Adjustments

I was hoping today would be a better day, and it was. A bit.

I've turned math over to Mi'ita's dad. His degree was in math, but that's not the reason. I can teach 4th grade math just fine. She hates math and is evil at math time, and her father has more patience than I do. I happily plunked that little turd in his lap, and he got the tears and arguments today and forevermore. He got a lot more work out of her, too, and more valuable work. I am pleased, and I think the tears and arguments will diminish when she sees that they have no effect. I don't know what all the drama is about. She is perfectly capable of it, the work is not too hard or easy, math comes easily to her even if it's not fun.

Whatever.

There are a lot of math games out there in the world, as my mother has pointed out. I need to get in touch with them.

Science and history have taken some adjustments, too. Thankfully, she likes both those subjects, but she didn't like the way I was teaching them. The classical model suggested that we read, then summarize what we read with illustrations. She likes reading, likes the texts we are using (Kingfisher's Illustrated History of the World, and Usborn's How Nature Works), but she hated the summarizing. Taking a page out of the Magic Schoolbus series, I suggested that she draw a picture, then write captions and a paragraph that went along with it. Basically, a summary with pictures, but now the pictures take the front seat. It worked.

And we're slowing down. We got 2 1/2 hours done today, not including the PE dog walk.