Sponsored by....

I was so shocked by this I had to share it here: Scholastic InSchool Backing Off Its Corporate Ties.

No, I'm not shocked that Scholastic is backing off. I'm shocked they have ties with these industries in the first place! The coal industry?! Egg producers?! The Brita water filter people?! What are they doing in the classroom and WHO decided it was okay to let them in?!

I know. It's all about $$$$$$. Schools don't have any, industries do. Children have more consumer power these days than at any other time in history. Schools get something for free and possibly some $$, industry gets a captive audience with ZERO parent monitoring. Makes sense. Except that it is so very very WRONG...

I was probably exposed to marketing at school as a child. I don't remember it. It would have had to be in print ads because when I was in elementary school there were two or three TV's for the entire school and the computer lab consisted of two PC's in the library. When I was in school, an ad would be glanced at. Now? It is a constant bombardment.

Walking through Alice's (old) school the past two years, there were several times I noticed posters on the walls advertising movies that were coming out. Other ads would come home in her backpack. The kid who sells the most for the districts fall fundraiser wins a bazillion chicken nuggets from Chik-Fil-A. A different elementary school sells ad space on their fence to local businesses (The ads face the road, NOT the playground). I've always been annoyed by these things. I would rather schools be completely separate from corporate America. I do know that the $ isn't free flowing for education, especially in this state, so I figured it was a necessary evil. I am NOT okay with it, but I don't see our schools getting the $$ they need elsewhere, either.

But, advertising disguised as curriculum?! Whoa, now. That is a HUGE step over the line.

This summer is the first time we have allowed Alice to watch any TV other than the shows on PBS. We've branched out to a very few shows on Nickelodeon. Her screen time is still very much limited and it is rare that we are not either watching with her or in an adjoining room. Part of our afterschooling this summer has been to talk about advertisements and the different tactics companies use to make you want to buy things.

Alice has gotten quite good at seeing through ads. Which is a good thing, because school starts in a little over a week.

Jesus Mummy

Me: "How was Sunday School?"

Alice: "Great! We learned all about when Jesus died! He died on a cross and then, after, they prepared his body. They took out his organs and put them in jars and then they got a hook and took out his brain through his nose!"

Me: (long pause) "Did they tell you that in Sunday School?"

Alice: "Yeah! They really did that, Mom! Remember? We read it in that book."

Me: (the lightbulb coming on) "Alice, Jesus wasn't a mummy. They didn't take out his organs or his brain. You're thinking about the ancient Egyptians."

Alice: (greatly disappointed) "Oh."

Me: "Also, this is probably another one of those things you shouldn't talk about at school. I mean, you can talk about mummies and you can talk about Jesus, but you probably shouldn't talk about Jesus being a mummy...."

Alice: "Why?"

Me: (weighing the pros and cons of trying to explain the dark side of Southern religious culture -again- and deciding against it.) "Well, because it's just not true and you might confuse some people."

Alice: "Oh. Okay. But can I just pretend that Jesus was a mummy, you know, by myself?"

Me: "Absolutely."

This led to another very interesting conversation about what she plans to do with my body when I die. No cremation for me, apparently!

Note to self: next year we should not study ancient cultures during Lent.

Afterschooling - March 31

We have been agonizing over what to do next year for school. (I know - this is a dramatic way to put things, but its true.) 2nd grade is 2nd grade. I know that. My biggest concern is that sitting in a classroom day after day without sufficient challenge will start to erode the love of learning that Alice currently has.

We looked into private schools. There was one that was a good fit, but it was too expensive. Homeschooling is a possibility, but no one's first choice. Alice is in the running for the magnet school honor's program lottery - but there aren't many seats available.

A few days ago I discovered that Tennessee treats "intellectually gifted" as a subgroup under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). (Tennessee is the only state that does this. Suddenly I like living here a whole lot more...) This means that we can request an IEP (individualized education plan) solely because Alice is gifted! This could be a game-changer for us. An IEP is legally binding - the school would be required to make accommodations. Alice has already been identified as "intellectually gifted" by the district's own test.

Tim and I are planning to meet with the school sometime soon.

Anyhow, finding that out has been so exciting to me, I had to share.

Here is what we're working on with afterschooling this month:

Science: Plants - what do plants need to grow? Sprouting seeds. (Lima beans in wet paper towels, etc.) Different parts of the flower. Bees and pollination.

This is Alice's request. They are sprouting lima beans at school. She wanted to do the same thing at home, but made her request while I was in the middle of cooking dinner. I told her she needed to wait, but she could draw out the experiment if she wanted to. She stormed off to her room. A few minutes later I heard her reading a book about plants to her dolls. This is another great thing about afterschooling - you can take the curriculum that is being covered in school and explore it much further.

We will also probably start something with elements and the periodic table. She keeps asking me questions about it and is not satisfied with, "I don't know. We'll have to look that up later."

Math: Hammering addition and subtraction facts (always), telling time, counting money. (also supplementing school) I have a kid's clock kit with gears that I've been holding back since summer. That will probably come out this month as a daddy-daughter project.

Language Arts: Synonyms and Antonyms (school supplementation), letter writing.

History / read aloud: Little House in the Big Woods

Afterschooling

Alice with skull (who is wearing my tiara!): one of our afterschooling tools and one of Alice's favorite Christmas gifts. Do you know where your Maxilla is? She does....

This year we have been "afterschooling."

This is a post I've sat down to write a bunch of times and every time I've gotten hung up. I don't want to be that parent who thinks (or is perceived to think) that their kid is the next Nobel Prize winner.

BUT - Alice is bright, and it has become an issue at school. Strange, because you always think the other way - if a child has a hard time learning it creates a problem at school. This was not on my radar.

Quite simply, she was bored and her boredom at school was translating into behavior problems at home.

I think the school is doing their best. Things have dramatically improved, even in the past month (hooray for the advanced reading group!), but we still don't feel she's getting everything she needs. And, honestly, I don't blame the school for that. There is a HUGE range of levels in her class from kids who can read anything to kids who can't read at all. The teachers have a responsibility to get everyone up to snuff by the end of the year.

So, this year we have been supplementing at home. We've always done this, but this year I took the leap to be organized about it and discovered along the way that this is called "afterschooling." Alice enjoys her "smart work" and (for now) does it happily. She asks to do math. Every few weeks we shake up our curriculum. Here is what we are working on now:

Math: hammering basic addition and subtraction facts, starting to teach the concept of regrouping. She's been working on multiplication and division on her own using manipulatives and with no pushing from me. I'm not ready to teach multiplication!

Writing: a story for our local PBS's story contest

Art: Expressionism unit / the art of Edvard Munch (who painted The Scream) and creating art inspired by Munch.

Science: clouds and the water cycle - her choice

Reading: whatever she happens to be reading - right now she's into the Ivy and Bean series, but she may have finished them.

We don't do everything every day. She does go to school, after all! I try to hit at least one or two subjects per day. Math is a must and it doesn't take much time for her to whip through a worksheet or two. She also reads every day and averages about 3 chapter books a week (500 pages?). Once we figured out that she could take a book to school to read when she finished her work instead of just sitting at her table, everyone's attitude toward school greatly improved.