Herding Cats

Today has been hectic to say the least.

It's one of the first days where we had actual lessons that we could complete all day, instead of being held up by "how to" lessons or the lack of materials.  And it has been frustrating.

Math was great and I really felt like I was teaching K something, because at the beginning she didn't have a good grasp on writing numbers past 100, and after she wrote 100-120 perfectly.  I described the ones-tens-and hundreds places, and it made sense to her. Success!

Then we had English.  We don't have the literature stuff yet, so I doubled up on phonics.  And she ended up in tears.  She does just fine when I am sitting right next to her at the computer, even though she tells me this totally annoys her and her teachers didn't sit next to her all day at her other school.  But the minute I walk away I feel like she stops caring about what she's doing.  I stepped off to mind the littles and I hear her clicking through phonics words so quick that it wasn't even saying the word before she had moved on.  I got perturbed to say the least.  I returned to her side and explained that she can't just click like crazy all over the computer, and she got frustrated because she doesn't want to work on things she already knows.  I get it.  Letter sounds seems pretty boring to me too.  I explained the idea of review, and that she has to prove to me that she knows this easy stuff before she can move on to harder things.

We had this same issue yesterday in math.  She doesn't want to "waste time" with things she understands.  But we have to move through this stuff.  It's frustrating for her and then her behavior frustrates me.  Yesterday and today I have been irritated with the feeling that I have to constantly remind and reprimand her to work and learn.  "This is your school now. I know it's weird, but you have to listen and learn from me.  You have to sit quietly and listen and behave, just like you did at your other school."

I know it's just the beginning, and I have faith that it will get easier and easier... But man, getting into the grove of things is killing me.