All those in the US, sign here...

[mamama]

I see all these threads for Aussie people and thought we should have our own thread too. Not sure why, I just felt the need to make us feel special too!

So, who's stateside and where are you?

I'll start:

Mamama - in Chicago

ds1 started pre-school the first of August and it has been horrendous We met with the director of the school yesterday and she was very nice. She talked with us for quite a while and said that she had already spoken with his teacher as far as getting a different morning schedule for him, etc. We both think that he is just bored with what she has them doing at the start of class and it gives him time to think about missing home.

He goes from 8:00 until 2:45, so a full day really. She has them starting off sitting at their place and starting to color a worksheet with the letter of the day. Ds1 apparently just sits and cries as he colors I don't post about it very often but he is G&T which can really bring about a lot of stress on everyone, actually. I spoke to his teacher about it initially as well as on his application but I don't know that anyone really took it seriously. I mean, he's been reading since he was 3.5 and he's just incredibly bored with coloring the letter A and an apple One of the main reasons, other than socialization, for starting him in pre-school was that he just sucks all the energy out of me during the day trying to keep him stimulated. I thought that being around other kids would be engaging enough to make up for doing the not-so-interesting parts of preschool but apparently not. The director was quite interested (apparently anyway) when I told her what level he was on with differnt skills and is going to assign another assistant to his class to work with him. I'm hoping it helps. He was practically hysterical yesterday morning and we are at out wit's end about the whole thing

Oh, God, I just used apparently 3 times in one post. Please realize that I have had two glasses of wine

Wow, I can't believe how early your DS's preschool starts. Colin's doesn't start until the 5th of Sept. Sorry to hear he's having such a hard time. Colin really, really loved his school, but there were so many of them that had a hard time settling in. I can't wait to start the new one, as it can't be anything but a step up from the old one. Hopefully they can find something to make your little guy happy to be there.

On a happy note, we're gearing up for Colin's big day Saturday. (he turns 4) I think it will be kind of a joint thing, though, because Grandma and Grandpa are only coming up once for their birthdays, since they are only 9 days apart. (Caitlin turns 2 on the 27th)

They do this year-round school thing here with 2 week breaks spaced throughout then I think 8 weeks off in the summer.

I didn't realize ds1's birthday was so close to Colin's. He turned 4 on Tuesday but we're having the party on Saturday.

Jabber - that sounds rough. Generally I think schools are far more geared toward helping those with learning difficulties/disabilities than ensuring bright kids are stretched....or even stimulated.

I completely know what you mean about a bright, curious child being exhausting. No idea if dd is g&t, but she's very bright. Today was her second day at school. I'm reserving judgement so early on, but she told me that they practiced writing d, a and c today. This is a child who wrote her new teacher a 3 page letter with no assistance from me. I guess the good part is that she's happy so far. Don't know what I'd do if she sobbed at the propect of school. I hope your ds' school/teachers come up with a solution to meet his needs.

How did you do in the 106 degree heat today? I'm spending a few hour each day in the garden with the hose trying to make sure all the plants/bushes/grass/trees don't die.

Happy late birthday to your DS. We're going to take Colin to the fair. I'm not big on those at all, but we really think he will have an amazing time.

I think I like that year round thing better. Colin is very social, and a long break in the summer just kills him. Fortunately we found a very nice summer camp here that has filled the void for him. People give me such odd looks when I say he's at camp, but he's only there for as long as he would be in preschool. It ends next week, so there's only a week and a half from the end of camp to the start of school. We're going to do afternoons this year, because all the people who went to that preschool are returning and the morning class is full, so I'm hoping all goes well, because sometimes my little guy just needs a nap still.

Earlybird - did you know that 88 is our usual average temp here? We're all just wilting in the heat. I saw 4 people with eye infections today and I do believe the hot, dry weather has more than a little to do with it. Dh has given up and is staying inside all day and having a big gin and tonic at night, lol. The working from home thing definitely has its perks.

C&CM, that summer camp sounds really good. I wish we had something like that closer to us. We have pretty much decided on moving to a larger town/city by the time ds1 starts first grade. It's just too limited here. Dh's sister lives in Oregon and has been singing the praises of living in the Northwest

Oh, and the cherry tree that we planted in honor of ds2's birth has died from the heat

Where does she live in Oregon?

It IS nice to have something like that here. I can't tell you how grateful I am to finally have something like this around. When we were in Southern Oregon the only things we could find for Colin to do was Gymnastics and Kindermusic before he was old enough for preschool. That got boring really fast.

Sorry to hear about the cherry tree. I'm so happy to be away from weather like that where it was too hot to go out by 10 am. It was a nice mid-70's here today.

Very impressed with the profile page, SB. I still haven't done one I keep thinking "This is the weekend I'll get that done" and then it never happens...

Aren't good nannies wonderful? I was never particularly fond of the first one we had, but dh and ds were, sooooo you know we just kept her on. But now we have a really lovely one. Only part-time since I'm just working 2 or 3 days a week right now.

C&CM, that's exactly the situation here. Kindermusik and Gymnastics. Dh's sister is in the city that's just across the bridge from Vancouver, WA or maybe she's just moved across to Vancouver I find it hard to keep up with her as she's a bit odd and really just emails with dh. I have a license for WA but not Oregon so if we did move to the NW it would either be in WA or on the border.

Oh and earlybird, forgot to mention that I am quite impressed with your dd's letter! Surely her teacher will start to give her some challenging little extra's. Didn't you say she was at University school? I have heard that it is quite good.

Oh my goodness, 88 would be balmy. This heat really is quite hellish. Thank goodness for air conditioning.

Yes Jabberw, dd is at USN. It is supposed to be good - in fact, one of the best in the city. In London, dd was near/at the top of her class, but still felt challenged. I'm not sure if her new teacher is taking it easy these first few days, or if we are experiencing firsthand the differences in education in the UK and in the States. I'm trying not to panic, or think 'omg, I've made a mistake', but think dd will definitely want/need more of a challenge once the novelty of new school/teacher/class wears off.

IME (very limited at this point, but still...), the children are engaged in their educational lives at an earlier age in the UK - which isn't neccessarily better, just different. However, I am amazed at the number of already-and-about-to-be 7 year olds in the first grade. I know that used to happen for those who were immature. Is it common to 'hold them back a year' here?

What educational differences did everyone else notice when they moved here?

SittingBull - beautiful pics of your boys on the profile page. They have such penetrating gazes!

Jabberwocky--I'm going to go with your sister lives in Vancouver, because the city across the bridge is Portland, which is the only city in the state people who aren't from the west coast seem to know.

Earlybird, I think educators try to do as much as possible (at least in Oregon) to NOT hold the kids back a year. I know in our case we'll be facing that situation, because Colin's b-day is August 18, making him able to go to school next September, but we are looking into not starting him until the year after that, because we've had talks with both of his preschool teachers who say he is near the top of the class academically, but especially with boys, they are advocating holding them back another year because they do so much better. (DH's family are almost all teachers, and that is their point of view, also.) There's even a group of teachers that are trying to get the birthday cutoff pushed back from Sept 1 to June 1 so all those with summer babies (like both of mine) will have to start a year later, because they've found they do so much better.

A wonderful breezy 78 degrees today. Thank goodness

Earlybird, ime, children are often held back over here especially in the very early years, so you do get some older 1st graders. I'm sure it varies from place to place though. It does seem odd to me and I'm not sure it is a good thing.

sittingbull, those photos are amazing. What beautiful children.

Sitting Bull, I couldn't get to the pictures before for some reason but just took a peek and they are stunning

Earlybird, I wasn't aware of late starts or holding back but having children in my late 30's/early 40's means I am sort of catching up to the whole school thing. We are considering Montessori next year for ds1 (they are opening a new one close to us) which does blended age group classes. I'm thinking that might suit him better. The tendency of most Americans I think is not to do anything really formal with education until pre-school at 4 unless you are doing a daycare/pre-school thing at 3 which is available as well. Also, some child care centers have evolved to a more structured curriculum IIRC but then there are still plenty that are typical daycare. DS1 went to Mother's Day Out 2 days a week at 3 1/2 which was quite structured. Looking back I rather wish that I had started him at 3. Ho hum, at least I will know what to do with ds2 (who of course is completely different which will make everything I learned with ds1 totally incompatible )

C&CM - just checked with dh and it turns out SIL used to live in Portland and work in Vancouver but has now moved to Vancouver as well. I know it sounds bizarre that I wouldn't know that, but we've been together for 8 years and I have yet to meet the woman Have only spoken to her on the phone a couple of times even

C&C and mamama - when I asked about the general holding back trend here, a mum said that older children grasp things more quickly so holding back can be viewed as a good idea. She added cynically (or perhaps realistically?) that older children also give the schools higher test scores so it looks as if the teaching/school is superior.

jabbberwocky - I'm an older mum too, so all this is new to me. When I had dd, my friends were mainly career girls who weren't able to offer advice about parenting, schooling etc - that's I'm sure, part of why Mumsnet has been such a godsend.

I know it's very early days (we're only 3 days into the school year), but I have an anxious pit-of-the-stomach feeling that dd will not progress much this year academically. She showed me a 'scavenger hunt' worksheet with photos of various things in her classroom (the kids had to visually locate/mark off the things pictured on the worksheet). There is a board listing numbers 1-100, and another displaying upper/lower case letters of the alphabet. She was doing that 2-3 years ago in London.

On the positive side, the teacher could be simply giving them easy 'settling in' activities atm before she gets into really teaching them. Also many of the schools here stress physical development alongside scholastic. Having been in a school in the centre of London, dd is not as athletic or physically daring as many of the other kids - so maybe that will be one of the areas where she will really progress. Which could be a good thing. Can you tell I'm trying to be positive?

I hope I haven't made a huge mistake....

Dear Earlybird. Maybe this will help. My ds is 15, just about to go into his junior year of public High School. We came to Ohio 4 years ago, he was in a private school in the UK which was academic. I think it is all evening out now. The science last year here was really tough, much more so than I did at 'O' level (that ages me...) Languages are definitely easier, English about the same. Maths they can go as fast as they want into advanced and pre-college classes. Basically what has happened is that they stream in High School but they call it offering advanced classes. I thought middle school was easier but now it seems to be getting much more rigorous. Also, I really like the fact that he mixes with all types of people, that is life after all. It is less pressured, there's a lot more for teens to do like the Friday night football game and dances the school organises plus the bloomin' prom. Overall I'm glad we are in the US system.

We actually moved our boys up a grade when we moved to the US. The school counsellor tried to talk us out of it, but he failed to mention that boys where generally held back a year in our school district. That meant that our boys were two years younger than many of our classmates, and considerably smaller (having not been brought up on a diet of 90% dairy and vie-tamin supplements ).

They coped academically, DS1 getting super-proficient in 3 of 5 categories in his state proficiency test. They also both were identified as talented and gifted because their achievements were age-related.

The rationale for holding boys back is that they achieve more in each grade, but if you correct it for chronological age, it actually appears that they are achieving less (the opposite of my boys testing better). One thing to note is that girls are seldomly held back.

As for the academic curriculum, it is very much rote learning in a lot of subjects. Regular high school graduation is similar to GCSE (5 A-C), imo. AP classes are closer to UK university entrance exams (GCE, Highers, and IB).

The whole "No Child Left Behind" thing - another stupid Bush administration idea - has caused a lot of issues in public school for the children who need to work at a more advanced pace. The teachers can get so busy with the slower children that there just isn't much time to challenge the others.

Earlybird, you could always consider a Montessori school. I feel like we will do that next year for ds1. We've already signed a hefty contract at this school and they do seem committed to working with him.

Ah everyone, thanks for your kind words.

We left an academic (ish) private school in the heart of London. DD thrived there. During the first few days of class here, the kids read 3 times in unison 'the cat went for a walk' and 'Kim went running'. DD is reading 'Charlotte's Web' by herself at home at the moment. They are practicing writing the alphabet, she wrote her teacher here a 3 page letter by way of introduction.

I wonder if she should be in the second grade instead of the first, but the admissions director didn't suggest it during the assessment, and neither did dd's teacher when she met one on one with each child prior to the start of the new year.

Part of me thinks I should just relax and focus on other areas outside of academics - there will be plenty of time for athletics (not her strong point), building friendships in a new city/school, maybe she could start music lessons, etc. But part of me feels distressed that my curious, eager bright spark looks likely to tread water this year and will fall way behind her peer group in London.

Dear Earlybird. Are you staying in the US permanently or returning to the UK?

Undecided. The plan is to be here for two years initially, at which time I'll assess and (probably) have the option to stay or go back.

Sorry if I sound I'm slagging off the US educational system. That's truly not my intention as I know it's simply a different way of doing things, and neither one is better or worse. It's just that I'm shocked by how different it is at this stage.