Well, after much googling, I found this, which might explain it somewhat: http://www.auburn.ed...urraba/sra.html Edit: ACK! I don't know why that copied the quote so tiny! Sorry! I can't seem to copy and paste it without the weird yellow background. However, it is quite legible if you follow the link.

It says at the bottom that it's from SRA/McGraw-Hill. I've seen a few of these sheets come home from time to time, but none have been this bizarre. The sad truth is that there isn't really a standard curriculum for his class. The teacher herself told me that she just prints stuff from various sites off the internet, and uses these workbooks that she got from another kindergarten teacher. She's a new teacher, and well....let's just say I'm looking forward to summer, when I can find something that works for ds and move him forward as he deserves.

The teacher told me that for that sheet, they say the word glasses. I completely and totally fail to understand what sense that makes, other than simply mindlessly following the given pattern. If that's the point, why not choose a picture that actually begins with /m/? I'm worried that this is going to confuse ds. He mastered all the Kindy sight words, and can locate CVC words from a list if I say something like, "Show me the word that says /p/ /a/ /n/." He can't speak (for reasons unrelated to his autism), so it's easy to overlook what he DOES know.

LOL, that's almost word for word what I said when I pulled the sheet out of his folder!

This worksheet came home in ds's "completed work" folder. He attends public school (special ed kindergarten). I had to have his teacher explain part of it to me, as both dh and I were completely baffled by it. The front is innocuous enough, even if it's strange that they chose that spelling for that particular phoneme, which has nothing to do with the rest of the sheet : The back, however, left us scratching our heads. According to the teacher, the top part is a puzzle. The teacher repeats several times, "Glasses, /m/," and then the kids are supposed to write the /m/ letter in the box beside the glasses. Same thing for the "Bell, /s/," section. :huh:

...deceased. Even though my MIL and I had our conflicts from time to time, it breaks my heart that my kids never really got to know her or FIL. He passed away when my oldest was not quite a year old, and MIL passed away 2 days after my youngest was born. I didn't even notice I was in labor for several hours, because we were keeping vigil at her bedside in ICU. I delivered dd on one floor of the hospital, while she was dying on another. :crying: Thankfully, a sweet nurse on the maternity ward pulled some strings, and they let us take the baby over to palliative care so that MIL could see her before she died.

My dd uses this: http://www.amazon.com/Learning-Resources-Rainbow-Fraction-Tiles/dp/B001604R1G

When I was teaching, I used to make my students give me a shoe as deposit for any pencils borrowed. Never had a problem with disappearances after that! We seem to have a black hole in our house that only attracts socks and hair bows. Sigh.

Regarding how much sugar is in various food items, this visual may be helpful: http://www.sugarstacks.com/

Oh my goodness, my little one gets this all the time as well! Actually, more often than not, there's no parent around, so the other kid just stares at dd without speaking or moves away, ignoring her entirely. It breaks my heart to see her try multiple times to engage a kid who's doing that (hey, that's what having a brother with autism will do for ya--you learn not to give up the first go 'round!). It happens all over the place too, so it's not just any one group of kids; it seems to be a pattern.

That has been required for SC students since the late 90s. A good portion of the state test required 3rd graders and up to not only complete multi-step problems, but to also write a sentence explaining their answer. I will never forget what one sweet little girl wrote on her test 13 years ago, during my first year as a teacher. Bless her heart, she tried so very hard in math, but struggled all year. The state testing was nerve-wracking for her. On one question, which involved all 4 operations as well as extraneous information, she was asked to explain how she found her answer. She wrote, "I thoughted and I thoughted and POOF it come to me." :laugh: All these years later, and I still find myself hoping she got full credit for that explanation! As it happens, though, having to score those sorts of questions took a long time, so that testing results were not back until September or October of the following school year. It was also costly to pay for the time involved in scoring, so as budgets were cut, so were the number of open-ended/essay questions outside of ELA.

Biltmore with a toddler can be challenging. Our oldest did fine, but our younger 2 were FAR too active and curious to do well inside the house. The WNC Nature Center can be a nice break, and they do reciprocal admission if you happen to be a member of an AZA Zoo. ETA: If the weather is pretty and it's open, the farm exhibit at Biltmore is fun. I'm not sure when it opens, though. Malaprops bookstore downtown is a fun place to stop in for a break. I wish we had something similar here.

During today's science lesson on thermal conductors and insulators, Bug surprised me by saying, "You know what, Mama, I think my skin is a good conductor of heat energy. See?" She then pulls up her sleeve to show me a grid-like burn pattern on her arm. :huh: Apparently, she accidentally burned herself a few days ago, while moving the little space heater in her bedroom, and she'd been hiding it from me because I harp at her all the time about being careful around the heater. I guess I should just be glad she made the connection between school and life, right? :glare: Tell me she's not the only kid around here to reveal something like that during school!

Gift cards to a grocery or restaurant that delivers could be very useful, and they won't wilt or have to find a home after the service. Anyone helping out IRL could use it for her, if need be. Not everyone likes the deli meat tray that seems to be the standby around here. ;) I'll be happy to contribute via Paypal if someone organizes it.

Some of y'all might enjoy this TED talk: The part around 4:00 where she talks about her realization of connectedness blew me away.

I think if you will click on the "Activity Plans" here, you will find what you need. :) http://www.girlscoutsrv.org/get-involved/volunteers/troop-leaders/planning-guides/planning-daisy/ P.S. Boy, do I wish *our* council was this organized!

I'm so very sorry.

http://www.youtube.com/user/TollyOnLine/videos They're vintage instructional films, with all the caveats that go along with vintage stuff, but the ones I looked over would be great for kids who could use social stories, particularly the "Everyday Courtesy" one.

:ohmy: I did NOT! Thank you!

You are nowhere near depressing enough to be like Hemmingway!

http://www.collegehumor.com/article/6872071/8-new-and-necessary-punctuation-marks My favorite is the sinceriod.

DS had surgery to remove his adenoids and place ear tubes yesterday. After the procedure, before they brought ds to the recovery room, the surgeon stopped by and said that ds had done fine, but that he'd been surprised to discover that ds had a bifid uvula. He went on to say that this means ds "nearly had a cleft palate, but it most likely fused most of the way back, just not to his uvula." He explained that he had left some of ds's adenoid tissue, "to ensure that the space between the nose and the mouth is closed." He then proceeded to get out the ear drops and discuss what to do with those, and to write ds's antibiotic prescription and go over how to administer that. Then he sped away, off to do his next surgery. I'd never heard of a bifid uvula, so while I waited on ds to arrive, I googled. Turns out that this is often associated with a submucosal cleft palate--basically a hidden cleft in the soft palate that is covered by tissue so that it does not show up on visual examination. Given that ds has been unable, despite YEARS of speech therapy, to produce even a single consistent word, and only a limited number of sounds, this was intriguing to me. Had we stumbled upon a structural cause for his lack of speech and difficulty eating?!? Even before this surgery was ever discussed, I've been plagued with the idea that we should have long ago tried to rule out any structural or brain abnormalities, but I feel that due to ds's autism diagnosis (he actually scores "mild" on the autism assessments, fwiw), professionals are not particularly concerned with his lack of speech. It feels like they all just figure, "Oh well, of course he's not talking! It's because he's autistic." Once we arrived at home and got ds settled, I called our regular pediatrician's office to see what our next step would be. They told me to call the ENT who'd done the surgery, that HE would be the one to determine that. So, I called the ENT and spoke with the supidest receptionist to ever walk the face of the Earth. :glare: Eventually, I was able to leave a message for the ENT's secretary. She called me back today to say that the doctor wanted me to know that ds's issue "won't affect his health at all, so don't worry about it. He'll discuss any questions you have at his 6 month follow-up visit." Gah. As background, ds never babbled as a baby, though he did make some sounds while chewing or nomming on toys. He's always had difficulty with overstuffing his mouth and gagging on certain textures like yogurt or pudding. We have no idea if his voice would be hypernasal or not (one of the indicators of the submucosal cleft palate) because he simply doesn't speak. I don't really know what his voice sounds like. :( His only sounds are /m/, /v/, /ah/, /oo/, /ee/, and a sort of /s/ that he tilts his head down to produce, and which often sounds like a soft /sh/. He can't combine any of those, so no Mama, for example. DH thinks I should just wait and talk to the ENT in August. I don't understand why someone can't order an x-ray before then to either confirm or rule this out. It's not freaking brain surgery, for goodness sake! It seems to me that if the ENT thought there was zero potential for the submucosal cleft palate, he wouldn't have left any adenoid tissue like he did. A SMCP can also be associated with certain serious genetic disorders, although ds had a microarray genetic testing done right after his autism diagnosis, and the report said that they found no abnormalities. I guess that would have included the most serious (a 22q11.2 deletion), but I'm not sure. I don't want to be the crazy mama pushing for unnecessary tests, but I am having a difficult time with feeling like no one but me is interested in the WHY of ds's speech issues. The only other medical professional in ds's life for me to speak with is his developmental pediatrician, with whom he has an appointment May 1. Barring an emergency, it's virtually impossible to get a chance to speak with her outside regular appointments; she's just incredibly busy. Should I try to get her to investigate whether ds has this cleft issue, or just let it go and talk to the ENT later? If you think I'm being silly, say so, but please do so gently.

The Obamacare microchip one is driving me crazy. I've managed to sit on my fingers because of the particular people who've posted it so far, though.

The problem with them just finding vehicles on the side of the road is that they've been in the same area for a LONG time now, right? Plus, the Governor has presumably been sending his people out on scavenging patrols, and they are well within his range. So, why would there be so many cars just sitting around with both fuel AND keys all handy-dandy like? Eh, in the end, it's probably like the bathrooms on Star Trek. We're just supposed to accept that it's possible and move on. ;)

Ever seen Star Wars? ;) I'm sick of Rick, and both dh and I get frustrated that none of the characters think like a gamer (ie, trapping the zombies in burning pits, cleaning out the prison completely and securing it, etc). Where does all this gasoline for their vehicles come from?