learning curve

Nothing quite breaks your heart like hearing your almost seven year old sobbing about school. "Mommy, will I get to learn knew things in second grade?" she asked between tears.

As her big brother went off to kindergarten, Leelee was completely jealous. She kept telling people about how excited she was to go to kindergarten and learn. As the first day of kindie approached last year, she was so excited. Her teacher was "beautiful and so nice" just like kindergarten teachers are supposed to be.

Her excitement, however, began to wane as the year progressed. "Mommy, we're learning our letters still" she'd complain. Then, she'd complain they were learning their numbers, shapes and colors. The majority of things that were benchmarks here for kindergarden were prerequisites to enter kindie in our old state. Children there generally went to preschool, so letter, number, color and shape recognition were review and not the majority of the curriculum. I asked her teacher that year when the children would begin to bring home stories to read. She informed me that it's the exception and not the rule, that children here leave kindie reading. Again, quite different from our previous kindie experience.

I had taken the time to prepare my child based on guidelines for another district and, as a result, she had mastered all the benchmarks for kindergarten before she even started! Of course, the fact that she is nearly a full year older than most of her classmates thanks to a Sept. 1 cutoff, and that she was doing her brothers kindie homework with him while she was FOUR, hasn't help matters.

Still, she loved school for the social aspects and made friends. She was happy.

First grade, it was decided, would be the year she'd learn something new.

Yet here we are halfway through the first grading period and my child is in tears because she still isn't learning anything new. She already knows how to read. She writes stories for fun and loves to illustrate them. She admits the math is a bit new, but again, it's things she's watched her brother do for the past two years so it is very familiar and comes easily to her.

I've approached her teacher to get a feel for how she planned to handle students who were working above benchmarks. She said she'd give her extra work if Leelee started to get bored. Great, busy work is really going to help. *sigh* This is a child who is eager and thirsty to learn. She reads at home and enjoys it, but expects to LEARN in school...not be kept busy with worksheets and coloring projects.

The only good part of this, I suppose, is that she's not a behavior problem. That honor goes to our oldest ... who incidently was also bored in school. Turns out he is gifted and this year is starting in the gifted program.