Curriculum

This past week, the elementary school has had "curriculum nights" for each of the grade levels. Parker's was last Thursday and Liza's and Tyler's were last night. They are kinda like a "Back to School Night," except all the teacher's in the grade go over the expectations and curriculum for the whole grade. They run everything as a team, so you are getting the same stuff no matter what teacher you have. They do room mom's in the same manner, we contribute $10 per child to that grade's party fund and then it is evenly distributed to each class. Before a party, the room mom's for each of the classes in that grade get together and plan the party so that each class has the same thing. It makes it so that there isn't that competition that happens when one overzealous room mom decides to go overboard. Anyway, back to curriculum, I was surprised at how intense it is. Texas is very test oriented, and everything they do is to prepare for a test it seems like. Spelling is not given out as a list that they memorize, but rather,they are taught a rule and then they apply that rule for the test. This week they learned the "floss" rule, and they went over which words ended in ss, ll and ff. Liza's class did short i words. Anyway. They test them not on what they have memorized, but on whether they can think through and apply what they learned. It is different, but I can see the benefit in it. 2nd grade curriculum says that by the end of 2nd grade they will have learned how to write cursive and start learning times tables and division. There is a working science lab in the school and each grade gets to do hands on lab experiments, especially in 5th and 6th grade. Specials include Spanish, art, music and computers. We are not allowed to send treats on birthdays because it is disruptive. On the other hand, next week is Homecoming week, so there is a parade and the kids get out at noon on Friday for it. It is spirit week and each day has a different thing to do to show spirit...like crazy socks, dress in green and white, dress western to "wrangle the bulls." So, a birthday treat is disruptive, but a whole week about a football game isn't? You can also buy season tickets to the football games. We take our high school football serious here. The HS stadiums are bigger than most Jr. College stadiums in other states. The budget for Prosper's new high school will be over $100 million, because it is big, but also because it will have a huge sports complex, including a natatorium (swimming pool). They have football, separate softball and baseball fields, multiple tennis courts, gymnasiums, and huge work-out rooms. It is out of control. But on the other hand, they don't skimp on providing the kids with enough educational materials. Tyler has two sets of every textbook, one for home and one for school so that they don't have to take them back and forth. And they found out yesterday that the district will be buying "consumable" novels (6 for pre-AP, 4 for regular language arts) for each child. That means that they can mark the novels up and they are theirs to keep. I am in awe at the money the schools have access to. Our PTO was told not to do fundraisers for the school because the district provides plenty of money for what they need. OK. The teacher's are also given a generous amount of money to do extra stuff, too. Anyway, the kids are adjusting well and quickly making the transition from Darts (or Vikings, I guess) to Eagles. Maybe we'll go to the homecoming game next week and look for Deion Sanders. By the way, I need to post a picture of his house. And the football field behind it. It is huge. I'd better run....