Slamdunk School of How to: Building a Better Learner

As I have mentioned before, Coral is ADHD, and sometimes that translates to not being a very patient learner. Ok, a lot of times she isn't a patient learner. Ok. Honest-to-God, every day is a struggle.

She loves math! When she already knows it. She loves reading--books she's already read. She loves writing--unless it's for school. She loves science--um, well, ok, she just loves science. You get the idea. She loves school, except for the school part.
It's so easy to get caught up with Leif who is the easiest student ever compared to Coral, but he's only 3 and this is her time. So I've been working on ways to help her be a better learner. If I can teach her how to learn, I will consider myself a successful teacher. I'm still learning how to help her become a lifelong learner, but I have learned a few tricks recently that have helped me.

So, we are learning time right now. I am taking this opportunity to teach her how to skip-count too. Sure, we started with fives, but we are learning other skip-counting as well. Relating it to reading a clock didn't really jive with me, but it certainly worked for her! She took reading a clock and is learning to skip-count by fives, tens, and twos. And it works for her. I have had to just go with it because while learning skip-counting via telling time isn't something I would have come up with on my own; but if I let Coral lead us where she wants to go, she is excited about learning. So, yay for math!

We are also still working on her reading skills. Talk about a fight. She gets to new words for her and often she just shuts down. I helped her read through her worksheet and then I told her to finish it up while I did something else. I came back int the classroom five minutes later and she had stuck her own nose on the wall because she "had a bad attitude" about it.

Sigh.

Come on Coral. We will work it together.

Or how about if we start reading in tandem? So, I started reading it to her, letting her read it after me, letting her read it with me, and then letting her read it on her own, and guess what. She is doing so much better, of course. The best part is, she is trying to help Leif learn to read too and as a result is becoming a better reader.

It also helps that I discovered that books without pictures are much easier for her to read and she really does understand them. The pictures were distracting her! Thank God for ebooks! My kindle has been a life saver in the reading department with my little girl. She has gotten into the habit of bringing me my kindle to "spend time" with me reading. She reads to me and it makes this momma so happy.

So long for today <3

Slam Dunk's Candypocalypse

The day after Halloween, known as All Saints Day, or as The Candypocalypse in my circle of friends, has long been a day of dread for the parents of the students of the Slam Dunk School of Everything. Today, parents have a choice: let the candy flow freely, or ration out the candy over the next few weeks or months. As for me, I choose to let the candy flow freely and here is my reasoning...

My daughter is hyperactive, the diagnosis is ADHD, although I am convinced that medicating her personality out of existence is not the answer to a diagnosis that way too many children have gotten. Here is a blog post about it that I appreciate. For Coral, candy is a stimulus that brings out the hyperactive monster in her. She turns into a screaming, emotional child who cannot control herself. One piece of candy will do this to her, although chocolate is worse than non-chocolate. So the question I have to ask myself is, should I deal with a monster everyday for the next few weeks, or one or two days this week? I choose the latter. She's going to be a monster regardless of how many pieces of candy she gets, so I am going to let her be a monster today and maybe tomorrow and then the candy will be gone and I will have my normal child again.

Candypocalypse: here we come!