Hello everyone. Just wanted to share how things have been going for my dd6 since they began to provide more enrichment. I know she feels a little better, but overall she "thinks it makes school less boring, but is still too easy". Our feeling is still that she will benefit the most from an environment where she spends the majority of her day learning new things rather than just working on little activities that are just a little more challenging. Overall the activities are done by herself or with a small group so it is just giving her material that is one or two grades higher, but in the realm of what she knows. The classroom teacher has been sending weekly updates(except for once she forgot). Here is what she has sent me in her updates of activities they have added for dd:
A reading book and assignment for homework and the exemplar thinking activity During centers.
Working with a few peers that are also reading really well. This group gets more challenging activities to work on individually or as a group.
An extra reading assignment on insects. She had to fill in a graph comparing a spider to an insect.
Journal writing, write 2-3 sentences using more "fancy" words. I am encouraging her to add more details to her pictures.
During phonemic awareness, I have her continue to sit with class. When we come to a word the class does not recognize, I then will call her, or anybody else that might know, to use it in a sentence or tell the class what it is.
During math, after she completes the group activities and workbook page, I have a bunch of critical thinking worksheets "brainwork" to challenge her.
This week she worked with her small group on word building. I received a reading center from the gifted teacher. Her group worked on building more challenging words and word families. We will work with this center again this week, but use some of the words in sentences, or maybe even a short story or poem.
She is also working on reading small passages and answering comprehension questions.
We also started a word journal in class. I am putting her in charge of looking up the words that we don't know during phonemic awareness or in a story and read the class the definition. Our word last week was frumpy! We will use our dictionary or the internet to find word definitions.
So I want to approach the coordinator about the meeting for grade advancement as that is the route we would like to go. Here is what I have so far in my email to her, but would love opinions on additions or things to delete. Thanks for all the help!!
I just wanted to touch base with you about all of the different things that have been implemented in our daughter's classroom. We again want to thank you for taking the time to provide those resources for Mrs. We think that these are a great tool in helping dd feel less frustrated while she is in school the rest of the year. However, we still feel the greatest benefit to dd will be grade advancement for the following school year. We would like to go ahead and set up a meeting with the Superintendent. We just want dd to be in an environment where she spends the majority of her day feeling academically challenged.
That is all I have so far LOL
