Jump to content

Menu

Tsuga

Members
  • Posts

    8,866
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    7

Everything posted by Tsuga

  1. Scrabble, Quiddler (another word-making game but not really "educational"... just nerdy), Gobblet, Pentago, poker. :)
  2. Thanks. That is helpful. The reason we're not doing favorites is that I don't want to discourage her from reading for fun. I'm really trying to ensure she improves her skills while at the same time begins to enjoy reading and "getting into" the story without pressure. Regarding simple questions... yes, I do that, and I agree it's good scaffolding. However at school she's required to answer broad questions to move to the next level. It's still good to know and I will try to use questions that are more developed to get her "there". Adorable! She might really like this. Thanks! Great point. Like she could re-tell her soccer game today and we could use the same thing... Okay, okay, I'll look into it. We afterschool so don't have a huge budget for materials (or time) but it sounds like it's really helpful. Yes, definitely. I explained that I understood that my daughter was not able to re-tell the story in a way that demonstrated comprehension, but that at the same time the books she was getting were not helping, since it didn't matter how simple it was, she was still not able to answer such broad questions. I acknowledged the need to work on that skill but we did get her harder reading books which is nice. The teacher was very understanding about the asynchronicity. Nonetheless it is clearly a skill they work towards at the school (spiraling and advanced literacy is a big deal in this school, so they do go for advanced stuff early). Yep. The thing is, and this is bizarre, she reads chapter books for fun, but has a hard time reading the simple books and explaining them. I have quizzed her on a few parts of the chapter books just to ensure she's not faking and she does seem to get all the events and characters clearly, so I know she's understanding them at some level. But I don't want to over-do it on her recreational reading. Thanks for the software rec. I will keep it in mind! Thanks so much for all the great suggestions! We will try them today and I'll let you know how it works. :)
  3. I don't think it's excessive, no. On the other hand, I think that if the homework is structured in such a way (length, subject matter, etc.) that the parent is assumed to be responsible, it doesn't make sense to have the child face the entire consequence. If we're talking reading, math, and some other piece of work with a parent timing reading and signing something, that seems to me to scream, "we expect a parent supporting these activities." I think it's fine to take away recess time for messing around in class--that child already got their free time. But lost recess does not seem like a logical consequence in this case. To me the logical consequence would be that the child gets a reminder or is asked to write or draw how they will not forget next time. If they have time to work on that during class, great. But I also agree that it's not a hill to die on.
  4. Well, let me think. I hated those books, so what other books did I hate for the same reasons? Anything by the Brontes. Oh my god. Girly-girlness, indeed. Seriously though, I think a search on Amazon and looking at the "if you liked..." section would be helpful. Bridget Jones' Diary is a HILARIOUS take on those psychological / emotional books of that period and she might enjoy it when she's a bit older. I think the author based it partially on the Austens' work as well as Tom Jones by Henry Fielding ('cause, you know, Helen's last name is also Fielding). It's a very interesting interpretation of these novels and how we can apply some of their values and perspectives to our own lives. I feel the Bridget Jones books are vastly under-appreciated, personally. And of course, Tom Jones, from the same period, gives the male version of all this, which is a very interesting perspective for her. Warning--it's pretty male, meaning, what are undertones in Emma and Sense and Sensibility are overtones in Tom Jones. I.e. there's sex in it. Not graphic, but clearly sex and not just euphemisms that a child won't get.
  5. "Winter is coming" doesn't have to go on a new line since it's not a new speaker, though. There are no other speakers before that.
  6. Along the same lines, in a jokey way: "Not with that attitude you couldn't!" (It's funny and you get them back... :) "You know, I'd love to explain it to you but I've been thinking about it all day so I'm a bit tired of it right now. If you're interested in considering it, I'd be happy to set up a time and go over our decisions and what we do with you, during my working hours when I'm doing curriculum development." Most people will decline, but those who don't will be truly interested.
  7. Warning: this is more of a vent and it has to do with learning and not curriculum, though I'm open to curriculum suggestions! My daughter (7) isn't into comprehension, or possibly retelling. Not of movies, books, or anything, really. She can explain her own opinions and interests, but retelling a story in terms of plot is just not happening. She can answer simple fact-based questions, literal questions, about movies and books. But when it comes to retelling a story or answering questions about the logic in it, she absolutely cannot do anything. It's super frustrating because she doesn't get to do more advanced reading from school (What was it about? A person. Okay, here's an easier book.) but the reality is that she does that even with told stories, and with movies as well! No matter how easy the book is, or how childish the short cartoon, she doesn't seem to re-tell it properly. Is this her not wanting to re-tell the story? Is it a comprehension issue? Like she truly cannot process a story as a plot? What could it be? I've explained to her how to retell the story (who is the person/animal, what problem do they have, how do they try to solve it, how does it finally get solved), but she seems to have zero capacity for understanding what I understand about the book or movie. (I emphasize movies because, fearing that she wasn't actually reading, we did this with a couple of movies... it was simultaneously comforting and concerning to realize that she just doesn't really care about the story or character motivations... ever. I'm like, what were you just processing then? The color scheme chosen by the animators? Seriously, what the heck?). I have explained the purpose of retelling and tonight we talked about how I do not actually give a hoot about the story, that in fact when I ask her about it I'm testing her knowledge, and this is how she proves what she knows. I explained that reading for school is her job and how we all read stuff that we don't enjoy at times, and at that time, our job is to understand what we are reading, to look for the person, the problem, the attempt at a solution and solution, and the lesson in it. I have explained how boring it can be but how we all read boring stuff for work and how fun reading we will not quiz her on. Hopefully this helps. But if you have any tips, I'd love to hear them. I just can't believe that she truly is incapable of understanding the plot even of the simplest Bob book or Little People cartoon when she can discuss real-life events with enthusiasm. But maybe I'm wrong.
  8. I'm terrible at memorization, but I can't believe how much it has helped me. Even though I learn in a symbolic, almost non-verbal way, I have found that learning to memorize words and names and timelines is actually helpful, even if that's not how I fully comprehend the information. It's just a helpful life skill. My second daughter, like me, memorizes meanings and not words. So for her, memorizing a poem the first time has her essentially rewriting the poem when she "recites it" in her own words. Then we talk about why the poet chose the words s/he did, and the rhythm, and we go over it again, and again. It takes her twice as long as her sister. However, her sister takes twice as long to get math, and we're not giving up on that, either. ;)
  9. I memorized the Declaration of Independence, the preamble, as an adult because it's just so gorgeous. Plus, as a liberal, it has helped me in more conversations than you can possibly imagine. I can go word by word and tell people just how American my supposedly pinko-commy beliefs are. :) I also know the Bill of Rights, but not word for word--I memorized the amendments. Used to know it word for word. When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for people to dissolve political bands which have tied (?) them together, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station which the laws of nature and nature's god entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to separate. We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, and endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, among them life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundations upon... such principles and organizing its powers in such form as to them seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Etc. Every time I recite it or read it it makes me cry. I think I could do about one more paragraph but after that I need to look. "I have a dream" is also a beautiful, beautiful speech. If you go from the Declaration to the Gettysburg Address to I Have a Dream, plus the constitution and the bill of rights, I think you've got a good foundation.
  10. I have posted this on more message boards than you can imagine and all I know is that if routine or co-sleeping worked for everyone, nobody would ever have this problem. They would "just" co-sleep or "just" do the same thing every night for two months and voila. Normal life. I had great pregnancies, easy labors, and my kids are pretty nice but I'll never have another kid because I'm convinced I couldn't do the sleep deprivation again. It nearly killed me. I am sorry you're facing this. Sleep deprivation is like starvation--it has permanent and traumatic effects on all who suffer it. The No-Cry Sleep Solution did not work for us. :( At the end it tells you to CIO, very similar to Babywise... but just more gradual. Even that didn't work. She woke until about three. Every night. Until 2.5 years, every 2-3 hours. I am ashamed of the thoughts that went through my head when I would awaken after years without sleep... My physical pain from exhaustion + mental anguish of being a failure of not getting her to sleep = sheer rage. It is for moments like that, that they give you a flyer that says, "Don't shake the baby." No, really. All I would think was, "I can't shake her. I can't hurt her." It was hard. Believe me I tried everything. I'm so glad I'm through that phase and my thoughts are with you. Edited: forgot a "for".
  11. We do other things for fine motor skills. For coloring, it's whatever you want. My oldest never liked coloring and never was much within the lines (even at six, she just doesn't care--just wants to get the sheet done). My second is more creative and never colors a patch the same color. So long as he's getting fine motor practice elsewhere, as it sounds like he is, coloring in the lines is not important. Until, of course, he's supposed to "color all the squares brown". Then I draw the line and say, "I have to be able to tell which ones you colored brown." But that is not what you are talking about here. In fact I even once said to my little one, "This is math, not art. Please color the boxes so I can see you understood the instructions." She colored them very quickly, with zero finesse, but she got the answer right, so who cares.
  12. I usually don't say this, but I think it. I think, "This person has the patience of 10 Ghandis, the charity of 1,000 Mother Theresas, and the energy of a thousand suns. If I were forced to educate my own children, who make it a point to extract my soul with a spoon during every other interaction when I try to impart any amount of knowledge to them, I would surely be in the asylum by now, if not dead." I don't say anything because I know that it could be taken amiss, a la the I-could-never-do-your-husband comment above (though man, I could say that to so many women, haha). I just think it's a filter thing. A lot of people tell me I look exotic. Awesome. What they mean is, "You aren't white or black. Did you know that?" Yes. I noticed. :) I would think, "Yeah, my tolerance for the herd's influencing my kids is pretty high, and it comes from values that not everybody shares, but we sure do enjoy it. It works really well for us."
  13. That would take about 95% of my daily self control. Very proud of you. :)
  14. We all "work" outside of the home so I definitely don't have time to be anybody's maid. Yep, they have chores. Clean their room weekly. (Before going to play on Saturday.) Make beds daily (we use duvets so this literally takes one second even for a very small child). Empty dishwasher upon request. Set the table (napkins, cutlery). Wipe the table. Clean up all messes outside of their own room, on a daily basis. I think weekly chores beyond picking up the bedroom is not necessarily the best habit for many people. It allows things to get to a ridiculous point which can be overwhelming and kind of leads to an all-or-nothing approach for some. There should be an acceptable level of mess and once you hit that, whether it be a day in or 15 days in, then you clean up after yourself. For some, weekly chores and schedules work but for many others it is better to just keep cycling through. We have cats so we sweep daily and vacuum weekly or thereabouts.
  15. Health is mainly integrated into the curriculum here until it is really sexual biology, which begins in the fourth grade. At that time it's just regarding puberty, which, considering how many girls start their periods at 9 now, is worthwhile. Then in late middle school they get the sex information. My kids know the basics already so we're not to worried. The main reason it's a separate class later is because they want to give some families the chance to opt out of their kids knowing that girls have two holes and so on.
  16. I spoke with the teacher personally today (it was our conference day). She said that the teachers found the testing schema as bewildering and odd as many of the parents. She said this year all children testing even .7 years above grade level were tested, and that last year, when all kids one year ahead were tested, which was about half the class, still only about 1:20 of those tested got in. She said she had no recommendations as she'd hate to say no, don't test, but she also thought that it was an extremely wide category and that a lot of kids were bound to take the test and not get in. Moreover, she pointed out that there had been pupils coming back and telling other kids that they took the test. For heaven's sake. I think what we'll do, based on this, is tell her it's practice for the state tests. She has the opportunity to get some testing experience and do something a lot of kids in her class will be doing. It's a priviledge. Then they'll let us know how she did. There is no doubt that she'll do above average, even if she doesn't get it, so at the end there will be good news anyway. ("You're normal! Woot!")
  17. Well, I suppose that's a realistic thing to tell a child if you know she's profoundly gifted. With a normal distribution, you are going to have many more kids in the gray area where they could fall above or below the cutoff, than kids like your daughter who are so far away from the norm that she's only competing with a handful of children for the top spot. Let's say they'll take kids 2.5 standard deviations above the mean. One in 20 is probably being tested (let's just pretend they selected based on some normalized score and not recommendations). Of those, about 1 in 81 will get in. If your child is 3.5 standard deviations from the mean, then a mere hypothetical .5 children out of 1,000 are "competing" with her for that spot (so, one year she has a competitor, the next year, not), and of course the other children also trying to get in are, on average, are a full standard deviation below her in terms of typical performance. You can also see here that any public school program aimed at enriching the top 2% is going to have almost as wide of a distribution of intelligences as a regular classroom, because even though the regular classroom meets the needs of most kids, their intelligences are more clumped up near the mean. (Well, that is, if the normalization is not too far off from the actual distribution--but it might be quite a different shape. Point is for a lot of kids being tested, even rightfully tested, they have a good reason to think that they might not get in.) I don't believe that will be the case in my daughter's class, though. Her elementary school hosts the accelerated program, first of all, and they all play together of course, and on top of that she has quite bright friends. Thank you for your thoughts. I believe that in this school and district they are very deliberate and thoughtful about selection for testing. About 15% of children are tested annually. They do cast a wide net. So it's more likely that a child who will not get in, is recommended, than vice-versa. Part of my angst! Interesting idea. My daughter tends to get really stressed out under pressure. I can see how with some children it would work, though. If anyone else has ideas of how to present this as a non-stressful choice for her I'd really appreciate it. Everything helps because maybe I can combine some of them.
  18. You know, this is a good point. I haven't talked to her about it in hopes of shielding her from this dichotomy which is so much more loaded to me, than it is to her. We will have to talk about the test. I really don't want her to go in and feel that she "didn't make it". I guess I can present it more as being the right fit, more as a special-needs thing, that she can excel doing enrichment at home whereas these kids need more enrichment at school, which is true--ultimately accelerated learning is put in place for that very reason. Tips on presentation?
  19. Update: Apparently my child was recommended for the program (still needs testing) by the teacher, but I need to ask if this is a wide-net recommendation or if she thinks my daughter really needs acceleration. I also learned that the test takes seven hours! Yes, the district has a very high number of advantaged and academically-oriented families. Well, yes, but that's still the 57th% and above are college ready. My point was to highlight that a child who will test as "accelerated" in one district will not necessarily test that high in another district, because acceleration is ready. The top 2% here might overlap, score-wise, with the top .5% in a district where they have a large percentage of ELLs or children who are otherwise disadvantaged. Oh ugh, I didn't even think about that.
  20. I don't know if you are describing a learning disorder or not as that's not my area of expertise. I do know that my own daughter will not have me explain much of anything. We've gotten into huge battles over afterschooling and it's a big, big reason she's in public school and went to pre-school rather than learning at home. Quite frankly, she doesn't learn that much at home. She needs that motivation from outside of the home. She needs to see that this is "normal" and that math is something "everybody does" and that success at this is something that "all the kids" strive for. It's frustrating because I wasn't like that. So to make a long story short, I empathize with your frustration and I do think this sounds like so much stubbornness. However, I also do not envy you, being in the position of a possible learning disorder, which can erode your resolve, which further exacerbates stubbornness. If it were my daughter, I'd enroll her in a class outside the home and see what they say. Something relatively easy math-wise but also with some new material. And just be totally hands-off, and make sure they have high expectations for her. See how that goes. That will go a long way towards clarifying whether this is a stubbornness/relationship thing, or a true inability to process information. Good luck!
  21. Not in my family. We really don't tease in that way. We don't violate the "no". I don't think it's fair to expect that of all families. But yes, my opinion did come out stronger than intended. I will say again that my family also does not break ties lightly. You'd really have to endanger someone to get exiled from the community. Wet-willy = admonishment. Wet-willy =/= no Thanksgiving. Heck, my uncle used to irritate everyone so much that some people literally groaned when he walked in the room. Sad but true. We still invite him over. We still hug him and tell him we love him and send him Christmas cards. Even if he did punch my shoulder in a 'joking' way so that I got a bruise.
  22. Swellmomma, I see you are almost divorced. Congratulations on getting through that process. As a divorcee I know how agonizing and angst-filled the decisions are and how hard it is to go through that uncertainty. And losing weight on your schedule.... yeesh. You go, momma.
  23. I learned Russian while working abroad. To answer your questions: 1. Have you learned Russian, and are you a non-native speaker? Yes, but I've never been able to learn a language without extensive study of the language with another native speaker. 2. Are there good resources? One good thing about Russian is that there are excellent resources if you speak Russian. There are many books on Russian grammar for the teacher of Russian as a foreign language, because Russian is still taught as a second language in many ex-Soviet states. Another good thing about Russian is that we have a ton of Russians and ex-Soviet citizens who speak Russian fluently. You can probably find a conversation partner extremely easily, and find a Russian teacher (with a Master's in teaching the Russian language, if not a Masters in teaching Russian as a foreign/second language) without extreme difficulty. Because of the differences in pronunciation, I strongly recommend a phonics lesson once a week if you're very serious about learning the language. You don't want to get bad habits. 3. Is it possible? Anything is possible. :) You absolutely must learn the grammar. If you've already learned Greek and Latin, it shouldn't be too bad, as the cases are similar to those in Greek. Russians love their grammar. I mean they love the structure of their language. It's part of the art of speaking. Yes, it is complicated and deep, but it's also beautiful and allows for their poetry which is also something they are very proud of. If you do nothing but study grammar and vocabulary for a year while you save up for a tutor, it won't hurt: http://www.amazon.com/Comprehensive-Russian-Grammar-Terence-Wade/dp/1405136391 You cannot get by just learning by absorption. I don't know how Rosetta stone does Russian, but I'd advise saving it for later even if you do decide to speak, mainly because getting the underlying structure of the language is key. This publisher, издательÑтво руÑÑкий Ñзык, is in my opinion one of the best publishers for learning Russian. I get lots of compliments on my Russian for having learned it as an adult: http://www.rus-lang.ru/ If you get a tutor who is willing to work with you, he or she can get you some of the beginning books. They would be too difficult, with their grammatical explanations, for a beginner, unfortunately. I love Russian. LOVE IT. It's beautiful, the poetry is beautiful, the literature is beautiful. I think it's definitely a worthwhile language to learn, and it shows dedication and ambition on the part of the learner. Good luck!
×
×
  • Create New...