School Days, making progress!

After the weeks homework battle things improved greatly.  There was a book report that Miss had to accomplish on Wednesday which included making a sheep out of a milk jug.  We waited til the last minute in part because of how much time her regular homework had been taking because of the battles.  But ... the last minute went well so no complaints.  Our milk jug sheep was a big hit in the classroom and Miss liked that.  For the book report itself we found the points that needed to be shared together and I wrote them down for us and then Miss rewrote the report independently.  She did very well with that and got gobs of praise about what a big girl she was and what an awesome job she is doing.  I hope that we are on the right track to shape her behavior toward homework in a positive way.  We love helping the kids with homework it can be an really enjoyable time together but the manipulation can not be supported.  I think we are on the right track.

Mr. is struggling with homework but this week went better.  For him he needs to know that he can leave the homework and come back to it.  He doesn't handle feeling trapped by the homework well and he starts to unravel.  But the realization that he can walk away and take a break and return back to the work seems to be helping.  Writing is a huge challenge for him and tends to overwhelm him so writing one sentence at a time and going to play for a few minutes and then coming back is working for him at the moment.

Friday I got to volunteer in Mr.'s classroom and it was very interesting to see him in that environment.  Other teachers were having fall parties but Mr.'s teacher choose to have a centers activity day.  We did a sink or float activity with different veggies and the kids had to predict whether the item would sink or float and why.  There was a counting activity with pumpkin seeds where the kids got to scoop out pumpkin seeds from the pumpkin and then guess how many seeds they had and then actually count them.  They also made a prediction about the size of the pumpkin by cutting a piece of yarn that they guessed would go around the whole pumpkin.  There was a leaf rubbing center and a mat weaving center.  It all went really well and the kids never missed the sugary treats!

Sink or Float Center

Counting Pumpkin Seeds

 Mat Weaving Station and it was Crazy Hat day so yes that is Mario

on my son's head. :-)

Leaf Rubbing Station