Six students the second week after Benchmark testing

Melissa didn’t complete her math homework because she said she couldn’t “get it,” and for that matter, neither could her mother.  She did very little math during the week at school, although the math lesson on Monday had been given explicitly to prepare them to do their homework and to give them several options for math projects to work on during the school day.  When Melissa stayed in for recess Friday so that I could help her with her math homework, she understood pretty quickly and was able to complete the work mostly on her own.  I see that the challenge will be to keep her confidence up as well as her interest.  She doesn’t think she’s “good at math.”

Jonas did lots of math work during the week, all the work considerably below his challenge level.  I had presented new concepts of cubing, building cubes and calculating their construction a week ago, Friday; and on Monday I reviewed the work he could do as follow-up.  I included one of his friends in the lesson to encourage him.  However, throughout the week he avoided the new work and stuck with rounding and simple multiplication problems.  He has also gone back to some of the zoology work he did in fourth grade and says that he wants to “do it all over again.”  Is that work avoidance?  Is it wanting to perfect something he could only partially understand as a fourth grader?  Is it a lack of confidence about taking on new challenge?

Fifth grader Amanda has been very busy all week following up on new presentations in math and grammar.  She is doggedly learning how to pattern the binomial and trinomial equations; and although she is slow to understand, she is conquering each step with her repetitions and intense desire to master the mathematical ideas she is working with.

Louis insisted that his math homework was too easy.  He did almost no math work during school, but spent most of his time working seriously on a report about Velociraptors.  Writing is much more of a challenge for him than math; but I wonder why he doesn’t more often do math for the fun of it.  Is the confidence he talks about real?

Fourth grader Rosalee has done very little math despite several new lessons last week.  She is mostly engaged socially.  It will be challenging for me to help her gain confidence in any academic area.

Mason has spent lots of time on Velociraptors, too.  He didn’t do follow-up wwork after new math lessons, either.  Is he too busy learning other things or is he not as confident as he was with the more challenging math?