bluemongoose
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Posts posted by bluemongoose
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Is it normal to receive acceptances in the fall? I thought it was not until March. Yes, this is our first rodeo. LOL
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On 11/17/2022 at 3:48 PM, regentrude said:
That would defeat the point of AOPS. The student is supposed to use the discovery method and wrestle with hard problems, not memorize the problem mom explained a day earlier.
AoPS is written to the student. I let them work through the book while I was close by and could help on problems with Socratic questioning. The super hard star problems we worked together and discussed; one or two took 2 hours 🙂
For physics, I explain basic concepts and theory, then I model example problems, then the kids have homework problems that use the concepts, build on each other, and are more complex than the examples. That's how I taught my own kids, and that's how I teach the college students as a professor.
We use AOPS similarly to regentrude except I am not the math person, so I cannot help. If DD gets completely stuck after wrestling with it for a while, she moves to another subject and waits until DH is off work to get assistance.
As for physics, DD studies independently from a textbook and works through her labs/lab book. As with math, if she gets stuck, she asks DH later. She has done this with all her AP science textbooks with excellent results.-
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17 minutes ago, teachermom2834 said:
Ugh. That makes me less likely to give to a fundraiser if I think I am going on a list.
One thing I have seen in recent years is sports teams doing fundraising by collecting emails. It goes like this- they tell the team members they each need to hand in a certain number of emails of contacts. No obligation to give - just collect emails. The first time I did this it was for the son of a close friend of mine who swore they wouldn’t spam me and I trusted her and we gave her a bunch of emails for everyone in our family and that helped her kid meet his quota and I don’t think I ever got actual messages from them. But I have had this request via Facebook from other people that I know to be aggressive fundraisers - that they just need to collect emails with no obligation- and I won’t do it.
I know a lot of people don’t actually check or use their email so they don’t care but I do and I don’t like getting all those emails.
I didn't put my email on the list for this fundraiser...the family member did that for me without asking. I think I will ask them to not do this in the future and just ask me for money themselves. I can send them the money to give to their school and not be on the school's lists. I don't care that my name wouldn't be listed as one of the givers. (That is one of the current fundraisers emails...."come see who has given so far" Gross!)
That sports fundraiser's collection of emails is really icky!
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51 minutes ago, Indigo Blue said:
They do this now??? 🤔Talk about pet peeves. School fundraisers are high on the list. And now they do this? Oh, that would just do me in. That just feels wrong on so many levels.
I’m sorry about all the reminders, though. That sounds awful. We don’t have that many, and when our boys were young, all that hadn’t become a thing yet. I had no idea it had gotten that bad. And on top of that the daily stack of papers they send home to be signed and filled out. It must feel like complete bombardment. I mean, reminders are good.. … but this seems excessive.
I am really hoping that the fundraiser ends soon, it has been going on for a month already. I get two copies every day because it is a set of siblings. So done! And then my next hope is that I am not forever on some mailing list for this school so that they do this at every fundraiser!
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For me right now it is a public school fundraiser for a family member that is emailing me every day to tell me they haven't earned enough yet for the next prize level! Seriously! This on top of all those other appointment reminders for 4 minor kids. Go away public school fundraiser!
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On top of brushing, I find a waterpic, flossers designed for braces, and those small bristle things that you poke up between the brackets really help with reaching harder to get areas.
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18 hours ago, gardenmom5 said:
I really think men are babies about temperatures.
My husband is better about high temps than I am. I am a baby (well actually an irritable crank) if it is too hot. I have a medical reason why, but still. I can do really well in cold. We keep our house rather warmer than most during the summer to not overuse the AC. And we keep it cooler in winter too. I would so much rather layer up in the cold than have an overheated house. I like to sleep in a cold room too. I remember as a child sleeping in my great grandmother's Victorian home on a very very old spring bed. The underside of you would be very cold at first from the draft through the bottom of the thin mattress over the springs. It had lovely warm quilts though, so you actually would warm up and sleep well.
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38 minutes ago, Elizabeth86 said:
I am curious if your family would consider canned tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches qualify as dinner at your house or would your group expect more?
We would add a salad. The teens would eat more than one sandwich though.
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Some of it I agree, people should have known ahead of time that the area of choice might not have been the best. Some others (including myself) were already well established before the climate changed the area. I now live in a fire risk area. It wasn't before. It used to be so wet that there really wasn't a fire season. That has changed. We prep as best we can, but we cannot afford to move. Others live in these areas because the cost is low due to the risk of floods etc. and it is what they can afford. I do think that living on sandbars or right on the beach, especially in a hurricane area, is not a good idea. And I think that when it is decimated (like in Ian) there should be more thought put into where rebuilding happens and where it should be given back to nature as an unlivable location.
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1 minute ago, Indigo Blue said:
I don’t understand what caffeine sensitivity has to do with anything, but that was one of the questions on the quiz. And…….I have the most crazy insane caffeine sensitivity even to tiny, tiny amounts.
I think it might be that since you already tend toward being sensitive, things that increase the stimulation you feel makes it worse. Caffeine is a stimulant.
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49 minutes ago, Pawz4me said:
Sure. But some of the questions on that HSP quiz I linked to ask about needing quiet time to recharge, or seeking less stimulating environments. I think most of the questions on that quiz would fit right on a quiz about introversion, too.
I didn't check that box because the spirit of it was "aloneness" and I still got a 24. The truth is though... I do want that darkened room and the quite space, but not alone. I want another quiet person to be with me. To feel like I can come down from being over stimulated and talk it out if I want to or be quite and just feel their presence. Being entirely alone rarely feels good. Maybe I am my own strange flavor. LOL! I am cool with that.
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I am both HSP and Empath and also an extrovert. You can be, but more like extrovert lite. In other words, being completely alone doesn't fill me up, it drains me. However, being in a crowd also drains me (the noise, the emotions of all the people in the room, the warmth of too many bodies). I recharge by being with one or two people that I am very comfortable with and that are wanting to do something fun and relaxing. And yes, my FOO was really tough, I was "too sensitive" or "making a mountain out of a molehill" or "dramatic" etc. I am extremely sensitive to things I watch, stories people tell, and the moods of others around me.
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9 hours ago, katilac said:
That's rude in any context, though, so it's a valid thing to correct.
Indeed, it is rude. It was an example about learning to listen and meet the needs of each other. Mutual respect. Kids have to learn to not be rude, even when they aren't meaning to be, and adults need to learn to respect the autonomy of kids.
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14 minutes ago, Soror said:
The lack of autonomy bothered me in school and it is so much worse now (why I mentioned it up thread). Daughter was not allowed to carry her own asthma inhaler. Or even carry otc meds. Required to go to a nurse but then they are only allowed to give Tums even if you sign otherwise, unless you get a doctor's signature they can't give otc meds. I've told mine take whatever they need with them and be discreet. By the time they get to Jr high-7 they can go to the bathroom but all grades below that they can only rarely go. It was a big deal for DD as she was constantly having to hold her pee or not drink and the teachers defend these practices. We gripe about kids not taking responsibility and control everything they do.
This bothered me as well. It continued through high school at my school. I had really irregular periods and my teachers wouldn't let me go to the restroom until passing period because "I should manage my time better." Um...
It was so ingrained in me from public school that my first week in college I raised my hand once in class to ask to use the restroom and everyone looked at me like I had 3 heads. I was so embarrassed. I didn't know we could just leave if we needed to.This is one thing I love about homeschooling. If my kid needs to go to the restroom or grab a drink or snack or whatever, all I ask is that they tell me before just taking off. I have a few that wander. It is really frustrating if they just get up and walk away when you are mid-sentence. I have never minded if they let me know what they need so I can pause for them though.
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14 minutes ago, Harriet Vane said:
ETA--Realizing I misread the idea. It's not a break every 15-20 minutes, it's outside time once per hour. Yes, we did that, too. It probably worked out more like a longer break of about 15 minutes roughly every hour and a half for us.
This is what I was thinking. Working for 1.5 hours (not necessarily strict seat time, but actively doing something for most of that time) and then a recess. So mini breaks in a 1.5 hour time frame and then a bigger break. Lots of movement while also learning. But today I am going to try the 60 min mark instead and do 10 min breaks and see how that goes. I am all for shifting if it works better.
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6 minutes ago, Harriet Vane said:
I don't think the proposal is for a full recess every 15-20 minutes. The idea is that kids need movement and a break that often.
My son was very much in this camp. He's completely neurotypical, but he's also a high-energy person. I used a timer when schooling him. He knew that as long as he worked diligently, he could stop working when the timer went off. This helped him enormously! Then as he grew older, he bargained with me to "save up" his minutes--if he completed an assignment with time to spare, he could save those extra minutes and get a super-long break later. In this way he effectively trained himself to work for longer periods.
My son really did take breaks 2-3 times an hour. They were very short breaks, but absolutely essential. It didn't take forever to re-engage either of my kids into their work. When it happens frequently, it's just a part of life and the routine sustains the transitions.
It was also essential for both my kids to be able to change the type of work they were doing frequently.
Obviously there are varieties of personalities as well as kids who have special needs. But in general, frequent breaks are do-able and helpful.
I think that is what I was misunderstanding. I didn't see how a full recess that often was going to help get school on track. How would that work? But yes, wiggle breaks, more movement, stop pinning kids to constant seatwork, do take recesses (rather than no recesses at all) etc. I am intrigued by the Finnish school 10 min break every 45-60 min or so. I am going to try it. Usually, I have little mini breaks between each time we switch between books (which is every 25 min or so). By mini break I mean just a few min to get up, sharpen a pencil, find the right book, grab a drink of water, etc. I am not an ogre who doesn't give breaks. But I do work like this for a concentrated 1.5 hours or so before a real 15-20 min break.
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3 minutes ago, HomeAgain said:
I hate wobble seats and the like. Movement should be incorporated into work, not in addition to work. It splits the concentration in a lot of kids and they end up focusing more on the activity they're producing than the work they are learning. Yes, more movement needs to happen, but it needs to assist the work given.
A break every hour is not unreasonable. A child can only concentrate for so long at a time and needs time to relax their brain. An hour and a half or two hours of concentration is directly against what science says a child can handle.
Other countries manage more frequent breaks. Heck, when I was a kid we had first grade from 8:20-1:30. During those hours we had two recesses, a 45 minute lunch, and a rotating special (p.e., library, music, art). That's 5 hours with at least 1.25h devoted to free play and another 45 minutes that was usually directed activity. It wasn't much more than an hour between free time, if that.
In contrast, the first grade I was in last year had 2 hours of language arts before a "break", where they sat at their desks, watched a 10 minute video, and ate a snack without talking. Another 1.5 hours until a short lunch, sitting at their desk with 15 minutes outside. Math for another 2 hours in the afternoon, and then a 30 minutes "special".
Recess is gone. Children are suffering. Wobble seats aren't going to fix the need to have downtime between learning periods.
I know recess is gone and children are suffering. I do not disagree with that at all. I also agree that wobble seats do not fix lack of downtime. I do think they help the kids who cannot sit still AT ALL no matter how many breaks you give them. I use one with my 5th grader. It is the stool kind that the base isn't flat. On a regular chair he just fell out of the seat or ended up standing on it. With the wobble seat he can move and that helps him focus and also not break his focus by falling out of the chair. I realize that is not needed for many people. That is ok too.
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Interesting! I would really like to see this in action, especially with kids that have difficulty with transitions (I have a few of them).
Edited to add: I am actually going to try this right now on my fifth grader. I am all for learning and being wrong about my own views! 🙂 I just set a 1 hour timer. Then I will send him off for a break and do that today and tomorrow and see how it goes. I would love to be wrong and have smoother days. He is my most challenging kid to teach!
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1 hour ago, Heartstrings said:
The biggest thing that would solve discipline issues is MORE RECESS. They should go outside for 15-20 minutes every hour.
I absolutely agree that more recess needs to happen, however 15-20 min every hour would be a nightmare. It wouldn't even work in my homeschool. The disruptions and then trying to get them back into a lesson would take forever. Lots of kids have a hard time gaining focus ground and once they have that focus you really don't want to disrupt it. Other kids have a really hard time with transitions. That would make so many transitions! I think it makes a lot more sense to have things like wobble seats, standing desks, and fidgets to include more movement during lessons while also increasing the number of recesses. Just not as often as 15-20 min every hour. I think a kid should be able to handle an hour and a half to two hours or so and then get a 20-30 min break. Of course, the teacher can do stretch and wiggle breaks in the classroom too as needed.
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Charlie's liquid soap. Eco safe and also skin safe...no MCI/MI, parabens etc.
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4 hours ago, shawthorne44 said:
I've even idly toyed with the idea of sewing one for myself.
You should. It is not very hard if you know how to sew.
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To answer the above, I do go bra free at home a good portion of the time and I do not care about my sons seeing. They are used to it and it is not an issue. They usually go around just in shorts and I do not make a deal out of that either. In public though, they wear shirts and I wear a bra. I see plenty of people that don't, but I feel more comfortable with my level of bustiness not drawing attention to them.
Sunglass options for eyeglass wearers? All set, thanks!
in The Chat Board
Posted
I also have progressives. Like others mentioned, transitions don't work in the car. I ended up getting my daily glasses in transitions and then a prescription pair of sunglasses for driving. Since my distance vision doesn't change as fast as my near vision, I have not had to change up the prescription sunglasses for a few years. I will probably need to soonish.