The Calk Family: Way To Go Jayna!/Family Fun Day

We are only a few weeks into the school year and already having to bribe Jayna to do her homework and study for her spelling tests. We learned last year that she didn't like reading and spelling as much as she liked math, art, music, etc. We got to where every Friday we would offer up a prize for a 100 on her spelling test to encourage her to study. This year hasn't been any different so far. I talked with her teacher, Ms. Beck to let her know that we were having some early struggles in this area and told her that we are open to advice. I want Jayna to be successful and enjoy school. Ms. Beck had some great suggestions for us!

Ms. Beck has added a reading log to her folder and she can earn an extra 5 points a week for reading at least 10 minutes a night. We have some sight word flash cards that we are working on in addition to the reading. Jayna struggles with the rules of phonics and her teacher suggested that we teach her to memorize words versus trying to re-teach phonics at her age. It seems to be working. We are also trying to make the spelling test study sessions a little more fun. And again, if she gets a 100, she can get a prize or a special treat. She made a 95 on her first test and 100 on her second test. I honestly can't remember what she asked for last week, but I don't think it was anything major. This most recent week, she wanted to go to Chuck E Cheese. When I picked them up on Friday and I asked her about the test, she said that she didn't make a 100. :( Barrett asked if we could still go to Chuck E Cheese and I told him, "not this time...". I don't want to waiver on these prizes. He started to cry and Jayna was apologizing to him. It was sad.

I pulled the spelling test out of her backpack and saw that she made a 95 on the sentence portion and when I turned the paper over, I saw a 109! Yes, a 109! They are graded separately, so we got to go to Chuck E Cheese! Yay! (Barrett stopped crying.) :)

So how did she get a 109? Well, there are normally 20 words on her spelling list. This week, there were only 18 on the study sheet she brought home. Of those words, 3 of them were a little more challenging: English, language, and understand. We worked on these the most. She got these 3 correct and earned 3 points extra for each of them! There were also 2 mystery words on the test that she was able to get correct! It makes me so happy to see her hard work pay off. It's also good reinforcement for the next week when I ask her to study... ;)

Here are some of the pictures from our Family Fun Day on Saturday!

(some of these are kind of blurry... my apologies)

We tried to get there early to beat the rush and it was SO nice to have most of the place to ourselves!

Me and my silly husband....

I didn't know this about this ride/game, but if you do all three of them in a row, you get a free ride!

We like free!

I think Jayna might be a little too big for this ride... ahaha

There are 3 different sizes of basketball games here and of course, Barrett wanted to play on the biggest one! He was able to get the balls over the plastic shield, so that's good!

Well, he hit it a few times and it came back on him. :)

Skee ball... a family favorite!

Showing off our prizes...

Scary, huh?

After Chuck E Cheese, we went to pick out halloween costumes and then we had a quick lunch and then we had to go spend some time outside with this beautiful weather!

Then we headed to the Botanical Gardens: