Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Elementary School vent - kindergarten cookie cutter curriculum

I'm impressed too! In our class they are still working on counting to 30

DS5 enjoys (mostly) the craft projects and his teacher now has him and another 'advanced' boy doing enrichment after recess while she does phonics group stuff with the rest of the class. I believe she gives them 1st grade math/comprehension stuff. Still way below him but at least it's something!!

OMG! I forgot about those! DS came home with so many in K and I (and he) couldn't take it anymore.

i don't want to put down typical development in any way.. but around here we just got to counting to 12, and we're still working AB patterns. I asked the teacher for more differentiation, which is the big buzz word around here, and she vindictively decided to punish both me and DD5 by sending home enormous quantities of work. From one 2 second worksheet a day to 5 or 6 sheets, plus a book "project" like making a diorama, etc!! She has to do the regular homework on top of the new stuff. DD and I are both bewildered!
irene

That is ridiculous renie! I would talk with the teacher or principal about what the purpose of the homework is exactly. If they know that the child knows the material, then why do they have to do it? And if they have other homework replacing it then it definitely should not be necessary. They shouldn't be punished because they are gifted. It is hard though, when you ask for more and they give you more you can't complain too much. I would just space out when you hand the homework in and maybe let them know that while the work she is sending home is appropriate, that since she is still 5 (or however old she is) that you don't want her to spend more than 20 minutes on homework (or whatever amount of time you feel is appropriate).

My DS5's first grade teacher was confused as to why his sentences weren't more elaborate and creative when he had to write out spelling word sentences. I told her that while he writes good, his hand is still 5 and he tries to find a short sentence because is well aware that the more elaborate the sentence, the more writing he has to do. I remember back in October when he got the word "because" for spelling word and said "oh no...this is going to have to be a long sentence because I have to explain something." And a few times he has still gotten some busy work (looking up and writing out definitions) Not sure the purpose of that, but didn't want to complain too much. Thankfully DS really doesn't complain about it and doesn't usually get too much busy work.

Are you serious?????? She is helping your child by handing off more challenging work to do at home? There should be things that can happen IN CLASS for children who are ahead.

yes the teacher feels challenged by us now and we feel she is trying to make us just regret asking for the work. I actually didn't even directly ask for anything, just shared what my DD said, all words from her and not me. The principal is now involved so i think it will be eventually straightened out. But right now i'm just dreading any interaction with the school, which makes me so sad. My DD7 goes to the same school and has always got great teachers and we just got really unlucky this year with K for my DD. I wanted to get off to a great start. We were placed with this teacher because she is supposed to be good with GT kids. I hope we have better luck next year.
irene

mnmom23 and Cecilia,

congrats on your advocacy efforts for your 1st kids.

Even though you feel like you are asking for more and more from the schools, this will be the first time asking for your younger children. Does looking at it from that perspective help any?

sound pretty typical sadly. ds was tested yesterday to see if he can whole grade skip into k. i'm totally bugged about it because at his testing they basically made it sound like in order to enter school a year early so that he could color, cut, and paste....he needed to be able to read, write, and add (which he can, but it still sounds dumb.). k is mandatory here, or i would just skip it. whether he goes next year, or in 2 years (when he is supposed to go)...there is NO way making leaf patterns all day is going to go over well.

i'm sorry for your struggles renie. we had problems with our 6 year old in k last year. there was no differentiation in the classroom, the principal supported the teacher and would not help us, and we ended up homeschooling our son just to get him out of there.

We had a great K year because we had a great teacher. Here are a few easy things she did to make it fun for the high levels.
Hopefully you can suggest some of these ideas to your teacher, if you think they would be good a good fit.

When the children were practicing writing letters, she would quietly suggest to the higher level kids the idea to see how many, or the longest, words they could write that begin with that letter. And for sight word practice she would give them chances to write words that rhyme with the word. When they moved to sentence writing she would challenge them to edit their work and make a longer more detailed sentence.

For the students would get done fast on the craft/scissor projects, she would have them write as many detail words they could think of to describe the craft. I.e.. fuzzy, brown, sticky

She did similar stuff when doing math & numbers, many times my child had more work done on the back of her paper than on the front because she was given the option to do the easy, the hard, or both. ex. On an addition facts worksheet, she would be given the choice to keep doubling the answers on the back and see how high she could go. My DD loves a challenge!

The children were never forced to do the harder things but they were always given the opportunity, which is important.
Another plus was that we were free to substitute or alter homework as long as we kept to the subject area and basic idea for the task.

Differentiation should be mandatory in every class, and especially in K, because it has the widest range of levels. Some kids don't know their letters while others can read and spell.
All it takes is a little bit creativity and most basic assignments can be tweaked for the more advanced student.

I think the biggest problem is that many people believe that K is supposed to be fun, but they don't realize that the word "fun" to our kids, means to actually use their brain!

I wish you luck and send lots of hugs to those of you who are suffering!

eastnWest, Hey! I'm a little impressed they did so much coloring! Okay...sarcasm intended!!! The education system is broken. All these little kids are paying the price, and the gifted ones more so! I'm so sorry about your exerience...it seems too be a more and more common story! What happened to unit studies on fascinating themes like dinosaurs and weather? I remember kindergarten used to be more fun. The halls used to be decorated like the ocean one month or a jungle the next. That is certainly not our experience! And, if you are someone out there who has this...treasure it while it lasts!

Floridama, That's the way school is supposed to be!! I'm glad your child gets to start their school career that way!