well well well...NOW we are getting SOMEWHERE!!!!
parent teacher conference today...the regularly scheduled kind...
first-teacher clarifies that this whole thing is "not a big deal" and we have agreed that defiance is maybe too strong a word here. I also clarfied for her how wounded Butter and I are from our past experience and how I think Butter has learned some inappropriate coping mechanisms. And what IS ok for her to do when she finds herself drifting,etc? Mrs B asures us Butter is not the first and won't be the last and it's not the DEFCON 1 level the previous school made it out to be.
Coloring on fingernails will NOT be tolerated though and she already suffered the natural consequence of coloring them black today...she couldn't sit on the beanbags to eat lunch! FINALLY a teacher that is actually making an appropriate consequence too! We will start with a squeezie ball and see how that goes. I asked about doodling and Mrs B thought I meant AFTER, but no, I mean DURING...Mrs B commented that even today, during some instructions, Butter continued to read a book, though she obviously heard every word that was being said so...Mrs B doesn't seem to have a problem with her fidgity-ness, as long as it's not bothering others...we will continue to dialogue with daily reminders for Butter about what other people expect when they are speaking, what it means to be respectful, a good listener, etc...though I think we will still have a battle over whether she needs to actually be looking at the teacher all the time, etc...uh, that's a battle between me and Butter, not me and Mrs B, btw
The SUPER POSITIVE news is that...on their netbooks, she IS on 4th grade math AND I got previous 4th grade math cirriculum after I told them I wouldn't have anything for her to turn in after we finish the 2 more chapters in the 3rd grade stuff. She only missed one question on the math benchmark today (obviously a case of reading too quickly) AND they have some new questions they are trying out...the most difficult one that most of the students did not get, Butter got easily, lol!
Additionally, I just want to say that the orchestra teacher, Mr Mo, thinks she is AWESOME, lol! and it seems she is ALWAYS paying attention there and in guitar and multimedia...these classes are also taught by male teachers though, so I wonder if that has anything to do with it. And in art, she is getting better about trying it Mrs Flo's way before doing her own thing.
Maybe there is hope for us yet, lol!
