I didn't know this! Thanks!

There's no way she can know that the rest of the family won't get it. In fact, it sounds to me like they probably WILL get it. Definitely reschedule!

Aww. What a sweet kid. And a good writer, too! Sounds like he had an eventful and worthwhile year 🙂

Aw, bummer. I was thinking about something computerized that would provide some worthwhile practice for 15 or so minutes a day for my 5th graders. I don't want Prodigy because I can't control what the kids work on. I don't think I can control the topics with ST Math or ALEKS either... hmmm. IXL is not good either because the kids will not want to click on any 3rd grade math topics when they're in 5th grade.

Has anyone tried ST math? I did a few sample games and they were pretty nifty. I especially like that there are limited/no words on the games. https://www.stmath.com/

This sounds great. I kinda wish I could do things over and not have $$$ debt from a college degree that I only kind of enjoyed getting. It took me at least 10 years of twists and turns, career-wise, to find something that I am good at doing and really like doing. Just the fact that your DD is thinking about the big picture (having a part time job for health insurance, for example), and has insight about herself (that she doesn't like who she becomes in an academic environment, despite the appearance of success) is very mature for a teenager. I went to college because it was "the next thing," without any self-reflection at all. If her mental health is not good in an academic environment, and she knows that for sure, there's really no point in encouraging her towards that direction. Recovering from trauma is no small task, and a marathon, not a sprint. I have a friend who is outwardly very successful, and inwardly an anxious, miserable mess. Nobody would know that from casually talking with her. She is hesitant to step off the career treadmill because... what could happen? What if she regrets it later on? She's already put in so much time! But the fact is, she is unable to function now.... all of her friends want her to GET OUT and do something, anything else... work at a coffee shop, ANYTHING, because it's clear to us that she may not be able to survive this level of stress. For real. For some reason, she is not able to do it yet, but it's scary watching her like this. Once your DD starts learning about the requirements for a small, organic farm, she may find that she needs to do some learning that requires college courses, and if that happens, she may be okay with it because it serves her larger goal. Or maybe she can get some kind of certification that does not require college, but that helps her towards her goals. Since she is really interested in learning about farming, I'm sure she will soak up opportunities to read books about it, do apprenticeships related to it, etc., and figure out the next step as it happens. I think it will be very important to her to connect with other people doing the same thing, so she can be connected to a community. Having people her own age to connect with will also be very important for her mental health - she will see that she's not the "odd one" doing something unheard of... because other people like her also think it's a valuable and fulfilling path. I'd love to read her blog... sounds right up my alley 🙂

I would be pretty furious if my AirBnB host had a party when I was renting the space!! It's bad enough when people are loud in hotel rooms, but to purposefully schedule a party when you have paying guests... geez!

Now THAT sounds like a neat place to go to school!

Yeah... I feel no desire to do any Christmassy things aside from relaxing and looking at twinkly lights. I don't want to buy or receive any presents.

Wow. That's awesome that she got through such difficult math 🙂 Did she ever talk about how she felt about her math skills?

Could be the same for this one! As long as he understands what he's doing, I'm fine with it...

I'm not trying to teach him to count on his fingers, I'm just surprised that he CAN'T, because for most kids it's so natural. I'm trying to figure out what his holdup is with "counting on"... maybe he's just not ready to move to a more abstract way of thinking about math.

Thanks for reminding me about generalization. I will find out how he does with our math concepts in other contexts. Also, gonna mix up the manips!

Hi all, thanks for the ideas. This child is 8. We're doing lots of Ronit Bird, and he does well with Cuisenaire rods. We will continue to use manipulatives as long as needed for counting and adding. He is pretty good at visualizing a number line and counting up in his head, but when it's a lot of counting up, like 8 + 7 or something, he makes mistakes. He can count up mentally +3 or +4 with no problem. It's just surprising to me because I've only met one other child who hasn't been able to count up by using fingers. I definitely think it's a matter of not really having a sense of quantities, like geodob said above... fingers are not connected to actual quantities when counting, it's just a recitation.

What would you think? Say, for something like 9+3. Child puts out 9 fingers, then gets stuck because there aren't 3 more fingers to count. When told to "put 9 in your head," and then count 3 more fingers.... blank stare. Clearly, this child doesn't understand "counting on." It's just a developmental stage that eventually comes with enough number sense, right? There's no rushing it, in my experience. This child does well with number lines.

Good idea. Off to make some lists!

Yep, that's where I'm at, but that's a whole 'nother discussion 😄

He's been getting Tier 2 but I'm pretty disenchanted with Tier 2, and Tier 1 for that matter. Our Tier 1 literacy program is not bad as far as phonics goes, but like any program, it goes too fast for a certain percentage of kids. And then they're in Tier 2, but a 30 minute Tier 2 session, with two kids with different needs, goes by ridiculously fast and it's so difficult to get enough done for both kids' unique needs. This is my gripe about education in general. In the push to accelerate kids and raise the standard for everybody, the "basics" get glossed over and many kids just never get them. This sets them up for Tier 2 or possibly even Tier 3, when "the basics" would have prevented a lot of troubles. /rant

I would love to do this... maybe if he enters SpEd after testing.

He can blend most of the time, but he'll just blend with the wrong vowel. Mop = m - a - p, map. But sometimes he'll do the "m-o-p, pot" kinda thing.

This is interesting! I'll have to digest it 🙂

Ah, that's what I hope happens here. That would be awesome. That must be what happened with my 5th grader suddenly knowing ALL the vowel teams.

Articulation is fine, it's just remembering which sound goes with which vowel.

Exactly.

He had fun today running around the room between the two vowel cards I had on the wall. I say "spit," he runs to "i"! 🙂