Homework Fun

Wednesday was the eighth day of second grade. Parker is having a wonderful year already. Last year, in the thirty-six weeks of the school year, Parker only took 15 Accelerated Reading (AR) tests. This year, he took one on day six and scored 100%. Mrs. Robles has made it her goal to be the top class at South Ocala for AR points and just last night Parker was talking about his personal goal to be the top reader in second grade for the year. Did we mention we bought him a book at the store on Sunday night with 20 chapters? And that as of bedtime tonight he'd already finished 15 of them?

And the homework....Parker is really getting into his homework this year. Right now he has three assignments every night: 1) You Pick Word Work; 2) Read and Solve Fast Facts List or a Math Worksheet; and 3) Reading his 25 word Fry list for the week and timing it. The entire Fry word list contains 1,000 of the most commonly used words in teaching, reading and writing and the goal is to work on sightreading and recognition. Parker's starting off with the 500 level words.
Here's his list for this week:

For the You Pick Word Work, he can pick one of the nine assignments on a chart each night without duplicating in a week. For example, this week so far he has written his entire Fry word list in rainbow colors, turned his Fry reading list into a code using the numbers from the phone key pad, and written out his Fry words in alphabetical order. The You Pick option really helps; he feels like he has some control over the work and it's much less of a battle to get done. Tonight he'll have a writing assignment and again he will have his choice between seven different writing prompts to get him started.

Yesterday was also his first day of FLAME. We thought that he would have Mr. Robles, but apparently they've hired an additional gifted teacher for one day a week and she will be working with the smaller kids - Mrs. H the kids call her. When Mommy was talking to Miss Cindy last night at church, she discovered that Mrs. H. also works at her school. She had nothing but great things to say about her. Overall Parker seemed to enjoy the day and was glad to see a couple of his friends in FLAME.

Also Parker's schedule works better for him this year. Last year, his time for specials (PE, music and art) was early in the day. That meant whenever he had FLAME he missed one of his three days for PE. This year he has specials as the very last class before dismissal. So he won't miss any specials with his FLAME participation. The only problem as far as Parker is concerned is that he's a little tired for the bike ride home on days when he just had PE.

We're so thankful that things are off to such a great start and pray that it stays that way for a long, long time!