Key Lime Pie was terrified the few days before school started. What a hard thing to start high school in a strange place and where you know none of the other students! I never had to do that.
She has settled in really well, however and quickly found friends. I was so worried that she was “behind” in math, because she did not finish Algebra 1 in eighth grade. She barely began Algebra the last few weeks of school last spring. We had been working on algebraic thinking all year as part of morning time using a fantastic program called “Hands on Equations.”
Now, 3 weeks into the school year here in Utah, I am hearing from the Math teacher that I should consider putting Key Lime Pie in Math 1 and 2 concurrently, or she will be bored. All my fears about “behind” were apparently baseless.
Last Monday, Banana Cream Pie decided she hated public school and wanted to go back to home school, because public school makes her write too much, and because she is lonely at school. We had a long talk, with lots of tears and hugs, and I finally convinced her that I couldn’t make a decision like that on a Monday morning, that I would have to consult with her father over a few days, and that in the mean time, she would have to continue going to school.
I pointed out that not wanting to do the work at school is a bad reason to choose home school because she is in 6th grade now, and I would require her to write just as much at home as the school is.
Also one and a half weeks is too short a time to make friends, it needs more time, and switching to home school would not fix that lack of friends problem either.
Hopefully, she starts to feel more like she belongs in school soon.
We made plans to save up some of my substitute teaching money to get either a gerbil or a Guinea Pig, so that Banana Cream Pie has something furry to look forward to playing with after school. She thinks this will make life bearable.
In the mean time, she has been knitting chickens for company.
Apple Pie is not to be left out of yarn crafts and is crocheting a Jelly fish hat for her planned Halloween costume.
She is still struggling with reading (I was looking into getting her tested for Dyslexia when we moved) and has shed some tears over the embarrassment of having to read out-loud in class and not being able to get the words right.
But yesterday, she came home jubilant over getting all the math problems on the test correct (and thus earning 3 pieces of candy.) Hopefully this reinforces what I’ve been telling her, that different people learn skills at different paces, and being slow to learn one skill does not take away how gifted she is in other areas.
Also on Wednesday, Zeek cried because Skeeter always gets to have homework and he (Zeek) never gets homework even though they are both in third grade.
Skeeter sobbed great tears yesterday because I would not let him ride a bike without wearing a helmet.
Each of us have our crosses to bear in this life.
Love,
GlowWorm
Marvelous Pigs in Satin 