Just what are we looking at here? How much do we need to cover in the next few months? How much do we need to cover in the next year?
We started today by making a perpetual calendar. Nature Girl and I made season and month and day of the week cards. We made a disc for each day of the month. We made illustrated weather cards and season cards. She could read all the weather cards and the months and the days of the week. She could count confidently from 1 to 31.
She could not put the days of the week in order except for Friday - Saturday - Sunday.
She could not say that the year started with January and ended with December. She couldn't group the months by season. She couldn't sequence the months at all, suggesting that December followed July. She did know that June followed May and July followed June.
She has looked at and worked with a perpetual calendar in the classroom for four years now. I wonder what standards I'm going to be held to. If she still mixes up the months a year from now will I be a failure as a teacher? Does it matter that four elementary teachers have already failed to teach her the order of the days of the week?
I had fantasies of having her reading at grade level in a year's time. But really, that isn't fair to either of us.
On Monday we start at the beginning. We're going to go back to fill in the gaps. Starting with crawling, the most basic set of whole body sequencing movements we ever need to coordinate. Nature Girl skipped crawling and went right to running.
Pray for decent weather because I'd like to spend as much time outside as possible. Rain or shine, I'd like to avoid BLIZZARD like conditions though.
An excellent article on the importance of crawling.
Because he's home, and hovering over my shoulder now, Darkmirror was quick to point out he still can't sequence the months of the year! In fact he still doesn't have his birthday committed to memory. He stumbled over the days of the week. He'll be 16 in 16 days - YOU do the math there. This has nothing to do with intelligence, it has to do with learning differences. He's got the self confidence to accept that, Nature Girl needs to develop it...and hopefully get the sequence down and stored to long term memory!
We've been busy here...meet Stormy
12 years ago
2 comments:
Okay, this may be far too simplistic a solution to her problem with days of the week but many primary teachers I know sing the days of the week. I'm not sure the tune or anything and maybe Papa Pan can help with that but something catchy. If you can get her to learn the song maybe she can transfer that to being able to sequencing the days of the week? Just a thought.
A great way to teach days of the week and months of the year is with a song. There are many out there to choose from. A common theme (not too Waldorf-like, but kids love it) is to the Adams Family: Days of the week (snap snap), Days of the week (snap snap), Days of the week, Days of the week, Days of the week (snap snap)...There's Sunday and there's Monday, There's Tuesday and there's Wednesday, There's Thursday and there's Friday, There's even Saturday (repeat Days of the week snap snap, etc.). We do a lovely one to the months of the year in both English and Spanish to the tune "10 Little Indians". Good luck!
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