I have come to the conclusion that Finley has a built-in resistance to the memorization of math facts. My heart sank when a letter came home the first few days of school from the math teacher, stating that it was very important that the kids know all their math facts and be able to recall them instantly. I am sure that this is due to the pressure teachers are under to make sure that standardized testing scores are good.
Don't get me wrong. As a college graduate that minored in math, I am well aware that the instant recollection of math facts is incredibly useful and makes doing math infinitely easier. But trying to explain that to a nine year old doesn't always work, so sometimes, you have to be sneaky in helping your stubborn kid memorize things instead of shoving the memorization down her throat. I fully believe that if Finley could take her time and do math problems by recalling skip-counting songs, eventually she would remember them (and maybe even enjoy math). But standardized testing has no patience for those sorts of things. So we struggle.
In other news, I noticed a dove out in the yard a week or so ago. I watched it for a minute before I realized something wasn't quite right. It was obviously injured, most likely resulting from a tussle with one of the cats. Chris caught it, and we put it in a cage on the porch. When the kids walked out on the porch for supper a little later, Finley saw it and exclaimed, "Who's this?!" Such a typical response from my math-resistant daughter, instantly recognizing and valuing the little life form. She fed and doted upon it until the next day, when we thought we'd try to release it in a safe location.She was in tears when she saw it wasn't any better and insisted that we try to keep it until it was well. It died that night.
Joe, with whom I had no problems last year, has taken to groaning about his homework and doing what he can to avoid it, including lying. What happened to the kid that would come home and immediately finish his homework so that he could play? Apparently he is more interested in (literally)climbing the walls in training to be a future American Ninja Warrior.
Zivah completed her first full week of school last week, everyday telling us, "We got to sleep in school again today!" Rest time is such a novel thing for a kid who hasn't napped since the age of two. She got in trouble one day for not following directions and didn't get a smiley face sticker on her behavior chart. The benefits of being the baby of the family who can slide under the radar and not really do what she's told are slowly being peeled back a bit. Thankfully, she's loves kindergarten, so hopefully I won't have any drama from at least one kid this school year.
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