Counting on Season Four, Part 6

[SeekingAdventure]

well, the way I learned it was

'mein Vater erklärt mir jeden Sonntag unsere neun Planeten' (my father explains me every sunday our nine planets)

 

I don't know what he explains now. our neighbours maybe. 

 

So i fully agree, Pluto will not be forgotten, THAT play definitly will.

[cascarones]

Pluto's planetary status is immortalized in the glorious solar system hanger contraption projects kept by proud parents. Whether Pluto was a painted styrofoam ball, a collected rock, a glorious little walnut, Pluto is there commiserating with paper mache volcanoes yearning for the chance to have one more baking soda explosion. Their time will come again, be it a younger sibling who will do the minimum amount of craft effort to look new, or their own kids.

May Pluto give me strength as I help my niece glue endless sequins on her "about me" diorama, may these bloody sequins be sparkly enough to make her more confident about kindergarten.

Any tips? We didn't go to traditional/public school until older and not having kids of my own am not quite sure what it entails, other than it seems to be a transitional year into the more formal classroom setting. She's sweet and curious, very energetic, chatty with bursts of shyness, but she's not a fan of change.

[Audrey2]

@cascarones, if you are in the United States, prepare for kindergarten to be more rigorous than you expected. The common core, used by many states a d modified by most if the rest, expects children to be able to read by the end of kindergarten.

For those not in Education, the common core is a set of standards, saying this is what a child should learn in each grade. The idea was that a child could move from Peoria to Tampa and still be expected to master the same concepts at each grade level. Math is also supposed to be taught differently, supposedly going  deeper into the concepts  and teaching the reasons behind the concepts instead of just having the kids memorize numbers and rules without  understanding why. Granted, it has led to some fails, publicly shared. Districts and states had their own standards, which led to multiplication being taught anywhere from grades 2-4. This should not be confused with curriculum, which is the materials used to teach the standards. Curriculum can vary from States to state, district to district, and school to school. I know there had been outrage and confusion expressed, but that's because some confuse standards (what you teach) with curriculum (how you teach it).

[cascarones]

@Audrey2 Thanks for the thoughtful explanation! She's been in Montessori, so I imagine it'll be an adjustment. I know my brother had a rough time transitioning to public school when we went from Montessori to public school, but we were also older and far more set in our ways. But we had what you mentioned, where things had been taught or accessed at earlier grades resulting in boredom.

[Shadoewolf]

The problem I have is that I learned Math the old school way, and this stuff my now 4th grader keeps bringing home is way over my head. Not only don't  'I' understand it but I can't help him understand it. Then his homework isn't done (or is done the way I know how so they mark it wrong) and he misses recess. Tough spot to be in!

[prayawaythefundie]

On 11.8.2017 at 9:09 PM, SeekingAdventure said:

well, the way I learned it was

'mein Vater erklärt mir jeden Sonntag unsere neun Planeten' (my father explains me every sunday our nine planets)

 

I don't know what he explains now. our neighbours maybe. 

I think he explains "unseren Nachthimmel" (our night sky) now.

[SeekingAdventure]

@prayawaythefundie I guess that makes sense. I'd love for someone to explain me what's wrong with our neighbours though

[Daisy0322]

@cascarones not a teacher but I did go to school for early childhood education for 3.5 years before switching majors (kind of regret switching but that's a different story). When I was studying, there was a big push to be incorporating Montessori and Reggio type styles and ideas into pre-k through 3 classrooms. I'm not involved now to know how successful that was but depending on the teachers philosophy (more so the younger generations) it may be a rather smooth transition.   The curriculum for Kingergarden I think is only shocking to those who expect it to be more like preschool and if you were to put kindergarten on a Kinsey scale it would in my opinion about 1/2 of the way to 1st grade in the first few weeks and move up rather aggressively to them being ready to go to 1st within a few mo this of the school years end.  But kids are very resilient and their teachers (should) know what they are doing so that the kids don't even notice the transition so much. I kind of thought that they found a lot of confidence from their growth that year provided with the right teacher.  it's a big year, they learn a TON, you see them go from the last "baby year" to a full blow school age-er and it's really fun to watch!

[Bad Wolf]

Infant school in England went from 9 to 3:30. I was 5. Don't know how it is now, but I was reading fluently and had memorized some of my multiplication tables by the end. Of course, that was when dinosaurs still roamed.

[Four is Enough]

8 hours ago, Shadoewolf said:

The problem I have is that I learned Math the old school way, and this stuff my now 4th grader keeps bringing home is way over my head. Not only don't  'I' understand it but I can't help him understand it. Then his homework isn't done (or is done the way I know how so they mark it wrong) and he misses recess. Tough spot to be in!

I was SO frustrated with helping my kids with Math! They couldn't "go next door, borrow ten more" for subtraction. They had to REGROUP. Similar things to that kept me nearly insane with trying to work with them. And there were NO directions except what my distracted kids remembered from class.

Four just asked me the other day, "What's 3/4 cup?" She couldn't find the actual 3/4 cup measure, so I said take the 1/4 cup and fill it three times, or find the one cup and fill it 3/4 full.

Fractions are beyond her ken. It's frustrating.

[SapphireSlytherin]

45 minutes ago, Four is Enough said:

Fractions are beyond her ken. It's frustrating.

Does she do OK with percentages?

[Four is Enough]

22 hours ago, SapphireSlytherin said:

Does she do OK with percentages?

Nope. Math is this gigantic "thing" that she just doesn't "get". She did have some luck with a math course she took for college, but she did all the extra work and all the homework and attended every study session.  I"m hoping she can keep it up because she's in a science field and going to have to use math.

[Daisy0322]

3 hours ago, Four is Enough said:

  I"m hoping she can keep it up because she's in a science field and going to have to use math.

I am horrible at math but when I work at  The hospital and use math for my patients, I'm actually very good. I understand it very well when it's applied to something I can see and relate too but abstract math I just don't get at all. So there is hope

[karen77]

On 8/13/2017 at 0:40 AM, Shadoewolf said:

The problem I have is that I learned Math the old school way, and this stuff my now 4th grader keeps bringing home is way over my head. Not only don't  'I' understand it but I can't help him understand it. Then his homework isn't done (or is done the way I know how so they mark it wrong) and he misses recess. Tough spot to be in!

This is part of the reason why they ditched homework in our elementary school last year, it was great. 

More family time

Regression with the math in particular, plus more.

 

We had some math worksheets come home prior and I learned the old way, so I'd do some googling and then figure out what they were after and then could help. Extra step, but once I understood what was trying to be accomplished, it made sense and actually I can see how it is better in the long run.

[SuffolkNWhat]

On 13/08/2017 at 5:32 PM, Bad Wolf said:

Infant school in England went from 9 to 3:30. I was 5. Don't know how it is now, but I was reading fluently and had memorized some of my multiplication tables by the end. Of course, that was when dinosaurs still roamed.

Still the same. Reception starts the school year children turn 5 so a child who is 5 on the 1st September and a child who turned 4 on the 31st August the day before are in the same school year. 

Reading is almost exclusively taught through phonics in EYFS (Early Years Foundation Stage) and into KS1 which is Year 1 & 2 (5-7 years old).

I teach older children (KS2) and phonics is a complete mystery to me and borderline magical.  

[Jannah]

Finally created an account to chime in on this! Where I live (Austria), the only goal for kindergarteners is to gain social skills and mature so that they won't have problems with sitting in class for four hours in first grade. Kindergarten can be attended by 3-5 year olds, if kids are younger than that, they attend nursery. You can start primary school at 6 or at 5, if you're born in Fall. Maths, reading and writing are taught in 1st grade, but if some kids have learned how to read them home already, they have to wait for their classmates to catch up. 

Kindergarten wasn't compulsory for a long time, but now all kids have to attend kindergarten at least one year for integration purposes.

I think it's really interesting how much schooling differs between countries!!!