I homeschooled my two older kids when they were yonger. Then I got a divorce and had to put them back in ps along with my other son who started that year. We are in Texas. Back then I planned for months before we did our years. I had a plan and everything was great. This year has been really hard on my 1st grader. He has a bad teacher who yells all the time according to him, my other kids and a couple of parents who have spent time at the school. My son makes himself sick in the mornings to stay home. I get calls all the time from the nurse telling me he was in her office again asking to go home. My son has been in GT all year and its the only thing about school he likes. The other day I received an email from his teacher stating she has recommended he not be in GT anymore. The GT teacher said his teacher has the say and there is nothing I can do. I was shocked. I have never had a note saying there was any issues. I started looking closely at a stack of his work and noticed they teacher had counted off on stuff that was right or said he was missing things that were there. Okay one page no big deal it could have been a mistake, two pages I was getting upset, five pages later I was ready to yell. I call the school to be told they could meet with me at the end of may because of testing going on. So I'm done. I am pulling him Friday. Now I don't know what to do. I didn't have planning time. It is the end of the year so I am not sure where he's at. I know being in Texas all I have to do is write a note to school. I don't have a lot of money to go out and purchase stuff. I know they use everyday math and I found it online. Their curriculum is mcgraw. I'm not real sure where to get it or if there is something better out there. Any advice on curriculum would be great thanks.
I'm sorry your son has had a bad experience at school. That has to be hard on him. What I would do first is give him a week or so to relax and enjoy being at home. That will also give you a little time to figure out where to go from here. Since he's in first and the school year is about over, honestly I would get some 1st grade all-in-one activity books from the book stores or Sam's Club and just let him finish the year out with them. Go to the library, play some online game, do lots of arts and crafts... keep it light and fun. Then once you've met your days or hours for the year, start summer and then you'll have plenty of time to plan next year. Plus, all the fun and relaxed stuff you do this year will help you figure out how he learns best which will be your main guide in selecting curriculum for next year. Good luck with everything!!
You may want to also consider just letting him pick some topics he likes and doing research at the library. You could try to find books, videos, and websites to help you with some fun projects. When my middle one was in first we did a lot of units like this. We read up on the water cycle, did experiments, and made our own poster to illustrate it. We studied life cycles and did the same. I'm sure with just a library card you can do a wonderful job of covering most subjects. Then look online for math worksheet creators and make some of those to use. Good luck and have fun!
take a deep breath. you may have to un-school him (think early summer vacation) it sounds like his self esteem is in the gutter. and with homeschooling there are so many options other than doing the schools curriculum at home. in first grade he shouldn't be that stressed and What i would do is go to amazon and buy a "brain quest grade 1" work book or a " comprehensive curriculum of basic skills for grade 1" these are 10$ workbooks (fairly think and fun) that cover the basics (not much depth to them though) and would be perfect while you build his self confidence back up and plan next years curriculum. i would also make a HUGE deal out of you and him correcting his schoolwork and pointing out the teacher was WRONG. what a smart boy! you got the answers right even your TEACHER didn't know that answer! right now i would be more concerned with his self confidence than his academics. and if they are testing at school i would say he's learned enough for a year. Lets remind him what's fun about learning. and that sometimes bullies are grown ups. give him time to heal
I know Costco and Sams Club sell full year curriculum for around $20. You could get one of those for him. Or you could just get a few workbooks and let him go through them at his pace. If it was me I would just take a few weeks or a month off and de-school. It sounds like he needs a break. At the point that you start back with curriculum I would just print off some worksheets, look for a few dollar store books, and let him work on those. I would also go to the library and see what he is interested in a get some books for him to read. For 1st grade there is no real need to have a "formal" sit down education. Btw, if you really need some McGraw-Hill stuff, my dh works for them. If you let me know what you need I can see what he can do.
I feel so bad for your son. My son's teacher at the beginning of this year was a yeller too! My son cried everyday before he had to get on the bus. Everyone has given good advice so far. I, would not buy anything for the rest of this school year. Print stuff off the internet or make up your own. It took a couple months for my son to relax enough to be able to make progress again. He went through a bad stage of not being able to do anything on his own ( because they are told step by step by step on how to do EVERYTHING!) Life is so much easier that his mind is now open to believing in himself again and his personality is coming back out. You could start by the two of you making rules for your school and include a no yelling policy. This might help him some. Enjoy!
This late in the year is nothing to worry about. Pull him, plan lots of "fun", relaxed stuff. Spend the warm days outside and study bugs and plants. Spend the wet days at the library. Just do lots of reading aloud on topics that interest him. Give him a few math papers that you can find free on-line.
When I first pulled my daughter out after a bad experience in school we did a lot of field trips instead of sit down work. Don't bother with a curriculum! Find out what's available to do in your town. We rode the local steam train, and talked to the conductor. We went to museums. We visited art galleries. We went to the park and collected bugs. We asked around and found a horse farm to visit. We saw documentaries at the repertory theatre, and sat in on the local theatre's rehearsals for free. We also got to see the orchestra rehearsing - if you just call and ask people are usually delighted to have you drop by. We visited Daddy at work to see what he does (and got a tour of the server network!). Oh... and there's also the fire station, the police station, the bakery, anything you can think of! People love being interviewed about what they do. I think this would be a good time to explore your town and learn something new about it. At the end of the day, your son can dictate a short report to you, and you can print it up and make a little book about "our town". Plus, you can follow up by e-mailing his report to the new people you've met as a nice little thank you. Next year's plenty of time to worry about reading, writing and arithmetic.
((Hugs)) for you and your son. I agree with the others - so close to the end of the year, and in school, sounds like they weren't going to do anything but test prep anyway. I like the idea of a workbook as a starting place for the rest of the year, but I'm keeping in mind your child's being GT. The first grade workbooks at Sam's/Costco may bore him...perhaps you could let him take a look and see what he thinks? Like, maybe he could start the second grade one (there's usually plenty of review in the books). Just a thought. Also, would you have time to get to the library each week? Maybe he could pick a topic, get books on that topic, read through and give a little report/presentation/talk on it.
I have no advice but just wanted to say that I think it is wonderful that you decided to pull him out now. I think so many people would just make their child stick it out with it being so close to the end of the school year. I applaud you for your decision. Good luck.
There are some excellent GT workbooks available!!! I know I had found some at Barnes and Noble. EXCELLENT!
Sorry to bounce in again. I would intentionally get the first grade workbook not the second grade one. i think it would do wonders for his self esteem to do it and it be easy. especially after what he went through with the teacher. my first week schedule would be something like this Day 1- decide school name and rules. (he gets to help choose them all) maybe he can help pick out his own book. Day 2- 2-3 work sheets then off to the library Day 3- 2-3 work sheets. Correct worksheets from public school (boost his self esteem). talk about how smart he is and how the teacher was wrong. Day 4- 2-3 work sheets. Lets go visit the grocery store/post office/ museum for a quick tour then go to the park for a picnic and to watch bugs. wow what do you mean spiders aren't insects they are arachnids? what do you think the park will look like in another month? Gosh mom with the other kids in school i get to go first on the slide. Day 5- 2-3 work sheets. then curl up together on t he couch and watch word girl, word world, Cyber Chase whatever educational tv you can find then move on to the books. maybe have him draw a picture of his first week of home school. this will give you an idea of where he is at emotionally as well as academically
I am so sorry your son has had to endure this. I can't imagine the need to yell at 6-7 year olds. My son is very sensitive and his 2nd grade teacher was a yeller and it did damage that took at least a year to undo. She was also convinced he had ADD and continued to insist we have him tested. If you knew my son, you would think she had completely lost her mind. The kid has pinpoint focus and is the opposite of active and fidgety. If I knew then what I know now, I would have pulled him. You've gotten great advice. If you can, pull him today. Why wait until Friday?
At this late in the year, I wouldn't sweat getting anything for him to finish it out. I know from teaching that not much new information goes out at this point. And what little that does gets retaught at the beginning of the next year's curriculum. McGraw-Hill IS available to homeschoolers, though, if you want to purchase from them. You just have to type the name Mc-Graw-Hill into a search engine, and you'll find their site.
I'm sorry that your son has had such a nasty teacher. I personally wouldn't spend money on much to finish the year. I love letting the kids go to the library and pick a topic and get lots of books about it to read. We do themes this way for science and social studies. For example, right now we are studying deserts. We just picked up 20 or so books and we will learn about: what makes a desert, where are the deserts, what plants grow there, what animals live there, how do people live there, how do plants/animals/people adapt to live there, and what ever other questions come up. The last couple months we did the same with rain forests. Here are a few of my favorite sites for free educational stuff: http://www.homeschoolshare.com/levels.php for book based unit studies http://www.learningpage.com/ printable worksheets for basic skills and a few themes. We have used the oceans, space and dinosaurs sets, my boys like them. You have to sign up for the site, but it is free. http://www.starfall.com/ for online reading fun as well as printablre worksheets. The most important thing is to have fun with your son and let him rediscover that learning is fun.
I went through a similar situation with my son in kindergarten, except the school tried to tell me I wasn't ALLOWED to take him out before the end of the school year (what?). We started with A Beka in first grade and I felt it was TOO structured! It was just work sheet after worksheet ALL THE TIME! So this year we're going a different route. We got some of the Sam's Club workbooks so he will have some structure, but we're going to get creative and switch things up. Lapbooking is AWESOME...does your son like dinosaurs? Or Sharks? Run with it! Let him research everything there is to know, have him write a story about a dinosaur, read books about dinosaurs, teach him how to research on the computer, or how to look up books at the library! Just enjoy your son and feel good about the fact that he's getting the BEST education possible from the BEST teacher he could every ask for!
I have a few random workbooks for 2nd grade. They are unused (new) and if you are interested I will dig them out and mail them to you for next year. My son is in 5th this year and I can't use them. For the rest of this year I would simply get what is needed for free off of the internet. The ladies in here can lead you to something specific if you ask. There is also a thread in here that lists over 30 sites to be used for homeschooling. Also check with Ava Rose on here, she is great at this. Send me a message by clicking on my ID if you want the books. I homeschooled this entire year for free using the internet. Will be happy to help in any way I can.
Um, this late in the year the school may be required to give you textbooks for the remainder of the year. The states have received their federal monies for the year for the number of students they have....so your son should be entitled to the workbooks. Another option may be to request an independent study program for the rest of they year-in which case they would have to give you the curriculum related materials that the class has/and would be using. Just a thought-as all are free, and could make things much easier. You might have to contact a few people to find out though (start with the principal-don't bother with the teacher.) Just depends what you want to deal with. Sounds like he won't be behind regardless!! Good luck!!
