Can you hear the screams?

B I G Vent Alert
It's one of THOSE days. :sigh:

C woke up with an attitude. Lovely start to a not-so-lovely day. (We went from 77 and sunny to 35 and overcast in less than 12 hours.)

The little boy I babysit isn't here today because his sister is throwing up, so since Dad is staying home he is staying home. (Yay!) However, they also let me know that their daughter - who is C's friend - has thrown up EVERY DAY since Sunday, yet since she looked good and felt good they sent her out to play, to school (only to have her return home early Monday) and to my house yesterday (even though she threw up the night before.) :sigh: Prayers for it to pass us will be greatly appreciated. Did I mention that C started Acolyte training at church and was to serve for the first time during the reading of the Gospel on Easter Sunday? I'm just praying she doesn't get sick now.

Next came placement test torture. I'm frustrated. We fought. I think the prevailing theory right now is "Why do it well when you can rush through and have a break?" I picked up on this when my "advanced math" kid wrote 12 + 6 = 17. (This is when the screams inside my head started.) I'm frustrated because I'm trying not to help her but I see her doing silly mistakes that make her answer questions incorrectly when I know that we spent at least three months covering this material not yet 6 months ago, and she KNEW it. She didn't just have it memorized. She could do it in her sleep. I'm not sure how to grade these when I know she can do it but she's choosing not to focus on it. I think testing stress has something to do with it because why else would she try to write dollars and cents with three digits on the cents side??? Again, this isn't her functioning correctly. Can I say that it's all Saxon Math's fault - since it is their placement tests - and I was right when I said that I didn't want to use Saxon all those years ago? lol Guess not. :)

So far I've tossed it to her to check her math only once per test level. (If it is simply her rushing through addition and subtraction errors and I know she can complete the problem correctly I let her recheck it. If there is a question as to her not knowing the process I count it as incorrect.) When I got her to stop asking about taking a break and if she could play her Nintendo DS during break time she actually focused long enough to test out of Saxon 5/4 and Saxon 6/5. She's part way through the next level and I've listened to how funny inequalities are and how odd perimeter really is. Oh, and about missing candy and cold spaghetti. (This is when the screams started leaving my head and coming out of my mouth.)

It's days like these that I'd like to take her to the homes of people who think she doesn't have an attention problem so that they can administer the placement test for me. And then I'd go eat chocolate at the park. Alone. :)

So, now that the vent is over, the true questioning comes... what level to put her in when I know she understands the processes but just isn't testing well?

Did I mention that we haven't started lessons for the day yet?