Smarty Pants

The Kiddo is a smarty pants, you knew that already though (because I brag about him often). His parent teacher conference last week went well, his teacher Mrs. H told us that she has seen some improvement since we started giving him the ADHD medication. I am glad to hear that because I haven’t seen much at home! Still I’m not seeing side affect either so I’m pleased.

Anyway Mrs. H explained that she has placed the Kiddo on reading level N (which I gather in on par with third grade). She says in reality he is above that but she is stopping him there until he can get better with his creative writing. Which I am okay with, N books are actual REAL books for him to read but they still have enough pictures to help hold his interest. As for the creative writing it’s suffering because his handwriting is so poor. We discussed that as well, I asked her to please look into possible school help with that because I do not know what else to do (I’ve been having him write daily at home and there has been no improvement). She is letting him use pencil grips to help keep his fingers positioned correctly and hopefully that will help as well.

I have a lot of appreciation for Mrs. H, she makes an effort to make sure the Kiddo knows that even while she’s nagging him and pushing him to do better she also knows he is smart and she likes him. He responds well to that type of approach, he hates being in ‘trouble’ and she has a way of keeping him happy while making him try harder. She says when she ‘reminds’ him to work in class he turns around with a grin and says “yes Mrs. H” before getting back to work, she says the way he does it makes her want to go hug him he is so cute. Gotta love an adorable smarty pants!

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted any videos and I thought I might put a few with this blog. The Kiddo needs to work on identifying coins and adding them together. First I made him a wall chart so he can reference it (for the next week or so anyway) then I have him practice daily. Of course I’m not one to let him go unchallenged so I’ve made a game of it. He picks at least four coins from a box filled with pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters.

…

Then he lines them up highest to lowest, and then he adds them together. For the game I’ve had to teach him to carry, and we’ve talked about how he doesn’t have to ‘count add’ two of the same coin (one/two/three/etc) instead he can use skip counting (e.g. with nickels - five/ten/fifteen). He took that concept and ran with it the other day, and I almost fell off the chair!

In class next week the kids are going to be putting on a small Thanksgiving program. They are building shoe box floats for a parade (he is still working on his so I’ll blog and post pictures once it is finished) . After the parade the kids will sing a couple songs and read some of their creative writing to the audience. Because the Kiddo reads so well Mrs. H has chosen him to be the narrator. He has been practicing every day, the video is of him reading his “part”… note that it is only the second or third time he has read it so I’m pretty proud of him and by next Tuesday I'm pretty sure he will have it memorized...