Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Elementary School 1st/2nd Grade 2010-2011

Shellymos: That made me chuckle. DS6 had one page of unfinished work where he was supposed to use an outline page to put his thoughts down and then turn that into several sentences. He wrote the outline as the sentences and couldn't understand why he'd do the same thing again and what she was asking for.

Ah, those perfectionists!

Happy birthday to all the holiday babes. DS is turning 7 at the beginning of Jan!

That was totally me growing up. I just couldn't understand why I needed to make an outline first, and so I didn't, much to my parents' chagrin. I felt like I just needed to write down my thoughts, and my thoughts were generally in a logical order.

Too, the only time in my life (when I was in college) that I ever took the time to write a rough draft, I ended up with a D on my final copy. Every other time I'd ever written anything I'd gotten an A.

Oh, and I turned out to be a professional writer and editor, so I guess it didn't hurt me too much!

I always wrote the outline after I wrote the paper - kind of useless. In college computer language courses I wrote the flowchart after the program.

>>I'm not sure how it is with DS, but *I* was this way. I hated doing a final draft b/c my rough draft was "perfect"... <<

Me too! LOL

Same here.

I'll be interested to see what grade ds7 gets from his 3rd grade math teacher this quarter. On Monday he didn't go to math (he's in a regular 2nd grade class, just goes to 3rd grade for math). So yesterday - the last day of school, when they had SO much to do, including an all school field trip, a class party and a school assembly - his 3rd grade teacher had him do his test. He started it first thing in the morning (in his 2nd grade classroom while the other kids were doing other stuff), did a bit more at afternoon quiet time, and finished it after school (which led to me having to call the school in major panic mode when he didn't get home after school, as no-one told me what was going on - but that's a whole other story !). Grrrr.

That's crazy!

DS7 got his report card yesterday. All 3s & 3+s (meets & exceeds). Well, except for that one 2 (progressing) in handwriting. He did NOT like me telling him that was the reason I always remind him to write legibly (that and well, you just can't read it!!!!). At least we have something to work on this next 9 weeks.

JJsMom, that's a great report card!

I'm so glad you mentioned DSs handwriting! This year, I hadn't focused as much on DS6's handwriting, and just in the last 2 weeks as we're about to finish the 2nd grade HWOT book, I've discovered that he forgot how to make several of his letters correctly....Ys above the lines, Ms with 3 humps, you name it. He writes ALL.THE.TIME., but I think that since we weren't focusing on handwriting per se, he's gotten sloppier and picked up bad habits.

Mine is dying to do cursive since that's the next book, plus the rest of his curriculum is now 4th grade so he thinks this should be too, but I'm seriously considering geting another K-level HWOT book and starting again. Just like yours, mine also gets very irked w/ me about the reminders. Maybe it's a boy thing??

Oh, and I'm just like everyone else here with the outlining, too. It seems like it might help for students who have trouble conceptualizing what they want to write about, but for natural writers, it's such a chore.

I haven't been around much in a while, but I'm so glad to hear all the great news!