I did not read until I was 12, and graduated from a top-10 univeristy "magna cum laude" by 21. You have time. Not all kids progress at the same speed, but this does not indicate that they are slow. Take deep breaths, and meet your child where he is at.

The p-sets and the olympiads are designed at multiple levels. So you could have your son just do the 'basic' level, and skip the other 2/3rds. My ds did WOOT for 3 years, and graduated from basic, to moderate, to advanced over that period. Have him do problems in the 'zone of proximal development.' I should also add, that within a year of answering the advanced problems at WOOT, he was taking grad classes in math at MIT. So don't expect to be able to do the advanced work right away as it is crazy hard!

Announcement made! NZ is going down to its lowest level - so gatherings of any size allowed and no masks or social distancing required. Auckland will remain at gatherings restricted to 100 people for 2 more weeks. Masks required on public transport for Auckland. 155,000 tests in the community have been completed in the past 3 weeks, with zero new cases. There has been zero cases linked to the Auckland cluster for the past 7 days. The others from the prior 2 weeks were family members who had already been put in the quarantine facilities even though they had not yet returned a positive test, so they were not in the community. The 3 new cases from the person with the 21 day incubation over the weekend have been contained because they were vigilant and got tested ASAP when feeling unwell. So he did not spread it to anyone besides his 2 family members. The PM was very thankful for the family's quick thinking, as it saved us from another outbreak. So it looks very positive that elimination v2 is in process.

Wow! going down fast!

They are currently checking the only other place he could have gotten it from - which was his flight from Auckland to his quarantine facility in Christchurch. So they are testing all those passengers and crew. But his case links genomically to 2 other cases on the flight from India, so it is likely from that. They will also be checking all the footage from days 1 and 2 in the lower level quarantine before the 2 people who tested positive were moved to a different hotel for the higher quarantine. I'm sure we will hear more about the investigation as it may impact advice to travelers once they leave quarantine. I doubt they will extend the time to 3 weeks to catch a 1 in 30,000 chance. What I quoted was all that I have seen so far. But when there is more info, I'll post the link. We hear today about dropping down alert levels. We were hoping to have all restrictions removed for the country except Auckland. But we will see.

We have wool duvets with duvet covers. The covers are washed about once a month (we have a top sheet so no skin contact with the covers). But the wool duvet inners!?!?! Never.

I completely agree.

Bad news. A person did the full 14 day quarantine, returned 2 negative tests (day 3 and 12), went home and infected 2 of his family members. He tested positive on day 21 so well outside the standard incubation period of the virus. Looks like he got it from the flight to NZ as it matches the genome sequences of 2 other people on the flight. "The case reported yesterday is a recent returnee who arrived in New Zealand from India on August 27 and completed managed isolation, returning two negative tests at the facility in Christchurch, before returning home to Auckland on September 11." Yesterday's case was tested again after developing symptoms five days later, and returned a positive result. "He and his household contacts self-isolated when he developed symptoms. They were all moved into the Auckland quarantine facility on September 18, when the first case returned a positive result." The Health Ministry said all identified close contacts have been isolated and tested. It said while the source of the infection was still under investigation, genome sequencing was consistent with two confirmed cases from the same flight from India that landed on 27 August. "It is possible that this case was infected during that flight and has had an extremely long incubation period - there is evidence that in rare instances the incubation period can be up to 24 days. This person developed symptoms 21 days after he arrived in New Zealand. If this is the case, it sits well outside the standard incubation period of the virus.

A record 4979 covid tests were processed at MIT medical in one day on Wednesday, and they found zero cases. This is for 1100 undergrads living on campus, plus grad students, faculty, and staff. This is 2 weeks after all the students returned from all over the country. They started with 15 cases in the 1100 undergrads in the first few days, and have driven down the numbers though behavior and contract tracing.

I learned that the ex-slaves in Haiti had to pay back their masters for their value after they revolted and set up a free state. Yes, the ex-slaves were required to pay their masters, or France would invade! And it took 125 years to pay off the debt!!!!! The value they had to pay back represented between 3 and 10 years of their GDP, plus a ton of interest and service fees.

I use nappisan - I think it is called oxyclean in the USA. I have a bucket in my bathroom that all the towels go into, and every other day I dump the towels out and fill the bucket with nappisan and throw the towels back in. It is active for 24 hours, so I can keep adding towels to it during that time. So towels only sit damp and untreated for one day max, and I wash them every 2nd or 3rd day. It also means they get way cleaner than if you just wash them with soap. Nappisan is a chemical sterilizer.

Seven imported cases today from international flights, all in quarantine. And zero community cases for the third day in a row. Elimination v2 in progress. The government is hinting we will go as a country to level 1 alert on Monday, which is no restrictions at all. However, my guess is that they will keep masks on public transport, and Auckland will be at a group limit of 100.

Yup. And each ONE leading to 185 genomically-linked cases within a month (and obviously more if Auckland had not been in lockdown of work from home, no school, and no face-to-face shops/restaurants). And this without a super spreader event, just slow exponential infection. We currently have 35 imported active cases in the quarantine hotels, representing 14 days of imports. The cases are coming mostly from the USA and India. All are NZ citizens or permanent residents as all other visa holders are banned.

NZ's second biggest industry is tourism, so I hear you. But we are catching between 1 and 10 positive people EVERY day at the border even though there is only 400-500 people allowed in per day. And the ONE case that somehow made it through the border in the past 4 months has now made a cluster of 185 and that is with an *immediate* (as in 5 hours of discovery) lockdown in Auckland. I think that tourism is sunk throughout the world unless we can make covid-free bubbles, which looks to be incredibly tricky or even just impossible to accomplish.

1 case yesterday (but been in self isolation since 30 August), and zero cases today. Hoping we are now in the tail of elimination v2.

That is wonderful news!

My grandfather was diagnosed at age 46 in 1952 and lived until 88. His doctors told him that it was his active lifestyle to kept the parkinson's at bay. He gardened in his yard every day for hours and hours for my entire childhood. Roses, corn, peas, pumpkins. You name it, he had it. He also terraced his yard and made rock gardens. Back then the meds were not so good, but he stayed active until he was 80 when he started to really stiffen up.

This looks excellent. I think I can really use it! Thanks!

We are. Younger does 4.5 hours per day, 5 days per week. No work on the weekend or in the evenings. But to exclude his extracurricular activities is to exclude a huge part of his education. He is an active, social learner - so teaches violin a a local school, goes to drama club and a D&D club, and does a ton of PE (badminton, sports day, swimming, the gym, gymnastics.) He uses these activities to develop his leadership skills as he is keen to be either the mayor or a professional mediator -- so social skills are actually critical career path skills. The hours he puts towards formal traditional academics is below Farrar's estimate of a "solidly rich academic high school," but I would argue that we are accomplishing the skill set this boy needs in fewer hours because the skill set he needs goes beyond traditional classes.

My younger teen has two. 🙂 Two jeans, two long sleeve shirts.

I've been lactose intolerant since I was 12. Pretty obvious solution, don't eat dairy. I can handle: 1) super hard cheeses like rock hard parmesan. 2) high quality butter. This contains dairy fat not the sugar lactose if the butter is of high quality. 3) yogurt if it is not cut with milk and congealed with gelatin. You can tell by looking at the sugar content of the plain version in the brand, it should be close to zero, because any sugar in the plain is lactose. I also found that when I was on stomach acid blocking medicine, my tolerance for ANY lactose went to zero. So then, even the above 3 were out as they are still contaminated with lactose. I have never bothered with fake dairy or with lactase. After a while, you lose your desire for dairy, because when you eat it, you feel sick. So kind of a Pavlov's dog thing.

During our lockdown, Every. Single. Homeless person was given a hotel room and taken care of. The *entire* population went into lockdown. And now people say, if we could take care of our homeless population then, why not now? There has to be a will, I guess.

During our lockdown, people took it *very* seriously. Each household was a bubble and there was no mixing between bubbles that I ever heard about from anyone I knew. None. Every household was an island. Because no one was driving, pedestrians walked in the middle of the city streets rather than on the sidewalks so that they could remain distanced from everyone. When you walked on a path in the woods, people would stop and stand in the bushes to let you pass with 2 meter distance. Attitude of the population is key, not the strictness of lockdown orders themselves.

As for showing your work (nice image you posted!), the assessment criteria requires 'mathematical statements.' So you can't just put crap out of your head down on the paper and expect it to be ok. You must actually write math correctly.

Oh, I will also add that NZ does not have a 'percent correct' grading system. It has a 'levels of thinking' grading system. So yes you get partial credit, but the credit you gain depends on the thinking you demonstrate. Memory/Manipulation/Understanding Concepts = C ; Relational thinking = B, Generalizaions/abstraction/insight = A. So if a student can do all the algebraic manipulation, that is only worth a C. So the work that this student I've been talking about needs to practice is just C level work. Even if she gets 100% correct right, it is still only a C because she has not shown higher level thinking skills. She and I are working on her getting a B or even an A. That is one of the reasons I don't want to put even *more* time into manipulating algebra. She needs to be able to *use* it to get a good mark. Definitely a different system than America and I have taught in both systems.