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They said what? Good thing they're homeschooled!


zaichiki
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DS recently disturbed an aggressive wombat when he stood on it, thinking it was a large rock. The wombat woke up and kind of charged him, which was fairly terrifying for him at the time.

 

Afterwards, his conception of reality broke down in one pivotal, deeply philosophical moment: "How many rocks have we walked over, not knowing they were WOMBATS?!"

 

Since then, he's been questioning EVERYTHING. Poor kid.

 

:laugh: priceless!

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The other night at dinner DS10 commented out of the blue, "isn't next year an election year?"  Which of course it is, and he said, "wow, 4 years goes by really quickly."

 

It wasn't until I was talking with a friend today, and she commented on how advanced his thinking is, and that most 10 year olds aren't thinking about presidental elections.  It never occurred to me that it wasn't "normal" - to me the more interesting thing was that a 10 year old thinks 4 years have gone by quickly, when I was 10 just 1 year seemed like forever!

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Helping my 9 YO son to get to sleep the other night.... He says to me: "Mom, isn't it just so sad that everything in our lives except for this moment is just a memory? And now its gone. And now its gone. And now its gone."  I guess I would have trouble sleeping too! 

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DS(6) was working on what we call his morning list.  He has 8 things he has to get done each morning.  As he was carrying his dirty clothes to the laundry room he walked past me and said, "I have done 7 out of 8 so 7/8 so more than 75%."  He has never been taught more about percents then that the word means out of 100.  I was a little floored, but later asked him how he knew that it was more than 75%.  He ever so confidently responded with, "2 out of 8 is 25%, 4 out of 8 is 50%, and 6 out of 8 is 75%... I have done more than 6 out of 8 so more than 75%."  He said it like it was so very obvious.  Thinking if he was saying that in a brick and mortar 1st grade classroom he would get a lot of blank stares.

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DS(6) was working on what we call his morning list.  He has 8 things he has to get done each morning.  As he was carrying his dirty clothes to the laundry room he walked past me and said, "I have done 7 out of 8 so 7/8 so more than 75%."  He has never been taught more about percents then that the word means out of 100.  I was a little floored, but later asked him how he knew that it was more than 75%.  He ever so confidently responded with, "2 out of 8 is 25%, 4 out of 8 is 50%, and 6 out of 8 is 75%... I have done more than 6 out of 8 so more than 75%."  He said it like it was so very obvious.  Thinking if he was saying that in a brick and mortar 1st grade classroom he would get a lot of blank stares.

 

This sounds so very familiar.  It's moments like this that you feel both supremely capable and incapable all at the same time, or is that just me?  At first, I must be doing something right [mental pat on back] and then the realization that you didn't do anything and that's just the way his brain works and there are at least a few minutes of crippling fear about how to teach this kid.

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One of my 8yos isn't high-IQ as far as I know, but sometimes she comes up with comments I don't expect.  Yesterday she went on a pretty intense rollercoaster for the first time.  Her comment after picking herself up from the bottom of the rail car:  "that was so scary, how can we sustain it!?"

 

Sacha and I went to Aquatica the other day (a Sea World water park), and I cajoled him to race me down a scary big slide. When he looked down the slide, once it was our turn, he yelled over to me (through tears), "You are sending me to my death!"

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This sounds so very familiar.  It's moments like this that you feel both supremely capable and incapable all at the same time, or is that just me?  At first, I must be doing something right [mental pat on back] and then the realization that you didn't do anything and that's just the way his brain works and there are at least a few minutes of crippling fear about how to teach this kid.

 

EXACTLY!

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Today dd5 had a hard lesson. She has been saving her allowance for a larger purchase and is fairly close. This morning she found a wallet she lost a few weeks ago, which had about $14 in it. She was ecstatic...until I reminded her that she had already 'spent' that money because when I took her to the store a few weeks ago to spend it she realized it wasn't in her purse. I told her I would pay for the item and she could reimburse me upon arriving home. However, when we arrived home the wallet could not be located.

 

So after serious tears and drama (with me feeling like a complete witch but sticking with it because I think it is an important lesson) she sat down to breakfast. Daddy came in and asked her why she was so upset.

 

She said: "well Dad, when life kicks you in the teeth it isn't fun. I am just a little glum today." Then turned back to her breakfast.

 

I have no idea where she picked up that expression?!

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DD10: "What, are these people just totally illiterate or something? I don't know which to pick because the entire sentence is just...bad!" "#15 has a spelling error that isn't even on the answers!!" "There's not an error, but they should have said "to obtain", not "to attain". It just would have been more correct" " I really don't think you mean that...."

 

She's doing an SAT practice verbal section. hmmmm...

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We were in the shark tunnel at the aquarium, Ds3's favorite place in the world. He started pointing things out to another visitor. His pronunciation is still somewhat difficult for strangers to understand.

 

Ds: "Look, this one is a seven-gill shark!"

Lady: "Do you like all the fishies?"

Ds stared at her blankly for a moment, then tried again.

Ds: "This seven-gill shark is called Miss Piggy. See the white mark on her nose? She's the biggest shark they have."

Lady: "That fishy's called a shark. Can you say shark?"

Ds, full of consternation, makes one last desperate effort.

Ds: "Look. This one here is a leopard shark."

Lady: "Sharks like to swim, swim, swim, don't they?"

Ds backed away slowly, but kept throwing furtive glances over his shoulder at the woman for the rest of our time in there. It was obvious he was very concerned about the blithering idiot

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DS5 and I were discussing methane and other carbon emissions as we passed some cows today. He has an association with a particular path, so we always discuss atmospheres on this walk. Today he was outraged at deforestation: "Well why doesn't someone, like a god, just tell people to stop cutting down trees?!"

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  • 2 weeks later...

I remember my son yelling from a doorway, at a crowded camp at the ripe old age of 7 or 8, "I can't find my rubbers."

 

Yes, that older British Literature can really mess with one's vocabulary.

 

Haha. Rubber is still used in Australia. Nothing older about it at all.

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Haha. Rubber is still used in Australia. Nothing older about it at all.

 

Apparently in Singapore, too. DD didn't balk at the questions about rubbers in SM once we moved to using the New Primary Maths version, but I admit I did pause at the idea that "Hasho brought a box of rubbers to share with his friends at school...."

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Apparently in Singapore, too. DD didn't balk at the questions about rubbers in SM once we moved to using the New Primary Maths version, but I admit I did pause at the idea that "Hasho brought a box of rubbers to share with his friends at school...."

 

:smilielol5: OMG, I'm dying here.

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Not sure how I came across such an old thread but has fun reading them all. I usually try not to brag, but have to admit I chuckled when someone asked the other day to my 7.5yr old ds what was he learning in school (I expected math, reading...the gal who asked expected that too or something along those lines...). Ds said he was learning Greek words and gave her an example. Her reaction was quite funny :)

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  • 3 weeks later...

Halloween costume edition-Anyone else have interesting, creative, and probably totally missed by most people costumes this year?
 

Here's DD10's-Phrynosoma cornutum-the Texas Horned lizard. She also plans to wear her snake print tunic/leggings (which served double duty since she wore them to give her talk) and carry a bucket with plastic ants glued to it, since Texas horned lizards eat ants exclusively (and are one of the only species that eat fire ants).

 

I'm rather expecting most people will assume she's a dinosaur.

 

Dorsal  view12047128_10206748389022671_7669536083265

 

Ventral

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That is so awesome. My oldest is going as a fairy, but she decided she'll just be Fairy [FirstName] instead of [FirstName] the Ornithology Fairy, because she doesn't want to have to carry a flamingo around with her. ;)

Besides, that's one way to forestall questions. DD has been known to add wings to costumes because "a winged lizard or snake is just a dragon". Of course, last year she went as Quetzalcoatl....

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Hmm....I'd say a big foam or stiffened felt sail attached to a green or brown sweatshirt. would be a start. (Says the person who has created a LOT of lizard frills, dinosaur horns, and snake hoods in the last decade). Dollar tree here has foam dinosaur hats that would provide the head, and then make a tail. Possibly add claws on the end of the sweatshirt sleeves to go over fingers, but still leave hands usable.

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My oldest, recently:

 

- What's dd2's middle name?

- Marie

- Oh.  After Madame Curie?

- Ummm.... no.  

 

 

One of my kids has Nikola as a middle name after Nikola Tesla. But only to make his initials D.N.A. (yes, I am a nerd)

 

My oldest the other day while in the car (obviously not overly smart, but it's funny, so w/e): "What does unlawful mean?"

Me: "Illegal."

Him: "Oh, so you're not allowed to throw trash onto the road?" (It was a "Littering is unlawful" sign)

Me: "Right." :001_rolleyes:

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DD5 came home from Kindergarten the other day.

 

DD:  Today I played with [boy1] and [boy2], but not at the same time.  [boy1] only wanted me to play with him, and so I did, AND I played with [boy2] and I went back and forth.

Me:  Why didn't you all play together?

DD:  Well, [boy1] said that he only wanted to play with me, and that I couldn't be his friend if I played with anyone else, but that's NOT RIGHT.  I told him that I can play with anybody I want to, and [boy2] is my friend, so I played with him.  I played with [boy1] for awhile and then [boy2].

 

ETA...Boy1 is the same kid who said "did you know that I like your sister?" when DS and I went to help in class one day.  I may be having a conversation with the teacher about boundaries at some point during the year.  For now though, I'm proud of her for the way she handled herself.

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Oh and dd8 the other day was playing with our baby with goop and talking to him about how nice and slimy it was etc when dd6 piped up with: how can you touch that stuff, it's so disgusting

dd8: kids like to play with goop, it is fun and slimy

dd6: not this kid! this kid likes math!!!

rofl

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  • 5 weeks later...

DD is assembling the treat bags for her upcoming birthday party. According to her, each bag contains:

 

Two echinoderms (starfish stickers)

Five crocodylians (one squirting alligator toy, four gummy crocodiles)

one hylid (green frog lollipop-according to DD they are tree frogs because of their coloration)

two annelids (gummy worms, left over from Halloween)

two elasmobranchs (shark stickers)

two microorganisms (giant microbe temporary tattoos)

One colubrid to color (snake snap bracelet in white canvas, to decorate)

one other animal craft set-a selection of ranids, chelonians, and squamates

 

plus finger lights and glow sticks, just because.
 

 

I'm glad she has friends who put up with her!

 

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I said I was going to make pasta for lunch. My daughter (9) asked if we could have the type shaped like Archimedes' screws.

Uh, sure sweetpea, why not?

On Pinterest they have a craft where you build an Archimedes' screw out of household stuff that picks up Fruit Loops! I found this beyond exciting! Seriously played with it for far too long in absolute glee. Ds, not so much.....Darn Hum kid.

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On Pinterest they have a craft where you build an Archimedes' screw out of household stuff that picks up Fruit Loops! I found this beyond exciting! Seriously played with it for far too long in absolute glee. Ds, not so much.....Darn Hum kid.

Ooh, fun! I just searched for it and decided we will have a rabbit trail today😄

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DD is assembling the treat bags for her upcoming birthday party. According to her, each bag contains:

 

Two echinoderms (starfish stickers)

Five crocodylians (one squirting alligator toy, four gummy crocodiles)

one hylid (green frog lollipop-according to DD they are tree frogs because of their coloration)

two annelids (gummy worms, left over from Halloween)

two elasmobranchs (shark stickers)

two microorganisms (giant microbe temporary tattoos)

One colubrid to color (snake snap bracelet in white canvas, to decorate)

one other animal craft set-a selection of ranids, chelonians, and squamates

 

plus finger lights and glow sticks, just because.

 

 

I'm glad she has friends who put up with her!

Because nothing says Happy Birthday more than bromeliad lollipops:) I hope they are not poisonous:)

 

Planning Alex's first party with kids is proving to be very interesting as well. Lots of gentle conversations about choosing activities that everyone can join in on. Maybe less of a math circle event and more party since it will involve mostly 4-10 year olds. Still, she chose a winter theme because we are in Texas? I bought tons of fake snowballs and we will be having a snowball fight as one activity--she said, maybe we could have a game where if you answer a math question you get to throw the snowball!

Um. How about we do that today instead:)

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Because nothing says Happy Birthday more than bromeliad lollipops:) I hope they are not poisonous:)

 

Planning Alex's first party with kids is proving to be very interesting as well. Lots of gentle conversations about choosing activities that everyone can join in on. Maybe less of a math circle event and more party since it will involve mostly 4-10 year olds. Still, she chose a winter theme because we are in Texas? I bought tons of fake snowballs and we will be having a snowball fight as one activity--she said, maybe we could have a game where if you answer a math question you get to throw the snowball!

Um. How about we do that today instead:)

We're doing DD's party with her Team MLP S.N.A.K.E. Group, so these are all kids focused on animals and animal conservation-and they at least tolerate DD's intensity in this area. We'll have snake cookies, crafts, and share animal presentations about invertebrates, then go to a local trampoline place and jump for an hour. :).

 

We actually do an end of year mythology club activity where when the kids answer questions from the NME (as we're going over the answers), they earn water balloons to throw at each other :). Maybe I'll get some snowballs for next month's event. I'll bet my math and mythology kids would enjoy it :)

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This happened when my now 9 YO was 7, but I sent an email to my dad describing it so have a good memory of it. I've had so many moments like this with this kid of mine. It wasn't until we started homeschooling that she finally started to seem normal, rather than always being the oddball "quirky" kid:

 

 

She went to a "drop off" birthday party with a bunch of former public school classmates.

 

When I arrived to pick her up, my daughter was annoyed.  She complained that one little girl pretended to see a snake, and all the other girls started screaming and running around, and then the adults started yelling and running around, and it was a huge disruption to the party. In the end it turned out there was no snake, and the little girl made it all up.

 
After describing the scene to me, my daughter said, "It was hysteria and pandemonium and the party disintegrated into chaos."

All the adults around us dropped their jaws, but then they started nodding, and one finally said, "that about sums it up."
 
Her line came nearly word for word from the chapter on Tehuti from our Egyptian Myths book, but I didn't tell them that.
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  • 2 weeks later...

A group of homeschoolers were swimming in our pool today. Here was the conversation between a 7 and 8 year old - I decided not to interfere and just listened. Though when I told the boy's mother later and we laughed together I did ask her what on earth she had been teaching her child.

 

"We are going to fart a lot and it will help us swim rapidly across the pool."

"Farts are flammable."

"What is flammable?"

"Farts are made of methane gas and when you light the gas, it goes ka-pow!"

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

DD#1 and DH were playing Scattergories.  For the category "Reasons for being late," DD wrote down "Solo Sock."  Clever way to say "I could only find one sock," right?  DH was duly impressed and pointed out that DD would get two points since both words started with S.

 

After they tallied their points, DD started talking about that answer more.  "Yeah, it's a SOLO sock because the sock is singing and dancing, and you have to wait for it to finish the solo before you can put on your socks and shoes!"

 

So...maybe not the clever answer we'd thought initially.  :lol:

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DD#1 and DH were playing Scattergories.  For the category "Reasons for being late," DD wrote down "Solo Sock."  Clever way to say "I could only find one sock," right?  DH was duly impressed and pointed out that DD would get two points since both words started with S.

 

After they tallied their points, DD started talking about that answer more.  "Yeah, it's a SOLO sock because the sock is singing and dancing, and you have to wait for it to finish the solo before you can put on your socks and shoes!"

 

So...maybe not the clever answer we'd thought initially.  :lol:

 

We like games in my family.  Really like games.  As in I feel a bit deprived that we don't have a game closet yet.  DH and I were considering Scattergories.  What is a good starting age for that game?  I've learned that the ages on the boxes are worthless. 

My theory is that DD doesn't know enough information yet.  DH thinks she'll learn as we go. 

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We like games in my family.  Really like games.  As in I feel a bit deprived that we don't have a game closet yet.  DH and I were considering Scattergories.  What is a good starting age for that game?  I've learned that the ages on the boxes are worthless. 

My theory is that DD doesn't know enough information yet.  DH thinks she'll learn as we go. 

 

DD will be 7 in January, and we just started playing Scattergories with her in the last few weeks.  We go through the list of categories on a card before we roll the letter, and sometimes we will decide to skip one or more categories because it's just not something she could come up with (like sports teams - we just don't talk about sports much in our family, so she doesn't know many teams).  There are many times she leaves something blank, but she enjoys trying to think of things, and she's learning from hearing our answers. :)

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This one is part my kid and part a child I was babysitting:

 

We were at a children's museum yesterday, playing in the Native American experience room. I was looking after my dd5 and a set of boy/girl twins, newly 6. They are German, and there is a bit of a language gap. They boy asked me why 'the Indian warriors always stole the squaws and carried them off.'

I wasn't quite sure how to answer him as his family is very, very different from the answer I would give my own dd, so I asked him what the women could do that the men could not...

He thought for a moment.

"Make soup!" He shouted triumphantly!

 

My poor dd stared at him. After a moment she said, '"there is just so much wrong with that. I am going to pretend he is being facetious. Okay mom?"

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  • 2 weeks later...

DD has a new neopet that someone on the art board sent her- "Researchy", the blue herpetologist hissi (winged snake). She's currently creating scenes of "Researchy" at a herpetology conference and in the field, so she can put them on her blog as a comic.

 

I guess maybe she has ONE big interest.....

 

 

And here's the result...

http://www.allissnakes.blogspot.com/2015/12/when-herp-conferences-and-neopets.html

 

Edited by Dmmetler2
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