It's been a big last push to get K through the end of the 3rd quarter. Sweet love, it was like studying for college finals.
Extra credit be thy savior.
This quarter, K's rotation class was STEM. Sitting here now, I can tell you more about this class than I could on January 3. The school system uses trials of particular STEM programs and since they are trials, access for grading such things aren't in a traditional manner. Add to that my child is not the most technologically savvy. She turned different projects in, or thought she turned them in, only to find that they popped up 5-6 weeks later as not turned in.
Yes, it took her teacher 5-6 weeks to get around to grading the projects.
The sticking point was that these fine trial programs had run through their trial period. No more access to these programs by the time he decided to grade them. WHA? I set M to task. She submitted the blank spot assignments four separate times. I even had her print quizzes and whatnot and I sent her with a folder of 50 printed pages. (No exaggeration, y'all. Amazon saveth my fanny with 2 day printer cartridge shipping.) It wasn't right. It had to be submitted again.
I may have uttered words that should not be included in this post. In fact, I guarantee that M and I both did. She worked for hours and yet, all for nothing.
The teacher had kindly responded to each of my e-mails. Turns out that my kiddo failed to follow directions. There were technical details she didn't understand, but she thought she did. Alrighty then, let's get her back on track.
I'm thankful that though I cursed Mr. T (not to his face but out of frustration to M) that he did extend forgiveness and accepted late assignments for full credit. "They are complete, I don't know what happened to the transmission of them to you." Well, now I know.
Hello valley of frustration. I know you so well. STEM went from an F to an A all in one fell swoop. :wipes the forehead: Sleepless nights on that one.
We knew that K was going to have a major test in Social Studies. Add that to the wonderful opportunity that her generally not as grade generous teacher offered this past weekend only to be an "Opportunity Weekend." Kids were able to turn corrected quizzes, tests and missed assignments in for half of the credit/additional credit that they would have earned. Turns out that a shortened day of classes in order to make room for a pep rally ended up leaving K with an assignment in her locker and not with her since the classes were switched around (she knew that) and shortened (her first period teacher neglected to inform them) so she was not able to turn that assignment in. Not with you? No credit. (We don't blame him.) However! She was saved by an opportunity. This forgiveness opportunity allowed her to pull her grade up to the next grade level and padded a lil room in case she bombed the upcoming test on-- The Middle (snoozer) Ages.
As M helped her to get STEM straightened around Monday night, I set to the task of breaking down the chapter into a giant mom test. I used to homeschool her through 3rd grade social studies (she was pulled out for math tutoring and the teacher didn't compensate for that) so I just went back to how we reviewed before. Grueling, but if I could pull her up from a C to an A in 3rd grade SS, I figured I would roll back to that style again.
Y'all, it worked. All of that writing and studying late at night (one night we retired at 11:45 PM only to return to studying again at 5:45 AM, next night until 10:30 PM when neither one of us could remain awake any longer and to return to review again at 6 AM) paid off.
K had her test yesterday, was pleased that she knew all of the material and though it was a group test (group work never works to her advantage) she was able to carry the group through to a 90% A. (Two girls hadn't studied and were unprepared, one was prepared with her quiz study guide like K, but was feeling fairly unwell.) That was able to pull K's grade up to a firm/not teetering grade and lifted her spirits.
She can do it.
I'll tell you though, the Middle Ages kicked our butts.
We have discussed different study strategies. What K has been trying has worked only marginally well. She is an A, B, C student but sometimes that C was not quite a C. A's B's and C's are fine. As long as she is truly putting her best effort out there, any grade is acceptable. We are going to turn to a quarter of note cards. I am going to break the chapter of SS down like I did before. I will do the same with Science. The way I break them down will be a process done with her. That way, she will get more of an idea of how to consume a study chapter part by part rather than swallowing it whole and not having the information catch. She gets overwhelmed and we're going to make this process less overwhelming. Get her to the point where she can self op like she's been trying but hasn't been doing as well as she would hope.
One more quarter then all three of us will have passed 7th grade. :sigh: I can't wait!
