Today is the day! Hard to believe Madi is eleven!!
We started the day off by going to store "Donut Palace." We always laugh because all the donut stores are just called "Donut." Guess this one is a little fancier - ha! Bought two dozen glazed donuts for her class and they had them during snack break. I had her class today so we sang to her at the end of class.
There was a book fair at our school this week and as a teacher, we get a deal where if we buy two books, we get the third one free. So we got nine books - five for Madi and four for Riley. They look really great!
Madi had yarn club after school and I helped out with it. Then we packed up and went to get the girls. Got home at 4:45pm and Madi was wanting to go play outside. Can't blame her - it was an absolutely gorgeous day! However, there was still much to get done on her major project for the book Charlotte's Web. She's had the assignment for a few weeks and we've reminded her to do it and given her time to get it done. But she has been dawdling and taking her time and working on it without really "working" on it. She was reminded many times yesterday to work on it and she kept laying on the couch and trying to get out of it. She did finally work on it, but it wasn't finished.
So today she told me to tell the neighbor girl - Brooke - that she'd be outside after a few minutes. I told Madi that she needed to work on her project for more than a few minutes as there was still plenty to do and that I was not going to walk over to tell Brooke that she would play later because nothing had been planned and there was plenty else for me to do with the house and girls and dinner and etc... She gave me quite the looks and attitude (which she had done several times throughout the day due to wanting more books without saying thank you for the ones we got and other instances). She also had spelling homework. I was done with the attitude and so I was very firm with her and told her that she would not be going outside at all as there was only an hour until dinner and she needed to use that hour to get her work done on her major project that she had procrastinated on. I would not let her go outside to play as she chose to play yesterday and didn't use her work time to get it done and did it slowly because she didn't really want to do it. I let her know that despite the fact that it was her birthday, she made choices that led up to this point and that she needed to focus and get her project done. And I promise you - there have been many conversations between Jer and I and her about working on it. And lots of excuses on her end as to why it wasn't done. This wasn't sprung on her in any way and she wasn't surprised by it.
She was really looking forward to talking to you, Monica. And she felt so bad that the conversation was not what she hoped it to be. She was sad to be missing you on her birthday and was having a hard day being away from you. So the emotional part of today was also very hard.
Madi cried for some time and I let her be for a while and took Jules and Riley out to give her space. When Jer got home, we talked briefly and then I went into the computer. Madi walked over with tears in her eyes and said "I really miss my mom." She sat on my lap and we hugged and I told her "I know you do." I knew today would be hard on her as being away from you guys is always amplified on major events. Throw in a major assignment unfinished and due tomorrow morning and it's even more stressful.
She stayed on my lap for a little while and we looked at some websites together. Then she sat with Riley and chose a movie for them to watch. The rest of the night was fine. Jeremy asked to see her planner so he could sign it. When he opened it, it was blank for the day. She hadn't copied the information or homework assignments for today at all. When asked why, she told him that she had to do Fasttmath this morning. This is nothing new either - she does Fasttmath on Monday morning every morning. Jeremy asked her what she was doing when she was supposed to be doing it and she told him Fasttmath. He asked her if she was the first one done on Fasttmath. She said no. So he asked a few more questions and had to wait for her to answer honestly. She chose to read her book instead of writing out her planner. So now she can't bring a special drink next Monday and it is possible she'll have laps because she did the same thing last Thursday in not filling out her planner.
Her teacher told me that she is rushing through assignments and doing them sloppily just so she can get to her books. She recommended that she not be allowed to bring any books into class for the week before STAAR testing or the days of STAAR testing because she is afraid she will rush through the tests just so that she can read her book. As a result of reading, she brought home some 70% and 80% papers that would have otherwise been much higher if she had taken her time and not rushed.
Her grades on the report card were all A's!! So that was fantastic. Math was a 90% and Language Arts was a 91%. Three weeks ago they were 85% and 88% because she had late work in class that she didn't turn in on time because she chose to read instead of getting out of her chair and turning them in. These weren't homework assignments that she forgot to turn in. They actually did the assignment in class and were asked to turn them in. Madi chose to sit and read and not turn it in because she didn't want to leave her book.
She had mostly 3s (meeting expectations) and a couple of 4s (exceeds expectations). She had one 3- (between meeting and not meeting expectations) in time management. There was a note at the bottom of the page that states that Madi is beautiful, intelligent and kind. She is working below the level she can work at and with hard work and effort, will do well in life.
We don't want to kill her love of reading (impossible to do, I know) but it is something she needs to learn to use wisely. She sees it as something that defines her and is one of the things she can do that gets recognition and attention since she is fast at it and loves it so much that she reads much. I've talked to the counselor about how to handle it and she believes that it is a classroom issue that should be handled by the teacher as there's plenty of other things we handle. However, this is occurring in class so it seems that Mrs. Campbell should be able to tell her "do the paper again" or "put your book away - it's not the right time." So we'll see if that'll help.
Hopefully she'll sleep well tonight. Last night she was playing yo-yo ma on her sounddock and she said there was this one song that kept waking her up the last two nights. Jeremy heard it and said it was Bobbi McFerrin screeching with yo-yo ma and it sounded horrible!! He said it was so loud and not nice. So he got the song off the iPod so that she could sleep with the nice music. She's loving the iPod sounddock and it's been really great for her. Not to mention that now it's charged at all times!!
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