any education specialists or parents out there?

Every week my daughter comes home I am more surprised. She is in 1st grade, and has been in the same school since pre-k and yes it is a public. One week she will come home with easy spelling/vocabulary words, and the next it will be hard. this week her vocabulary words consist of Beautiful, Convinced and perfect. Are these first grade words? Imagine she has 10 vocabulary and 10 spelling words a wk and is tested on this, plus math, phonics and science or s.s. depending on what they are learning out there. Is it just my daughter's school or is this happening everywhere?

Those seem about right to me, but I don't have kids....just lots of cousins, a couple siblings and nearly a decade of various childcare activities (babysitting, swimming lessons, childcare and lessons for kids with special needs). If you want my advice (if you don't, disregard this response, lol), you could help your daughter to learn the words more quickly by making the spelling list part of your daily vocabulary. I.e. make a contest to see who can correctly use the words the most times that day. Perhaps the person who wins will get to pick what you'll have for dinner the next day or something. Involve your other children (if you have any). Also, if she enjoys writing, help her to write a story using these words, or have her write a letter to a relative (that will write back, snail mail is very exciting at 6ish). Using different coloured markers or pencil crayons will make this more fun. Offer lots of praise for good tries (when she spells them wrong) and have her correct her own mistakes (i.e. don't just write it correctly above her try, have her write it). This method helped me learn to spell. Plus, any time spent together will improve her reading/writing skills much more quickly than her writing the words over and over it herself (which I'm sure you already know). The key is positive reinforcement. Good luck, and I'm sure you'll have quite the little literary genius on your hands before long.

You'll be amazed at how much a kid will pick up in their first few years of life - it's when their bodies and minds are growing the fastest and making new neurological pathways. Every new challenge they're faced with will create a new pathway and they will retain that information. They're like little sponges! The more words your littl'un gets to learn now will stand her in good stead for a fantastic vocabulary when she's older. Practice the things that leli has suggested and you'll not only be amazed, but you'll be an even bigger part in making those amazing things happen. You've got a bright little button and the more of a role you have in helping her to realise her full potential will also make your bond as parent and child much stronger.

I am a Kindergarten teacher in a public school in Virginia. You'd be amazed what the young ones are required to learn at this age. This is my second year teaching and I was shocked when I started to find out that Kindergarten was not just about playing and socialization anymore. By the end of Kindergarten my students are required to basically be reading and writing by the end of the year. There is a list on about 20 "sight" words they need to know, and they work those and "invented" spelling into their writings of about 2 -4 sentances by the year's end.

It doesn't suprise me that halfway into the year these are your daughters spelling words. My questions for you though are: is there a bigger picture to these words (like are they learning certain phonics (letter/vowel) patterns with these words to help them put it into context with what they're doing in school? Or are they simply given a random list of words to memorize by the end of the week?

Leli had some great ideas for helping your daughter with her spelling. And LilleCat is right about this being a critical part of their life as far and reading and writing development goes.

Good luck with helping your daughter out. Let me know if you have any other questions.

As an elementary school administrator, I agree with berylayn. Kindergarten isn't about sandboxes and playtime anymore. And first grade curriculum is more challenging, as well. Our district's math curriculum includes algebraic thinking, geometry, and probability at all levels, from 1st grade up.