Chinese Steamed Buns (Bao)

Well I did it. With all my Dutch heritage and genetic baking inheritance from my Grandfather (Opa) I mastered (well... sorta) the art of Chinese Steamed Buns.

Summer is Almost Over

I can't believe the summer has gone by so fast. Actually the last several months have gone by pretty quickly.

I really enjoyed being able to be home with Son before and after school. I know he was happier home with me than at daycare. It was important to me to be able to work with Son on his printing and reading for more than 1/2 hr a day crammed in between dinner and bed. I think he learned a lot, hopefully he hasn't forgotten all of it over the summer! We still have a Math tutor coming in every week so I know that he has gained some ground there and I know his reading hasn't degraded, but I'm still not sure if it's up to 'grade level' whatever that is suppose to be. I'm hoping that he gets a good teacher that will expect good things from him and not just accept the least he is willing to offer. He tends to 'test' new teachers to see how little he can do and have them accept it. This lead to a huge difference in his printing and reading at home vs. school last year, with him doing better work at home. His teacher said that it was because he had 1-on-1 instruction at home, but the Resource teacher had no idea that he was capable of so much until we told her... in March!!! At least they all know what he can/could do now, and this information should be passed on to his new teacher.

I took a huge step this month, I got a job! I am now working 2.5 days a week at my Chiropractors office. This type of work is very new to me, I've not had to deal with the public so much since my retail days back when I was working my way through BCIT. After almost 2 years of working from home this alone was a culture shock. Then add in medical files and patient payments and Gait Scans and you get an idea of all the little things that I have to learn in order to get through the day. My first full day alone kinda fell apart in the afternoon: I forgot to write in new patients on the Chiropractors schedule; I didn't schedule enough time to pull the next days files; I kept forgetting small steps that would have made the afternoon go faster; oh ya, and a patient called at 3:30pm to make an appointment for that day and wouldn't believe me when I said we were booked and closed at 5pm. All in all, it took me about an hour longer to close up than it should have. The next full day alone went much smoother, I was only 10 minutes behind. I have hope that I'll survive this and continue to get better at expecting the unexpected.

I know I said I wanted to work from home at least part of the time, but this is a good compromise.I will be able to walk Son to school 3 days a week and pick him up 2 days a week. Another Mom will take him home with her on the 3 days I work later and Hubby will pick him up from there. It should work out just fine for all of us. Not to say that if I had a chance to work only from home and walk him to and from school everyday that I wouldn't be tempted, but I'm not holding my breath waiting for the 'dream job' to show up.

This week will be all about learning to wake up early again. It figures that my Son, who would normally wake up at 7am no matter what time he went to bed, would pick this summer to learn how to sleep in. He usually wakes up between 8:30am and 9am now, which just won't work in a couple of weeks when school starts at 9am and he has to be fed, dressed and walked over there before that. I am planning to wake him up a little earlier each morning this week so that by the end of the week he's at least waking up before 8am. That is the goal anyway, wish me luck. :)

Teacher Meeting accomplished

Well, we had our meeting with the teacher last week. It went well, I think. She did admit that because Son is so quiet she often won't notice that he isn't doing his desk work until the time is up and she sees his empty or doodled worksheet. She said she will be making an effort to check in on him sooner and not let herself be distracted so much by the louder rowdy kids. She now realizes that Son is just as frustrated as they are, just showing it in a different way. We talked about different ways that Son shows his frustration and how we deal with it at home, hopefully she will remember to look for those signs. His situation will be mentioned at the next meeting she has with the teacher resources to get more ideas on how to help him succeed.

She admitted that he had gone into the cloakroom that day a few times and she hadn't noticed until one of the other kids told her. She seemed embarrassed about that, and she should be. We told her that he uses 'hiding' as a way to avoid things he doesn't want to do. She will keep an eye on that and use similar language as what we are using at home when talking him out of the cloakroom. The good thing is that the kids in the class aren't making fun of him, they were concerned as to why he was in there and tried to help him themselves before going to get the teacher. This seems like a very supportive group of 6 & 7 year olds.

I really hope something comes out of all of this. I don't want him to be left behind or forgotten because he is quiet and well behaved. I won't accept 'he so young' as a reason for him not doing the work in class. I won't let him be left behind.

Something a little concerning that I discovered during the meeting is that he tested into the lowest possible levels in both reading areas that he was assessed for. This is the kid who can read 'early reader' books from the library and is sounding out words so wonderfully when working on the Set 3 "Word Families" Bob Books. It just goes to show how different things are in the classroom vs home. I think the more confident he gets at school the better he will do. In theory he should 'progress' very quickly once he learns what they want to hear. :)

I got some good news today around these issues. While talking to the teacher, after taking Son to school, she mentioned that since our meeting he has been listening more and not resisting going for 'floor time' or other activities as much. He isn't asking "why" he has to leave his current activity right then; he's getting into the routine of the class. He seems to be more aware that we talk and all want him to participate in the class work so that he can learn. This makes me very happy.

I'm still planning to sign him up for Time4Learning, it will give him some extra reading and math practice. He enjoys doing educational games on the computer so I think this will be a good compromise for those days when he wants to watch a movie instead of playing with his toys. Considering they have a special on until November 30th where you get full access for $20 over 2 months instead of $20/month, this is a good time to try it out. We will be able to see how he deals with it over the Christmas break too.

"Fun" with School

Son has been in school for 2 months now and I feel like I've failed him already.

He is reading phonetically really well, he can sound out most words he sees if I break them down into syllables for him. But he doesn't have a huge vocabulary of words he can read quickly. He also has extreme issues with printing, namely he doesn't want to do it. (He seems to feel that if he can't do something perfectly that he shouldn't do it at all.) These 2 things make it hard for him to complete the worksheets in class. He can't read the instructions so by the time he gets to his desk he's forgotten which answers go where on the sheet based on the class discussions. I'm also wondering why he is being given worksheets that ask him to pick the correct spelling for irregular words when he is just learning to read. An example would be:

Circle the word that is spelled correctly
1. da dae day dai
2. bok book buk bouk

Since Son reads phonetically most of these words would 'sound' the same when sounded out. The task assumes he has had enough exposure to the correct spelling to be able to pick the correct spelling out; "day" and "book" don't follow "standard" phonetic rules. *sigh* I feel like these questions would be better suited for a Grade 1 student who came from full day Kindergarten and learned to read and print well in that class. The 1/2 day Kindergarten he had didn't really prepare him for reading instructions on a worksheet.

I feel like I have let him down, or kindergarten did. Last year they were focusing on letter sounds and just starting to write letters, not words. This year by the first Parent/Teacher meeting the Teacher showed us a page of printing copy work she had the class do. He managed to do 1/2 a page and finished 16/20 in the class. Since he wasn't writing sentences last year I thought he had done well until she told me about the other kids doing so much more. Some of the students were able to get to the 2nd side of the page. His teacher last year kept telling us not to worry that he was "very young" and would get it. But now it seems like he is already behind and it's only 2 months into the year.

I started him on the BOB books in the summer and he is already in Set 3 "word families" and doing well. I began doing printing practice with him 5 days a week after the meeting and continued with reading every night. I feel like I now have to start doing the "Language Review" worksheets as well so that he knows what to expect when he sees them in class. I guess that will be extra reading and writing practice. Why does it seem like I'm Homeschooling my son who goes to Public School? The only things I'm not doing at home are Math and Science, I hope he's doing well in those because I just don't have time to do more after school and on weekends. The last 2 weeks he hasn't done his optional homework sheet for class because I've felt that it was more important to learn how to correctly print the numbers and letters than to fill in the blanks for 1-100. There is only so much time I can get him to do work at home before he starts to hate school work and rebel against my help. As it is Hubby and I take turns helping him with printing so that I'm not always the "homework" person.

The teacher seems encouraging, says that he is in a class where he can excel because the students are so caring and helpful. She says that he is happy and fun to have in the class. Then she mentions that she has to take his supplies box away sometimes so that he can focus on his work, or that he needs 1-on-1 attention to do the work that other students are doing by themselves, and that he sometimes draws random marks on his worksheet instead of filling it in.

I have to wonder how prepared he is for Gr 1 and if maybe I should have held him back, do they even let you do that in BC anymore? I know they do a "social pass" for kids that are behind so that they stay with their classmates instead of having to do a grade over again with younger students. I don't think I agree with that. Son was born in August, so he is one of the youngest kids in the class, I hope that doesn't mean he will always be 'behind' his classmates and start feeling like he's no good at school.

I guess all I can do is offer support at home and hope that he picks up the skills he needs to do well in class. Hopefully this happens before he decides that school is where he goes to play with his friends and that class time is a waste of time. He's only in Gr. 1, he shouldn't have that attitude for years yet. ;)