Second grade for the fifth time....

Whatever grade my boys are in, I remind them that I have already done that grade. Now that the youngest is in school, I remind him frequently that this is not my first time around the block! I even taught second grade at one time!!

I really try to help my kids do their homework without interfering. I am a teacher, however and I can't always take the hat off when I get home. So, here I am, doing second grade AGAIN!!

DS 4 brought home a page for estimating tonight. In reality, estimating wasn't so much a part of our curriculum when I was growing up. It was all accuracy based. But, now they want you to estimate. I am of the belief that you estimate by rounding up to the next five or ten (whichever is closer) to an actual number. For example, I would say that a typical classroom has 20 - 25 students in it. DS 2's class has more than 20, so we rounded UP to 25. You get the idea, right???

So, the paper says: "The second-grade class is having a party. The children are getting ready for it. Help them make reasonable estimates." (I am pretty sure the key word here is 'REASONABLE")

Question 1: Lani is bringing napkins for the whole class. About how many napkins should he bring?

(After I got over the fact that Lani is a "he" and not a "she"---I talked to DS 2 about his thinking. He said "About 20". Now in some classes this would be an acceptable estimate because they have LESS than 20 kids...but in DS 2's class this would be unreasonable because you wouldn't have enough napkins.)

Question 2: Kata is bringing glitter markers. Each child will get two. How many will she need?

Question 3: Noah is bringing juice for everyone. About how many juice boxes will he need to bring?

Question 4: Leela is giving a sheet of stickers to each classmate. There are five sheets of stickers in a pack. About how many packs of stickers will she need?

Questioni 5. The teacher splits the class into two teams for a game. About how many children will be on each team?

Question 6: The teacher orders pizza for everyone. Each pizza has 8 slices. About how many pizzas will she order?

Question 7: The teacher fills a goldfish bowl with marbles. There is a contest to guess how many marbles there are. What might the winning guess be? (HUH!?!?! How am I supposed to explain THIS to a second grader who is concrete??)

Question 8: Everyone is having a good time. About how many hours might the party last? (If they are party animals...it could go awhile.)

Am I the only one who thinks there is a piece of information missing here????? It seems to me that the paper should at least indicate a number range for the second-grade classes in this school...otherwise, HOW do you get the estimate in the "REASONABLE" ball park?

So much for my Mother hat...my Teacher hat is on and it's tight!!

I have already emailed the teacher to tell her what I think is reasonable in this instance. (I'm sure that they HATE having other teacher's kids sometimes.) She's a GREAT person, so I am not worried about it. In fact, I am not sure what I am worried about, so upon further reflection....

Maybe reality is that I need her to think that I know exactly what I am doing and that I wear the parent hat well....

Maybe I don't want DS 2 to suffer a poor score due to his Mother's illogical thinking....

Maybe I need him (and her) to know for sure that I am competent at second grade curriculum....

Whatever my underlying reasons, I only hope that the party we "planned" is a huge success and that we are somewhere in the right ballpark....

That's reasonable, isn't it???