail, and that student was not a native speaker of English. I think Mrs. C is stressed about it, though, and that communicates to the kids. And there is definitely teaching to the test going on - the content piece I think they would cover anyway, but they spend a lot of time on the format and practice tests. Sigh.

Casper and mr. flea are at the ER right now, getting a splint for her broken left thumb. She fell off the monkey bars at after school at maybe 2:30 (early release day) and seemed to have jammed her thumb, and it swelled up immediately. They called me, I called mr. flea who happily was not in the field this week. He fetched Casper and took her home, and our neighbor who's an ER nurse and mother had a look, and recommended we get an x-ray. mr. flea called the pediatrician, who I guess said to go to the ER, since that was where heard from then next. The ER did an x-ray and there is a small break at the base of the thumb, which may involve the growth plate, so they are splinting it for now and will give us a referral to an orthopedist. (My brother has one thumb that is very much shorter than the other; although the family joke is he stunted it playing too many video games, I think he actually broke it skateboarding and nobody realized it was broken, and the growth plate must have been affected. So, we want Casper to have symmetrical thumbs.)

Drama of the moment is mr. flea is at the ER with no cell and no clear idea of when they'll be done. Dillo is still at school which closes one hour from now. mr. flea has orders to call me if he's not walking out the door of the building at 5:30, and I will call Dillo's school and call around our neighbors to see if anyone can go get him.

Poor bunnies. I am not worried for anyone's longterm health, but Casper must be in some pain and a little scared, and mr. flea is obviously worried and stressed out, and Dillo is languishing at school in ignorance of the drama. Poor Casper just got a second crown on Monday, too, so it's like the week of health woes.

Every Wednesday, Casper has to write sentences using each of her spelling words. This week's words feature th and ph. So, the sentences went like this:
I have a cell phone!
I took death to the skies.

Yeah, I don't even know. Maybe she will grow up to be George Patton. Or Darth Vader.

I was at work last night, and my bedtime phone call included a long story from Casper about building a leprechaun trap. She took a box and wrapped it in tin foil (Dillo unwrapped most of the new roll of tin foil, natch) and set it up on a forked stick in the front yard, baited with (fake) gold coins and grapes (since leprechauns eat green food). As of this morning there were no captives, but we shall see.

I also came home to find Dillo asleep on an air mattress in the living room, and the high chair placed at his place at the table. I had gotten both things out to prepare for our weekend houseguests, but apparently Dillo has appropriated them. Since he's coming up on 4, I hope to convince him that the high chair, at least, is for the BABY.

In NC, standardized testing in the public schools didn't begin until 3rd grade. When we moved to GA, I mistakenly thought it was the same here. Last week I learned I was wrong; Georgia has been testing 1st and 2nd graders using the CRCT since 2002 (http://www.doe.k12.ga.us/ci_testing.aspx?PageReq=CI_TESTING_CRCT). Georgia is in fact one of two states in the country that test in grade 1; only 7 test grade 2. There's a bill in the GA house right now that seeks to stop testing in grades 1 and 2: http://blogs.ajc.com/get-schooled-blog/2010/02/26/house-bill-would-eliminate-crcts-in-first-and-second-grade-hurrah-or-hurrumph/

Meanwhile, Casper is being taught how to take a bubble test. She told us in some detail about the practice this morning. She explained a story about a girl names Jane who buys some skates at a store and plans to skate at her grandmother's skating rink. There are questions after the story, and it was pretty cute to see her explain how the choices would be a, b, c, etc. She said (unprompted) that she was worried about the test because she wasn't always able to read the story very well. I asked if they practiced math tests too, and she said yes.

She had a tough week at school this week, struggling to pay attention in math especially, such that her parapro wrote us a note home about it. It turns out they were doing fractions this week, and she didn't understand, so she was goofing off and talking. So we did some fraction work on Saturday morning, with an apple, and then with drawings and using the 1970s math book the kids both love. I hope that helps her feel better about fractions. It's interesting to me that Casper's reaction to not understanding, and apparently being distressed at not understanding, was to goof off. I originally thought that maybe she got it instantly and was goofing off because she was bored, but it became clear that was not the case, and she was stressed out about not understanding.

I tried to get Casper to read some of Babymouse to me last night. As usual, her first response was "I can't read." I said she'd read out loud one of the titles on the movie screen before the movie that afternoon ("The Book of Eli") and she claimed that wasn't her, but someone else sitting near her. Ultimately she did read a good chunk of Babymouse with me, getting at least 3/4 of the words (though partly because she knows the story well and has it semi-memorized.) So frustrating for me; I can't see how to help her forward much further. She has to decide she can do it and do it, I guess.

The kids are now both old enough that I can leave them with Grandma with almost no qualms about how things will go. (I do expect the possibility of tiffs between my hard-headed daughter and my hard-headed mother, and generally get them.)

Grandma and husband are off to Asheville, leaving me in great hopes that mr. flea arrives at the Athens airport as scheduled at 4:40pm, because I don't have a backup plan to collect Dillo from school if mr. flea ends up kicking his heels in Denver or someplace. Taxi, or my neighbors (who would be happy to help and there are enough of them that one should be home), I guess, would be the answer.

Had parent breakfast at Casper's school today. Thomas' mother informs me that Thomas told her that Casper plans to marry him. This is news to me, but he's actually a great kid, so if she still feels this way in 20 years and can convince him, I'd be okay with it. He's going to be tall enough, too (his parents are as tall as we are). Lots of parents showed up, including many of the ones you always suspect won't, and I got to spend some nice time talking to kids who were parentless as well as loving on my kid. I told Jeremiah he had a beautiful name and he was so shyly pleased. There are a bunch of seriously beautiful children in Casper's class.

Dillo had a charming habit of hating it when I push up my sleeves. He always pulls them down for me. He is doing GREAT on the potty lately, and I feel like we are finally finished with diapers in my house!

Tomorrow is mr. flea's birthday and I am planless. It's been a very distracted week, all out of routine and dealing with Mother. I am also planless for Thanksgiving and Christmas (though I have preliminary gifts bought for my mother and siblings at least.) This weekend needs to see some serious planning happen.

(Oh! Grandma got the kids flu-misted yesterday at the county. They got 2 of the last 3 available doses of mist, but the county did have some shots. They say they need another dose in a month, but we'll see how the WHO/CDC work this advice out in the next month, and also, will they actually have any in a month?)

We had our first teacher conference yesterday, with Mrs. C. I felt generally good about it.

1. Social issues. Mrs. C acknowledges that this class had a very different vibe from her class last year, especially driven by the fact that there are two outspoken and competitive girls who seem to be setting the social dynamic. She is trying to get the class more involved in collaborative work, but this group hasn't gelled as well as some of her previous classes. It's a pity, since Casper seems to be good at and enjoy the collaborative work. The social issues are going to be discussed with the parents in question, and I ran into one of them after school and we had a good talk. Mrs. C knew that the dynamic was occurring in recess, but I was able to tell her that it was also happening in after school.

Mrs. C's concern about Casper is that she is shy in class, won't speak up, and sometimes when she does she used a baby voice or a very quiet voice. We said, "OUR KID OMGAREYOUKIDDING?" and told Mrs. C some anecdotes (like Casper's mean notes) that I think opened her eyes. She was interested in my suggestion that Casper held things back at school. When I talked to Casper about it at home, it was clear that this is a problem - she got very shy and embarrassed. She said the Mrs. B (the parapro) yells a lot (huh? wouldn't have expected that, and Mrs. B runs girl scouts which Casper loves). So we had a pep talk about speaking up and not worrying about being wrong, that Mrs. C loves her and wants to hear her voice.

The other concern Mrs. C had was Casper's distractability, especially when they are seated on the floor working together. Interestingly, at the end of the session mr. flea remarked that he was having a hard time focusing on our conversation because there was so much going on in the room (i.e. in the decorations and work posted). And Casper has always been a little daydreamy - I think this is just her nature, and there's not a whole lot we can do to change it. Homework at home has been a problem, with maintaining focus. We've had to take Dillo completely away.

2. Reading. Casper is right at the "normal" point for first graders. It's a little hard to be there, because there are 7 kids in the class who are reading way above grade level, and obviously everyone in the class can see that. Mrs. C wanted to emphasize that Casper was doing well and making progress and she should not feel bad about her reading skills (nor should we) because she is not exceptional. Happily at least one of Casper's friends is in her reading group. I see some clear progress when she reads to me - which she is now more willing to do and more able to do fluently. Mrs. C also had some good suggestions that we can use when we do the reading homework, to keep her from reciting the book from memory based on the pictures (which is her tendency). We've also been watching some of the new Electric Company at home, and it's pitched exactly at Casper's current level, and she seems to like it.

3. Math. Casper picks stuff up easily (she totally got greater than and less than instantly), and loves that this work is more hands-on and collabroative. No content concerns at all with math.

I think there will be some social fallout in the class based on conversations Mrs. C had with parents. I'm interested to see what happens. I'm also thinking of asking Casper's friend Penny's mother to keep her after school one day a week, as a sort of break from the very long day she has with all the same girls, some of whom fight with each other which stresses Casper out. I still think the main after school teachers aren't very good.