Is this enough school?

[choirfarm]

Ok, it is nearly 1pm. Have we done enough school? She is in 4th grade.

 

English-

We watched an IEW SWI B lesson- 20 minutes (all she could stand. She doesn't like it nearly as much as the boys.

Talked about commands in Rod and Staff and did several of the lessons orally finding the subject and verb.

A Daily Gram lesson

2 days worth of lessons from WWE 2 ( narration and copywork)

 

Horizons lesson 103 from the 3rd grade book minus the ratios. She has done an x-tra math lesson. She watched the Khan video on equiv fractions and did the practice ex orally with me.

 

Texas History- Read aloud from Make Way for Sam Houston

 

Practiced her piano piece for competition 15 minutes. ( She will practice more later.)

 

Did 20 minutes of her violin practicing. She will practice her Christmas piece for the recital later.

 

Science- We read several pages from Zoology 3 module 8 and she did several questions in the notebook

 

She has also read 3 Boxcar children books today!!! Basically she will do 3 or 4 of the things above ( 45 minutes or so) then she would take a break and read a book. I would give her more work. She would then take a break and read a book.

 

To me, she feels like she needs more writing,but she cannot spell. I had to drop Phonetic Zoo and should be getting AAS level 1 soon. That is also a problem with the dictation. She can't spell half of the words in the dictations from WWE2. Her oral narration is flawless. She can remember it all and give me decent narrations for me to write down. But if she has to write it down, I have to spell every other word...same thing for notebooking in history and science.

[Ellie]

Seems like "enough" to me. :) Why would you think it isn't?

[choirfarm]

Seems like "enough" to me. :) Why would you think it isn't?

 

Because at ps she would be writing papers. It takes her 3 or 4 days to write a paragraph. The fastest way is for her to tell me what she wants to say. I write it down and she copies it in cursive. If I make her do it then it takes a day for her to write down notes, a day to write it out and a day or two to copy it in cursive. My boys at that age would just write a paragraph in 15 minutes on any topic. In ps, they are given a writing test at the end of the year where they are given a topic and half to write a page or more. She hates workbooks, will do anything orally, but HATES writing, second only to math.

[2_girls_mommy]

My first thought when I read it was that everything was oral, and that she needs to be writing down a little more. I would give her the correct spelling during dictation if she has trouble with that. Anyway, that was my first instinct.

 

ETA.. but as I am looking back, I see she did narration and copywork...., So she is getting more than I originally saw. It probably is ok. And if she takes 3 to 4 days on a paragraph, be glad that you are able to give her that time and work with her! (says another mom with a reluctant writer!)

[SkateLeft]

It's more than my kids have done today, if that makes you feel better! :D

 

We got side-tracked by an AoPS problem earlier, which lead to other math stuff, so it ended up being a rabbit trail day for my middle two. My 10 year just commented that we've spent all day doing math. Oops! (It's not the first time that's happened...hehe).

 

Have you tried incorporating journaling? My son writes a daily journal entry, in addition to his regular writing program. We started journaling a couple of years ago. He writes in his journal for about 10 minutes each day. I don't grade it, but he likes me to read it. I only comment on the content, but make mental notes about mechanics and spelling stuff we need to work on. He can't spell worth beans, but he enjoys composition, so I try to give him writing opportunities that are separate from our work on spelling, grammar and mechanics. Another thing that has worked well for my kids, especially my now-8th grader, was the book _Unjournaling_ which has fun, weird, offbeat writing prompts.

[Haiku]

My son had a lot of trouble with writing in second grade. For third grade I have made him write a lot more, and he is getting better. He can't spell, either, so I either spell for him or write any words he doesn't know how to spell on a white board for him to copy.

 

I don't think the solution to poor writing is writing less.

 

Tara

[Myeightkiddies]

I had a poor speller. With him, I had him do copywork every day. I would (or he would) pick a paragraph from a random source (sometimes a book that we were reading or a favorite book of his), and he would copy it in his notebook. It really improved his spelling.

 

WWE has copy work in it, but if it doesn't bother the child too much, you may want to add some additional (let the child choose the source for the paragraph..they seem to enjoy that) copy work each morning. Even with a spelling program, I believe the copy work made a big difference (he is dyslexic but I assume it will work even better with non-dyslexics). Plus, it helps with writing and grammar. I'm a big fan because I saw the improvement.

 

To answer your question, it seems to me that you all did enough. :grouphug:

[3peasinapod]

We have to spell a lot in WWE2 for our 3rd grader also. We are on week 14 or 15 now, and I have noticed she is spelling better. She must have got tired of asking me how to spell every other word! She is not a natural speller, but with all that we are doing, I see steady improvement, which is thrilling.

 

I love the idea of a bit of copywork everyday. In WWE we have writing 4 days a week, copywork 2 days and dictation 2 days. I like that, but DD8 is very visual, so a few extra copywork sentences on dictation days and the WWE off day sounds good. She can write a lot, but likes to skimp if possible.

[Mommy22alyns]

Because at ps she would be writing papers. It takes her 3 or 4 days to write a paragraph. The fastest way is for her to tell me what she wants to say. I write it down and she copies it in cursive. If I make her do it then it takes a day for her to write down notes, a day to write it out and a day or two to copy it in cursive. My boys at that age would just write a paragraph in 15 minutes on any topic. In ps, they are given a writing test at the end of the year where they are given a topic and half to write a page or more. She hates workbooks, will do anything orally, but HATES writing, second only to math.

 

 

Yes, but... I'm not sure how IEW writing goes, but I know that WWE takes a totally different approach to writing than PS seems to. Rebecca doesn't write paragraphs at all. We're committed to WWE style.

 

I think that is "enough" school.

[rocketgirl]

Sometimes little writers get hung up on the spelling and don't get their ideas down. When I taught, writing time was for ideas, hopefully kids spelled correctly, but if they said they didn't know how to spell a word, I almost always said, "write the sounds that you do hear" and go on.

[Haiku]

I wanted to add that I use Wheelers' Elementary Speller, free from Google Books, for my dd's spelling. The lessons are short. It's taking us a long time to get through the book (we are on lesson 70-something of 300+, but after spending a short amount of time every day on it, I'm seeing real improvement in my dd's spelling.

 

For my son, for whom Wheeler's wouldn't work, I use Apples and Pears, and that is helping him, too. It's also helping his handwriting.

 

Tara

[MrsMe]

I'm not sure why you're doing Daily Grams AND Rod & Staff Grammar. That's overkill.

 

As for writing it's fine, although I don't think a 2nd grader needs IEW or "needs" to learn to write at this point. I'd say get a year of spelling in first.

 

Is she studying the dictation before doing it or is it sight unseen? If she's getting too many wrong in dictation she needs to back up some. The passages are too difficult. You could try Spelling Wisdom or Day by Day at this point as well. Also using dictation with like words are helpful first. I don't really know much about WWE, except when I saw it I just thought it was quite difficult early on.

 

So yes, it's more than enough.

Edited December 2, 2011 by alilac