I posted this on LP this afternoon and got several responses:
Abigail 5yrs 9mths started K this September. Two full days a week. Its been three weeks and she is already bored. The teacher seems incapable of giving her anything extra to encourage her and interest her. Instead, she seems to put her down. This month they will be learning numbers 1 - 5. Abigail can count to 1000 but the teacher can only says ' you count too fast'. You know, she could have said wow thats great...can you count a little slower for me so I can really hear the numbers?' but no - she just said she counts too fast!
This month they will learn colours like red, blue, black and white. They have learned the letters o u and p. They have learned to cut with scissors and hold a pencil...these are ALL things Abby has been doing for at least 2 years if not longer.
I understand that some of the children can't count to ten, don't know their alphabet and haven't learned the colours, but surely a teacher should be able to work with ALL her students and help them all to advance instead of learning instead to be bored.
the thing that breaks Abigails heart the most is that they won't let her do math - proper math...of course we had got her all excited about school all summer long saying how much fun it will be and she will get to do math every day (she LOVES math and will happily spend hours answering sums we write out for her - I know lol, weird kid!
Abigail is a February baby and we chose to hold her back a year - not because she wasn't ready academically or emotionally, but because with three older siblings we have experience of putting a child in early and we don't like what happens in later years. We knew it would be difficult now but we felt it would pay off in a few years.
Abigail says she wants to stay home and that we can just phone in and tell them she's sick....she says she doesn't want to go - she wants to stay home and do math and writing.
If we speak to the school they will probably suggest we put her into grade 1. We don't want to do that because of the above past experience.
The K teacher herself is not the easiest person to talk to - she is very much a 'them and us' teacher and speaks to the parents as thought they are stupid. I have already had a heated discussion with her over speech therapy. This teacher has a lot of rules - even for parent volunteers - the rules are insane and I feel like I'm in school! Its ridiculous!
So we don't know what to do. I am leaning towards returning to homeschool - just with Abigail - although my 14 year old is also considering returning to homeschool. DD in grade 4 loves school. DS in gr 7 isn't bothered either way lol!
My thinking is that if we homeschool her until grade 2 or so we can re-evaluate and by then the children in school will all be reading and writing and it will be a more even playing field...less chance of her being bored.
We thought she would enjoy the social side of school but I don't think she particularly cares for that either...the only friends she is interested in spending time with are those she sees out of school anyway.
We thought that just two days wouldn't matter - she could go and have fun but we would continue to do our own thing at home - we are always doing something (today they have been out in the chicken coop collecting eggs which they are now busy painting...my youngest DS is sick and we are stuck at home). Unfortunately it seems that those two days DO matter because they are changing Abigail from a little girl who LOVES to learn into a girl who 'hates' school and is bored - who sees teachers in the wrong light...who doesn't want to write any more because they are made to write boring things at school like pop again and again Rolling Eyes when she'd rather be writing her own thing.....
It sounds as though the answer is obvious - homeschool her - K isn't something they HAVE to do - they can skip it and go straight into Gr 1 - but will Gr 1 be any better? Is homeschooling the right thing to do? We will be living here next year and so if she goes into school she will go back to THAT school ( a good school otherwise) and I don't want this to go against her.
I'm rambling here...hope this all makes sense....any thoughts.....???
9 hours ago
