Life With Frenchie

MM is always looking to keep busy. Most of the time she comes home from school, does her chores, changes clothes, and then heads outside to play with her friends. On weekends, it’s much of the same, just skip the school part. However, as many parents know, there are times when nobody seems to be around and your bundles of joy come bounding to you asking you to entertain them. OY! What’s a parent to do?

I try not to turn to television or the Internet as a temporary baby sitter, but I do allow MM some computer time every now and then. Her online activities are limited to sites that I know and trust. It’s an added bonus if they can teach her something, too. But, those can only keep her happy for so long until she’s looking for something new to do. So, whenever she or I come across another site that looks like a possible winner, we check it out. A couple of weeks ago, we found out about Woogi World.

Woogi World is a new site and it has games, provides for an online chat environment, and teaches them about both Internet safety as well as tools for use in their daily lives. There are lots of features that are available for free, but with some limitations. For instance, the chat feature has a preset dictionary for kids to use; however, with the free account, members only have access to a very limited dictionary. In addition to removing limitations, a paid membership provides access to additional features, including letters of recognition to the member from members of their local government. Woogi World believes that positive recognition also plays an important role in a child’s learning.

The paid membership is about $7 a month. MM had the chance to try out the features for free, but we’ve been unable to access her account. She did play around with the free activities for a while, but quickly got frustrated with the limitations to the account. I tried to play around with it to see if maybe she was missing something, but I didn’t have much success either. I also noticed that other areas on the site were not functional yet. MM ended up giving up on Woogi World and went back to one of her old standbys.

Perhaps if we get our temporary account working, MM will explore the site some more. For now, she’s found other things to keep her entertained when her friends are not around.

Stumble it!

MM had a homework assignment last week that included the following question:

Which is closer to the Atlantic Ocean - Africa or South America?

Can you tell me the answer dear readers? Here’s a hint - it’s not a trick question. I will not fault any of you if you don’t get it right. I do, however, fault MM’s teacher because she should get it right. This is just one in a long list of inexcusable errors she has already made this year.

If you give up, take a peek here.

Stumble it!

I just turned to the tail end of tonight’s show and the Superintended of GA schools is on. I’ve never watched this show before, but I was pretty interested in this one considering:

1) She’s a Superintendent of a state school system; and

2) She is from my home state.

 The final question (to be the 1st person to win $1,000,000 on the show) was “who was the longest reigning British monarch?” Sice EP has the “Jeopardy” degree (History), I asked him his thoughts. He was debating between Queen Elizabeth I and King Henry VIII. At the same time, Ms. Kathy Cox was talking herself through her answer and mentioned the same two. Then she added a third - Queen Victoria. She reasoned her way through it and finally said she believed it was Queen Victoria since she has an age named after her and she’s never heard either of the others mentioned for their longevity. Finally, she locked her answer in as Queen Victoria…and she won!!!

Considering Georgia schools have been rather infamous as of late, I must say I’m pretty proud of Ms. Cox! Congratulations Ms. Cox and Georgia!

Now, can any of my Florida readers recommend a private school? The more I stew, the more I think that MM should not stay in her current school!

Stumble it!

How very apropos, considering my earlier post about No Child Left Behind. This young man has definitely not been left behind!

Stumble it!

It’s not the whole story. Apparently, “No Child Left Behind” does not mean that the educational system works to help students excel in academics - it means that they make sure the smarter kids don’t get too far ahead of the rest of the class. *eyes rolling*

I try not to be “that mom” that insists my child’s a genius. Actually, I don’t even think that. I do, however, think she is a smart child and know that she is capable of excelling academically. This summer, EP gave her math work to do every day and made it very challenging. She worked through 6th grade math review, learning decimal functions, percentages, etc. Now, we are well aware that this is above her current grade level (she just started 5th grade), but we had no idea how pathetic the curriculum was in our system (and it seems like the whole state!). She is in her 3rd (I think) week of school and her math homework is not encouraging. Today’s homework, for example, reads as follows:

672 - The __ is in the hundreds place; the __ is in the ones place; the __ is in the tens place.

I poop (yeah, I’m trying to keep it clean) you not!!! It got challenging *serious eye rolling* when they gave her numbers in the thousands to work on. Come on!!! What is this crap? In the meantime, EP is still giving her daily math problems to work on. Today, she had six problems. An example:

Find a number so that 17.8% of it is 115.

What is 4.4% of 25?

She needed the first type of problem explained to her, but was able to do the second type with no problem.

Her spelling/reading is no better. Her spelling words for the week?

Oak, Tow, and the like

What. The. Hell? I know that the beginning of the year is usually review for a while, but who are they reviewing? This is like 2nd grade stuff!

Seriously, I’m so disappointed in our schools! We have had her tested for the gifted program, but that won’t solve anything because, at her grade level, it does not give her advanced work in her regular academics. So what are we to do? For us, homeschooling and/or private schools are not an option– at least not at this point. I’m just so frustrated I can’t even put my thoughts together to make sense!

Stumble it!