Liana had another sleepless night. But it was the first in two weeks. She woke up ready to do battle with the world (and with me). We started math and she sighed and complained. I reminded her we can always go back to book work. Right now she is doing Teaching Textbooks on the computer and generally much prefers this math program to her old one. When she insisted on doing a triple digit addition problem in her head instead of on scrap paper, she moaned, "Why is everything so confusing?" Later, "This is NOT a good day."
Liana has an excellent memory, so she is a good speller. For the beginning of the year, I am assigning her spelling words from a list that all 4th graders should know and spell correctly every time no matter what they are writing. She does quite well with this list. We were using Spelling City, a great website initially, for providing games to use spelling words. But the two girls' lists were becoming transposed and Liana got frustrated when Arielle's words got mixed up with hers. Since Liana likes to create, I have been having her write sentences each day with some of her words. That brought on the tears this day.
Her spelling word was "whether". She wrote a perfect sentence for the word "weather", spelling it correctly and using it correctly. I calmly corrected her, explaining "whether" was a word easily confused. She burst into tears, saying she can't do this, it is too hard. She just couldn't think up a sentence for "whether" and on and on. When the morning disintegrates to this, learning stops. I really don't know what is best at this point.
The next day was better. In the afternoon her best friend was coming to play, so Liana was motivated to finish her work. Once Julia got here, I tried to engage the two of them in Arielle's science project of making molecules from gummy bears and marshmallows. Julia and Liana were too busy making sculptures to learn anything. Arielle learned about the bonds of carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen, but she was frustrated with the younger girls' antics. We are using a new science book that seems to be perfect for the middle school age. From now on, Arielle and I
will work on it alone.
After Liana and Julia ate most of their creations, they got busy playing. Not once did I see them just hanging around wondering what to do. Not once did they watch TV or ask to use the computer. Julia was here for about 6 or 7 hours and here is what they did: got dressed in Liana's fanciest dresses and put on make-up, set up a Polly Pocket town with the old-fashioned Polly Pockets, played a game of 300 Wishes with Arielle, drew pictures of black-haired women in colorful evening gowns, played with their identical Build-A-Bear dogs, and wrote and rehearsed a play. I got them to stop for a hasty spaghetti dinner. Then they went back to their rehearsing. By the time Julia's dad came, they had the play memorized. A couple of days ago I typed up the beginning of this play, titled "Best Friends Forever". It was three typed pages and then they wrote more on it t
his night.
After Julia went home, I found Liana still downstairs working on the play. In this picture she looks like a studious student working on her homework. No, she is working on the props and scenery for her play. She tells me how I am to videotape it, making sure I zoom in at the proper times. Three digit addition is not part of her world. Neither is the difference in whether and weather. Those things are unimportant to her. How do I encourage her to do what she does best, yet learn what is necessary to live in this world? It is a challenge.
Liana has an excellent memory, so she is a good speller. For the beginning of the year, I am assigning her spelling words from a list that all 4th graders should know and spell correctly every time no matter what they are writing. She does quite well with this list. We were using Spelling City, a great website initially, for providing games to use spelling words. But the two girls' lists were becoming transposed and Liana got frustrated when Arielle's words got mixed up with hers. Since Liana likes to create, I have been having her write sentences each day with some of her words. That brought on the tears this day.
Her spelling word was "whether". She wrote a perfect sentence for the word "weather", spelling it correctly and using it correctly. I calmly corrected her, explaining "whether" was a word easily confused. She burst into tears, saying she can't do this, it is too hard. She just couldn't think up a sentence for "whether" and on and on. When the morning disintegrates to this, learning stops. I really don't know what is best at this point.
The next day was better. In the afternoon her best friend was coming to play, so Liana was motivated to finish her work. Once Julia got here, I tried to engage the two of them in Arielle's science project of making molecules from gummy bears and marshmallows. Julia and Liana were too busy making sculptures to learn anything. Arielle learned about the bonds of carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen, but she was frustrated with the younger girls' antics. We are using a new science book that seems to be perfect for the middle school age. From now on, Arielle and I
will work on it alone.After Liana and Julia ate most of their creations, they got busy playing. Not once did I see them just hanging around wondering what to do. Not once did they watch TV or ask to use the computer. Julia was here for about 6 or 7 hours and here is what they did: got dressed in Liana's fanciest dresses and put on make-up, set up a Polly Pocket town with the old-fashioned Polly Pockets, played a game of 300 Wishes with Arielle, drew pictures of black-haired women in colorful evening gowns, played with their identical Build-A-Bear dogs, and wrote and rehearsed a play. I got them to stop for a hasty spaghetti dinner. Then they went back to their rehearsing. By the time Julia's dad came, they had the play memorized. A couple of days ago I typed up the beginning of this play, titled "Best Friends Forever". It was three typed pages and then they wrote more on it t
his night.After Julia went home, I found Liana still downstairs working on the play. In this picture she looks like a studious student working on her homework. No, she is working on the props and scenery for her play. She tells me how I am to videotape it, making sure I zoom in at the proper times. Three digit addition is not part of her world. Neither is the difference in whether and weather. Those things are unimportant to her. How do I encourage her to do what she does best, yet learn what is necessary to live in this world? It is a challenge.
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