I'd also suggest doing a few problems with manipulatives. It'll be slow going at first, but it may make the connection clearer with what's going on. Base 10 blocks probably would work best. Idea is to divide up the largest quantity first, then break down smaller quantities. So for 624 / 5, you have 6 HUNDREDS that you're dividing up into 5 groups. Each group gets 1 HUNDRED. We have 1 hundred left over, so break it into tens. We now have 12 TENS that are being divided into the 5 groups. (Continue...) The key is talking about place value... it's not 6 divided by 5; it's 6 hundreds divided by 5. Do a couple just with the blocks, then use the algorithm.

I just use the placement tests as an end of book test.

We're using My Pals Are Here 3/4. It's definitely from Singapore. Plants are from there as illustrations and some activities have kids going into their school garden or to the Singapore Gardens to do a task. I think using the Homework and the Higher Order Thinking Skills books is where the real challenges come with the program.

I like Terry Pratchett a lot.

In the teacher's guide, it's listed as a two stroke letter. One "O", then the second stroke as the tail.

Season 4 isn't available on Netflix yet, and I thought it ended rather weakly, but the first 4 (of 6) episodes were some of the best.

Just in response to the microwaving books idea... I'd recommend against it as the sensors in many library books have metal in them. DEFINITELY check with your librarians first. And for the OP, good luck! I hope you manage to get things treated quickly and thoroughly!

"Did you try turning it off and on again?" Moss is my favorite. Dh works in IT although he's not in support anymore so I don't hear the stories about people using CD players as cupholders anymore :lol:

I know what you mean. I noticed it in the US edition workbook of 1 (both A & B). I thought there were some clear copyright violations. I don't see it in the Standards edition.

Portal really is thought-provoking for a puzzle game. On the DS, the Professor Layton games are good for solving puzzles. Day of the Tentacle is fun (and there's a website that gives a way to crochet a purple and green tentacle! can't find it now, but neat idea!) but you're looking at games you remember playing and getting nostalgic. I could have said the same things you did about Tentacle going back to "Remember when Infocom games were what you played... nowadays they've got games with graphics where people don't need to know spelling or even use their imaginations! Hardly a grue to be found anymore!" :D My son has a great time playing with level editors now as well and does a lot of gaming that way rather than actually playing the game. It's a cycle.

Swamped, so can't write a long reply... but here's purplemath's explanation of the d=rt problems. Using a chart REALLY helps with these. The other thing you need to do is be sure to use the same units, so be sure to convert the 3 min into hours (3 min = 3/60 hrs).

I use the Standards edition. I think ds needed the extra practice book (and more drill) in 2. He's got the hang of the concepts now, so in 3, I'm using the extra practice book a bit less - and we're skipping some of the text practice even on multiplication and division with 6-9. I think using Standards, you're okay dropping extra practice, but if a concept is tricky, add in additional drill.

It should be chocolate chip. And ds learns (maybe) that you can lose when making bets! (Although this isn't a painful bet to lose.)

The TI-30XIIS is also the one I recommend for lower-level classes at our cc. It makes transitioning to a TI graphing calculator very easy.

We're at Step 4 in Level 2 as well right now. I am really glad to read about SWB's comments about spelling not transferring to other subjects yet, because that's what I'm seeing! However, when I see a misspelled word that ds "should" know, I have him look at how he wrote it, ask him to pronounce it the way he spelled it, and he often will catch that he misspelled it. If not, I have him segment it (we spent a lot of time practicing the segmenting with the discs) and that usually gets him to figure out the correct spelling. Hang in there. You're not alone!

Just won a bet with dh and ds about a scene from Community. I remembered the comment from Betty White as "That's why you fail!" Dh remembered it as "That's why you lose." Ds didn't see the show but really liked the idea of a bet and strongly encouraged it. If dh was right, I'd have had to make them an apple pie. Instead, they make me cookies! :D Yum!

I kept my name when I married. We planned not to have children; if I had thought I might have a child sometime we might have made a different choice. But with as many divorces as there are nowadays, having a different last name than my son doesn't faze people. I don't like being called by my husband's last name - it's not my name. We do have the advantage of when anyone calls and asks for me by his name or him by my name, we know it's a telemarketer. :D That said, if a child who knows us refers to me as Mrs. HusbandsName, I'll answer to it. If we're going to be around them for more than the occasional visit, I'll let them know I prefer to be called Ms. MyName, but I'm not going to be offended by how a child refers to me if they are trying to be respectful. We're also having our son refer to adults as Mr. or Ms. LastName. (Mrs. if that's what they prefer.)

I use the placement tests on Singapore Math as end of book tests.

I teach 6 credit hours at the cc. I try to teach the same class so I only have one prep. It's good money for the time I'm away from home, but it's not so great when you include the prep time and (worse) the grading. Some weeks are tougher than others, so if you take the courses, be aware of that. I teach two nights a week so I'm home in the days. I generally do prep work and grading on the weekends, so the drawback is when we aren't between semesters, I'm pretty much constantly working.

If she's planning on going to a public school, I'd recommend sticking with the TI models. The TI-30XIIS uses almost the same keystrokes as their graphing models and it's under $20.

No US DVD, but we got the NASA one today. It was okay.

I don't think having my son copying a misspelled word 20 times would have done anything other than caused more frustration for both of us. He certainly wouldn't have learned the spelling (little guy can be pretty resistant!). We used SWO for first and most of 2nd grade. Nothing was sticking. After reading a lot on the boards, I made the switch to AAS. It's made a very big difference. When ds asks how to spell a word, I have him segment it and ask what he thinks the spelling is. He's right more than he's wrong now. YMMV, but I was very pleased with the switch. I think it was especially important for us since we aren't doing phonics and AAS does get him the phonics basics.

My son asked me to leave the room because I was distracting him from reading. Then my husband asked me to leave because I was distracting him from sleeping. I haven't laughed like that in quite a while, so this has been great for me. :D

I just want to avoid unconventional and unexceptional :D I had an English class in undergrad with an instructor who was just dreadfully disappointing. He held office hours in the pub and taught class mostly drunk on one or two occasions. What was disappointing was that it was a course on science fiction... and he really didn't use science fiction books or trace the evolution of sci fi. I remember one student asking questions about why we were reading Ender's Game after the really neat books we'd been reading - like Wizard of Oz. Sigh. I think that was my most disappointing course. I'd rather unconventional and exceptional.

It tells how evaluations are used. If you aren't faculty or aren't involved, you may not know how evaluations work. There are some faculty who don't even read them. If you want to make a change, talk with the instructor privately and politely; evaluations are not the place for this unless the issue is addressed with the instructor first. I teach part-time in a field that has been desperate for faculty. We've had adjuncts who have quit in the middle of the semester and still are rehired the next semester. Nothing a student puts on that instructor's evaluation is going to make a difference. Talking with the instructor politely and privately might. If it's a serious issue, the next step would be to go to the department chair. Waiting until the end of semester and putting a note on an evaluation is just passive-aggressive bs that may not even be read by anyone.