underthebridge
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Posts posted by underthebridge
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On 10/26/2018 at 9:35 PM, Farrar said:
Even if you didn't change your name you have to prove you're married? But men don't??? How is that... not discriminatory? Like, I get if you've had a name change. But... otherwise? That seems really... wrong. Like, what?
Exactly.
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Wirecutter has their top boots here, and NY Magazine has their top boots here.
I have Columbia Omni Heat, but I wouldn’t stand around in subzero weather in them. They are very lightweight and kind of sneaker like. I wear Sorel’s when I have to walk through slush. Mine are years out of stock, but sort of a cross between these
https://www.sorel.com/womens-snowlion-xt-boot-1573951.html
https://www.sorel.com/womens-joan-of-arctic-boot-1708791.html
The Skechers boots on the NY Mag look great.
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On 10/14/2018 at 12:44 AM, madteaparty said:
The issue is not affordability, though that’s a huge huge issue. The issue is getting in. There’s so few spots, even at the entry points. I’m applying for little DD for 3rd grade and basically there’s only spots open if families leave, and I’m sure with our family profile we wouldn’t be first on the waitlist list.
Private schools in NY like to give the perception that there are very few open spots because it enhances their reputation. In actuality, there are always spots because people are always moving in and out of the city. Families move to the suburbs, they get relocated abroad, etc. Kids also change schools. The average attrition rate is over 5% everywhere simply due to the nature of working in Manhattan.
We were told there were no spots when we applied and it turned out our child was one of 6 new kids that year.
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James’s. It looks odd, but it is grammatically correct, as in St James’s Park of London. And the more you use it, the less odd it looks! And we do say both ‘s’ sounds in James’s, so it reflects the pronounciation.
I believe the exception is when the final s is not pronounced, so it would be Albert Camus’ writings. Or the writings of Albert Camus to avoid the issue altogether.
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Try posting to the booksleuth discussion on Abebooks
http://forums.abebooks.com/n/forumIndex.aspx?dbg=6&webtag=abebook0000dx&mobile=y
There are many regulars who are amazing at sleuthing out book titles.
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4 hours ago, workingmom said:
Yes, please forward me the video clip, that might resonate with her.
I will prep ahead of time and see how we can motivate and just have a sense of self confidence with the work.
There are several clips of him talking about it - here is one in a speech he gave to a school. He talks about it in the first couple of minutes. He gave quite a number of “back to school” speeches that are inspirational.
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7 hours ago, workingmom said:
Underthebridge
how do you tackle planning for the week? We’re in same situation with dd 9 4th grade. She reluctant to do any extra work and I want to get her excited about learning again. So far we have soccer this season. Hoping to start reading comprehension and read alouds once soccer done (that will free up m/w/sat)
she has math assigned but struggles with word problems (she knows how to do but doesn’t like to bc of the thinking involved)
any tips you’re using both to schedule yourself and to teach 4th grader would be helpful.
Hi workingmom, it’s difficult, isn’t it? Planning and motivation are two different beasts, and you need both to get anything done.
At the end of the summer, I pull out all the material I would like to get through during the academic year. I count the lessons and put post it flags to mark off where we should be by the end of each trimester. Those serve as a rough guide for me to see if we are on track during the school year. I don’t have a specific plan for each week because we would never be able to stick to it. Some weeks are just busier than others.
I spend a chunk of time upfront to proclick all their books so that I can pull pages out quickly. Each child has a folder. I pull the worksheets I want them to do, circle the problems I want them to answer, and change out their folders every day. I don’t assign every problem on every page. Sometimes for Singapore IP, DD9 just does the “Take the Challenge” section, especially for units like “Tables and Graphs” and “Shapes”. Eliminating the process of flipping through the books, struggling to keep them open to the right page, and trying to write in the creases, allows my kids to waste less time.
Somehow, we manage to get through most of the materials by the end of the year, and anything remaining, we finish up in the summer.
As for motivation, kids respond in different ways. My younger child sees my older child doing it and thinks that’s just the way it is. Last year, DD9 went through a reluctant phase, so I showed her a clip of President Obama talking about how his mother woke him up at 4am every day to study. I explained that we afterschool to exercise her brain and make it powerful. I showed her last year’s math notebook and how she had struggled over problems that seem simple to her today. I explain that doing just a small amount every day can lead to amazing results. I try not to reward her for doing the work, but on Fridays, she has the option to do the work and have iPad time or not do any afterschooling or iPad at all. She usually chooses to do the work. It also helps that she has peers who also afterschool. Several of her friends also afterschool in one way or another and commiserating about it helps her to understand that it’s not just her.
Sometimes we take a break for a week or two. Having my kids in full time school gives me the leeway to be able to do this and not feel any regrets about falling behind.
Word problems get tricky and time consuming for 4th grade and up. I tell my DD that this is real math. The reason we have math in the first place, is to solve word problems. And any time we use math in everyday life, it is to solve a word problem.
Good luck! It’s so helpful for me to hear about what other people are doing and it’s great to learn from each other.
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2 hours ago, Earthmerlin said:
Thanks, folks! This is proving quite helpful.
A quick question: Does MEP Year 4 = Grade 4 material?
In the UK, year 4 is roughly equivalent to 3rd grade in the US.
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We are a month into the school year and have settled on a routine for DD9, in 4th grade and DS6, in 1st grade. It’s not ideal, but it feels as balanced as we can hope for in terms of school, afterschool activities, afterschool academics, and free time. Both kids attend an immersion school and we are feebly attempting a third language with weekly lessons, though it’s way behind their immersion language.
DS6 is only assigned reading for homework, so we supplement with miquon and Singapore IP/CWP for math, and extra reading. My goal for him is to afterschool 3-4 days a week. Otherwise, he is busy with play dates and afterschool activities.
DD9 has a busier schedule with sports and music every day of the week and daily homework. She usually has an hour gap in which she is waiting at the soccer field or pool before practice, so she uses that time for homework. On the two weekdays she is home before 730 pm, we afterschool before bedtime and limit it to 20-30 minutes. On the three weekdays she is home at 8/830 pm, we skip it altogether. We have longer sessions on weekend days to make up for it. It helps that I only afterschool in math and writing/reading comprehension. We are using Singapore IP/CWP and Beast Academy for math and Reading Detective and exercises from Writing Revolution and the Kilgallon books for reading/writing. I’m happy with the history, science, typing, coding and the immersion language taught at school.
It does require some prep time for me because we don’t have time for me to shuffle through materials. I’m feeling doubtful that we will be able to allocate the same amount of time once we hit the middle school years, but I guess we will cross that bridge later.
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I am in Manhattan, and admission into public middle school is by application only. They are due around December 1. Usually, families tour the schools in October and November and then list up to 5 schools in order of preference. It is a daunting process, even for seasoned NY parents and especially for newcomers. I have no idea how homeschooled children provide the equivalent of teacher reports and report cards. I would find a few middle schools that you are interested in, and call the admissions office to ask if they have had homeschooled children join their school. You can also try reaching out to the NY homeschoolers' alliance https://nychea.org. Our kids are in a private school here, so I don't have any personal advice for you. Good luck!
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On 10/1/2018 at 2:57 PM, Arcadia said:
Reading detective has been useful in 2nd/3rd grade for my kids to learn reading comprehension test prep skills. We started wifh the A1 book. https://www.criticalthinking.com/reading-detective-a1.html
We did not try Huntington but Sylvan was quoting us for three students to one tutor. My DS12 is easily distracted and needs one to one so I might as well do it myself or hire an english tutor.
I also like Reading Detective for reading comprehension. We have never tried a learning center, so I'm not sure how they structure their sessions. Do they discuss the answers or just engage with the teacher when they have a question? I think discussion is vital to reading comprehension. We discuss every question and the reasoning behind the answer to make sure there is no reliance on gut feelings, conjectures, or knowledge from outside the passage.
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1 hour ago, knitgrl said:
Not free, but we use Singapore's Challenging Word Problems. The solutions are in the back, and are broken down into steps. I use it as a non-consumable, and do the work with dd on a small white board.
We also use Singapore CWP. I have also seen Process Skills recommended as a resource that has more explicit step by step instructions
http://www.singaporemath.com/Fan_Math_Process_Skills_in_Prob_Solving_L3_p/fmpsps3.htm
I have also found a helpful exercise that helps in any type of problem. Sometimes the presence of more complex numbers creates confusion about the wording. You can have your student replace the numbers given with much simpler numbers. For example, in the problem
Abby gave 5/12 of her books to Bob. She gave 1/6 less books to Charlie. What fraction of her books did she give away?
You can try an example with simpler numbers. Replace 5/12 and 1/6 with simpler fractions like 1/2 and 1/4. Abby gives 1/2 her books to Bob and 1/4 less to Charlie. So she gave away 1/2 + (1/2-1/4) = 3/4 of her books. You can then apply the same reasoning to the original numbers.
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On 9/23/2018 at 2:52 AM, kiwik said:
Is there time built in to just do nothing productive? It seems awfully busy.
Was this directed at OP or at my post? I agree, the schedule is really busy, and is a step up since last year. Judging from the amount of legos, kapla blocks, and board game pieces strewn about from last night, they do still have time to play.
My kids do enjoy all the activities, and since we live in a very dense urban area on the east coast, everyone lives in small spaces with no backyard or outdoor space. Having a place to swim or play soccer indoors is only possible if you schedule it because space is at such a premium. We wouldn't have chosen this schedule if our kids needed help at home to keep up in school. Afterschooling is for fun and enrichment.
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Hi, just to clarify, impetigo is caused by either staph aureus or strep pyogenes. Since the lesions start to crop up around the nostrils, I would assume that DD5 has intranasal colonization of one of those bacteria. Intranasal Bactroban will get rid of it - talk to your ped. They may recommend everyone in the family use it to make sure you don’t keep passing it around.
As for the question - is it MRSA vs MSSA, MRSA is methicillin resistant staph aureus and MSSA is methicillin sensitive staph aureus. Methicillin is in the penicillin family, so MRSA is resistant to penicillins, like ampicillin and amoxicillin. Penicillins are very powerful cidal antibiotics which mean they kill bacteria. MRSA is feared because we have to treat it with static antibiotics, which only inhibit growth but do not kill the bacteria.
That said, MRSA is not resistant to bactroban, but it is not recommended to use it more than 10 days in a row so that you don’t develop the really dreaded mupirocin resistant Staph aureus. So if it is responding to mupirocin, that doesn’t mean it isn’t MRSA. I would ask your ped until they give you a different approach, because your DD5 somehow keeps reinfecting herself.
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We haven’t seen it yet, but Liberty’s Kids is on our watch list. It is an animated show about US historical figures.
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If you go with the collar, make sure you observe your dog for a while to make sure he/she can’t pull it off or still reach the wound. I ended up lining a cone collar with fleece and our dog didn’t mind it, since it was soft inside. The non cone collars don’t allow for air circulation, and my dog kept trying to rub and scratch his way out.
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My 4th grader has a packed schedule this year and we are still figuring out her afterschooling schedule. During the school week, there are three days when she comes home at 8pm. On the other two days, her activities finish at 530 pm.
Piano practice has moved to the mornings before school, which saves time. A small portion of afterschooling and homework happens from 8-830 pm on the late days, but most of it happens on the two days she is home early and on the weekend.
The weekend is still busy with activities, but I can always find an hour here or there. I also have a 1st grader who is also quite busy, but my goal for that age is to only afterschool 4 times a week, including weekends.
I really enjoy and prioritize afterschooling, but it comes after sleeping and quality of life. Often, we choose to eschew afterschooling for an extra chapter of our read aloud or playing a board game, which helps it seem less rigid to my kids. It also helps that their school has a “less is more” homework philosophy, and assigns homework weekly so that we can pace it however we want.
I do find it extremely helpful to plan out their work ahead of time. I have bound most of their materials with proclick spines, so I can pull out sheets and make a packet for each session. Eliminating flipping through books, trying to keep the book flat and making it clear which problems are assigned, streamlines the process for all of us. On her late days, DD9 takes a packet with her and works on it during her downtime before her activities start.
It is definitely more difficult to schedule afterschooling than last year, and it makes me wonder if we will have to throw the towel in at some point. I mean, at some point, I have to believe it will be just too time consuming. Not sure when this will happen!
ETA - Both kids sit at a desk in DD9’s bedroom. If they are there at the same time, I sit at a corner between them.
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It’s officially summer! How is everyone’s summer schooling going?
We are more or less on track here. The kids have been out for one week and so far, we have kept to our goal of 30 min of seatwork a day plus assigned reading for my 9 yo and 20 minutes of seatwork/reading for my 6 yo. I am planning to do seatwork 5 days a week with assigned reading every day. Having no homework from school is so refreshing.
However, next week, they start doing some activities after camp, so I imagine that we will cut back a little. Hope everyone is happily summer schooling!
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On 6/18/2018 at 6:32 AM, Earthmerlin said:
I just looked at this and printed the directions. This is great! You've inspired me to look further into this site as well!
This is one of my favorite blogs! Enjoy!
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Try this one - from Math with Bad Drawings. It’s easy to set up and a lot of fun to play.
https://mathwithbaddrawings.com/2013/06/16/ultimate-tic-tac-toe/
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There are some more ideas here
Fractions are difficult to teach. I found this resource helpful.
http://gdaymath.com/courses/fractions-are-hard/
Good luck, OP!
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2 hours ago, Arctic Mama said:
I’ve not ever heard of him or his work. Now I’m scurrying off to do some recon!
If you come across the other children’s author, Robert Newton Peck, in your recon, his Soup series is a treasure as well. I remember his books were right alongside Richard Peck’s books on the library shelf.
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I agree - magnatiles. The extra large base tiles are fantastic.
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Richard Peck, the children’s author, passed away a few days ago. I am reading A Long Way from Chicago out loud right now and we have The Ghost Belonged to Me and Secrets at Sea on the bookshelves. I just loved Blossom Culp when I was a kid!
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Who would name their child Abcde? Good grief
in The Chat Board
Posted
We can all agree that there times when parents make deliberately provocative choices in naming their child - recently, someone named their child “Adolph Hitler”. There was also a well known art collector in Texas named “Ima Hogg”, who concealed her first name in a number of ways her whole life.
There are also parents who unwittingly choose a name that has an eye opening meaning. Often, the names are medical terms, perhaps overheard at the hospital. I have seen babies on the maternity ward with the names “Placenta” and “Melena”. Melena sounds lovely, but it is the medical term for dark bloody stool. I have not seen, but have heard of babies being named “Orgasm” and “Urethra”.
So where does “Abcde” fall on this spectrum? I’m not sure but I do think that name choices can have unintended consequences, good and bad, that parents can somewhat, but not entirely, control. Like nearly everything in life, to each, their own.