Both dd9 and ds7 had a great year! Some ups and downs, but they both came out happy and having had learned.
DS started at a new charter school this year. Our local public school for his kindy year was a disaster. He spent most of the year trying to sit quietly while the teacher focused on the lowest 25% of the class. That made us decide to move him into a brand new school, the new school was in its first year and had a lot of growing pains. New building, new staff, new families. It seemed that each week there was some change to school processes. We line up here, no, we line up there. Kind of crazy making BUT ds did a years worth of learning in a year. That is what we hope for! The charter school is what I call a "Hippie School." The basis of the school seems to be peace, love and understanding. The kids get time-ins, they talk about peace, about nurturing the whole child. Emotionally, this year was spot on for ds.
The learning style at this school is project based. DS did 5 major projects this year. He did all of his learning based on the topics of Great Danes, Tornadoes, Land Slides, Jacques Cousteau, and Wolves. He was fully engaged all year. He jumped 4 grade levels in reading but only advanced one year in math. He made friends, he had run-ins with frenemies, he got into trouble for being naughty when he deserved it, he got praised for good behavior when he exhibited it. It is what we had hoped for for ds.
DD9 also had a great year. She is at the stand-alone TAG school. I did not gel with her teacher this year. I stepped on the teachers toes at the beginning of the year and we never recovered. DD started the year with a poor report card. She was failing math. The recommendation was that dd go back to grade level math and try it all again. DD did not find this to be acceptable and committed to working harder and with a tutor. We found a high school girl who was willing to tutor dd weekly. DD pulled her grades up to 90% by the end of the year and was promoted to 5th grade math. (I irritated dd's teacher by running to dd's 1/2 teacher after the first report card asking for advice. The last teacher had had dd for 2 years and knew her completely as a learner, this annoyed the current teacher. Oh well!)
More to come.
