New School...New Friends...New Teachers.

New school, new experience.... this moment I have been waiting since the day that Amelia was born (2009). Since then it was the most hardiest motherhood experience I have ever been through in my entire life (I know I'm being dramatic ). I say this because I did it without my mother,.my girl never got to meet their grandmother, she left too soon. OK tears are dry up now, I'm ready to keep writing. This past September was the day the girls started a new school...together!! I felt like a million dollars about this, it just makes my life a little bit less stressful. It was Amelia's best friend mother that push me to put the girls in charter school, I had my bad experience in Joannelly previous school and I didn't want Amelia to start kindergarten in that same school. Jojo was in public school and I'm not saying that ALL public schools are bad then again I just felt that I did my part as parent to help my child in school but I felt the work wasn't enough. I had another public school I wanted the girls to attend a pretty good public school closer to home, Amelia got accepted but it would be a little difficult for Joannelly to get in. I didn't want the to deal with the transferring Jojo to different schools it worried me a little, I had bad experience with transferring schools growing up, it sort of affected my social skills.
From preK- to elementary school i have attended about 5 different school before i reach the 4th grade, i was known as the "quiet kid" I rarely made any "close" friends. As a patent I didn't want my girls to go through that experience, I'm sure other parents have their concerns about transferring their child depending on the circumstances and then there are others that don't have a problem because they are looking out for their child best academic interest. The reason why I decided to take the risk of transferring was because I got tired of getting no answers in Jojo school, tired of hearing other parents saying "my child is in 1st grade reading at 2nd grade level" or "the teachers didn't go over that in class". I needed to do something about it...make that change that will improve their intelligence, cause Yes these kids of this generation are much smarter these days, it's the school system that needs to update their hardware of teaching. Their are kids doing homework or projects on all these new technologies. And I want my kids to be one of them, although we do get the "I can't do it" phase with our children but we they just don't to do the work, that's when we find alternatives in their learning. OK back to the new school....it's a charter school however it's still a public school it just doesn't follow the public school systems or teaching technique.

 I have my pro's and con's about charter school but what I can say is that the school really embrace the students abilities to learn and that outshines the con's. My girls love their new school, teachers and made friends pretty quickly. I love love love LOVE..it's the same homework for each grade! what I mean by that is...all first graders have the same homework and all kindergartners have their homework the same. So no matter what class they are in the students would be on the same page. I like that the students can move up a grade or if the teachers feel that the student needs just a little more help goes down a grade but never hurt their self-esteem because the student has a chance to go to the grade they started before the end of the school year. I like this idea because it doesn't back track the teachers and their lesson plan, it keeps a steady academic flow. I love my girls and I want the best for them like all parents do however I'll be just as excited if they WANT the best for themselves because they love the challenge of learning.

 These charter school scholars work really hard with their teachers practicing for the state exams which is why they have longer school days and shorter holiday off, they waste no time. So as I sit in on my with my tired scholar (Jojo) who is taking a nap as I write this it's only my first experience at a charter school and it may not apply to most charter schools but I know my girls are getting the education they deserve. OK now I have to stop writing cause my little one (Amelia) is climbing the walls in my room dancing in her sister Christmas dress from last year showing me her "Dancing Queen" moves beside that, I have to start dinner before daddy gets home or else I would be getting a survey title "Why is dinner not done yet I'm starving". So......

Until the next Blog....

Parent Meetings in New School

The other day was the first parenting meeting at the girls new school (reminder: i will write about their experience in a new school and how they fell about it in another blog) this meeting focused on the first-graders academic progress since the beginning of the school year. I thought (as thought every parent does) that Joannelly was doing so well in her grade...turns out they weren't but it was expected from their teachers. Every kid is not going to reach their teachers expectation just yet so it didn't bother me at all. So in the parent meeting i decided to take notes in what might help JoJo do a little better without hurting her self-esteem. I know my child is smart especially the kids in this generation with all the new fancy gadgets out there, as a parent i know encouraging our children that they can do better is pretty important. Growing up i felt i didn't get that encouragement,  it was always the method of "tough love" but i knew that method did not always worked for me. Being in this parent meeting not only did i get great insight from JoJo teachers but i got a chance to see her class room. Mind you that this is a new school, so they had some new gadgets to help teach the students. The notes that i took down were based on how to help my child in their homework whether it's math or reading...trust me when i say this...i was amazed of the tips that the teacher offer to the rest of the parents. And i wanted to share with you all some of notes i jot down from the meeting, i believe this would help for other grades besides first grade...so here are they are:

1. Label and Circle the total number...This method was mentioned in the meeting because the majority of the students where getting confused by the number total of objects or whatever the category may be. The teacher stated that the "Label and Circle" method would help the students not only be organized but can get a clear answer to the math question.  For example: if the question asked there's a fruit basket on the kitchen table..how many bananas are there? how many apples are there? and there's a image of the fruit basket with the bananas and apples; that's where the "Label and Circle" method kicks in. Our kid can label how many bananas are there first then circle the last number of bananas and sort forth with the apples. I found this method a genius method because our kids won't get confuse of how many things/objects are there and have a well organized answer.  GENIUS! 
2. Language used to describe the situation... Growing up i had very few teachers,tutors and even my mother who weren't good at speaking to me about the school work that would help me get the answer on my own. I had family members say to me "you know the answer but you are not trying hard" or "you know the answer, your just so distracted pay attention!" Just to clarify that i would be able to tried harder if the way the school work was explained to me in a way i could understand. The language use to explain a problem or lesson was a challenge for me growing up so i made a promise to myself that if i ever had kids i would do my best to describe any situation to my kids in a way they would be able to understand...speak in their level. One way the teacher at the meeting spoke of was questioning our child..ask if they can see if the number is bigger or smaller. Another question that can help with homework is how is the number changing.
3. Organized objects to help skip numbers.... The definition of skip numbers is referred to when the math problem is being counted by a specific number such as 2's 10's or 5's. Jojo really hasn't been doing this at home but i know its been done in class. I want her to be able to use this method when trying to count a large group of numbers and that's what it was created for...I'll elaborate a little more. So our kid has a math problem where they need to add such number and such number together. The counter objects that are being used in this number math problem are pennies and the numbers they need to add is 23+56. The pennies can be use to organized each group numbers that needs to be added so for example: to make 23 the pennies can be organized by a group of 10's which will look like this...two sets of 10 pennies and 3 pennies. By first grade the kids should know how to count by 10's, once all the numbers that are in the addition problem is organized it would then be easier to count how many 10's are there and how many ones are there altogether.

There it is my notes that i jot done and a brief explanation about each jotted note. The rest that i had written down were just reminders of other things that are non-related to school work or homework. So i hope this makes sense and also can help a parent out there in encouraging their child to do extra better in their homework because they do know the answer, they just need the confidence to just say it. I also wanted to mention that the teacher  talked a little about reading, which is more about reading to them every night a book...but that's something else i wanted to write about in another blog....

Until the next Blog...