Good for you! Breaks are good. I do have to sit with my 10 yo. Don't see it changing soon, but oh well. I may have to pretend he's someone else's kid next time we have issues :)

We got the test information from ACT in the mail today. It's got the admission ticket and a brief sample test/what to expect booklet. I registered for the January date back in August I think. Got an email back from Duke and have been getting TIP emails from them (link to book club etc). If you've got an email confirmation from Duke, I'd wait a week before calling - see if you get the registration info in the mail.

Nice.

Took away digital clocks in the house, replaced with analog. Made a big difference.

Cool! It's tricky figuring out how things work around here :) I've got some signatures turned off but I don't want to ignore them all...nice to know how to turn them off and on!

Did it?

Someone is sick. It's a shame, but you don't want to spread the germs. It can sure be you being sick of their behavior...just don't say that. Holidays can be tough. Hang in there.

There are some things in the American culture that some of us who live here cannot fathom.

Put it on hold at the library...sounds intriguing.

I have one son. I quit teaching him this summer and took about 4 months off. I was ready to go K12 or something along those lines, but my husband stepped up and taught ds while I was on strike :) I absolutely adored hearing dh yell at ds about paying attention. It wasn't just me dealing with the attitude. I'm teaching again & we're doing a bit better. I still have to sit with him most of the day - and yes, he's 10. It is hard. I'm very glad he's an only so I'm not stretching my attention, although that might be better for him, poor boy. :grouphug: Hope you find a solution or more patience. I wouldn't be surprised if I end up on strike again before we're done with high school :) It is hard & you're not alone. It's also good though.

Hope you enjoyed the bees!

If the world ends on Friday, I'll be pretty ticked off. I've got a colonoscopy scheduled for Thursday. This is NOT how I'd like to spend my last days. So, I suppose this is me being hopeful for the future. ;)

Not sure about it, but check your ignore settings under your profile.

I sit with my son much of the time. He's 10 now. He'll sometimes ask a question & I say, "I can't answer that. This is a test. Just do your best." We talk about test-taking strategies in advance or after the test. Skipping a question if you don't know the answer, making the best guess if it's multiple choice. I think also a desensitization process might help too... a daily low-stakes test (quiz). It's a tricky balance to make him comfortable with testing but not to make a big deal about it. Good luck!

I'd be starting based on age. We did 3/4 during 3rd & fourth grade. They've got the schedule of the books listed in the TG. Again, I find the HOTS and Tests to be where the major challenge is. Don't know how that'll relate with the new books...

Happened last year. I got ear muffs. Amazon said to keep them. Too bad it wasn't a book I'd wanted...

Hacker group Anonymous is going after Westboro :)

"Last Christmas" was the one that got me :)

The beards & language, right? Loved the tea pot. Actors are great sports :)

This is hysterical. It's from Colbert Report and I believe this clip is uncensored, so if cursing offends, don't watch.

Motley Fool

My son doesn't like flash cards, but we used them anyway. We have cards for multiplication through twelve and once a week he does a timed drill. He graphs his time on a chart so he can see the trend. We started with rewards as well...get through tables 3 times in a row in under 3 minutes, get a book and a reading day for the rest of the day. If he got a problem wrong, he'd have to repeat the statement and the answer five times before moving to the next card (two times three is six). That helps with memorization as well. Never took more than 6 minutes once a week. I feel comfortable that he knows his facts well. We now include division cards as well.

I adore White Christmas, so one year I watched Holiday Inn, the movie it's a remake of. Holiday Inn has a blackface scene. Really makes me cringe with the music in the Abraham number in White Christmas now. That said, we may be watching White Christmas tonight.

I found using Base 10 blocks really helped. We did long division over a couple days. First day my son did the problem with the blocks (say, how do you divide 357 by 2). Start by dividing the larger blocks (each person gets 1 hundred block), then we take the leftover hundred block & break it up into tens. Now we have 15 tens to share. Each person gets 7 tens & we have one left over. Break the ten into ones. We've got 17 ones. Divide them up & each person has 8 ones with one as a remainder. Then we did the exact same problem again, but this time as he moved the blocks, I wrote the notation for the step. We did this with a couple of problems on the first day - I did all the writing. The second day I had him do a couple of problems. First, just using the blocks and writing down the final answer, then trying to write the standard notation. It can also help to use ruled paper turned sideways so you have columns to write in. By the third or fourth day I had him doing the work just by hand with the traditional algorithm. If he got a problem wrong, I'd have him show me with the blocks. I really think using the base 10 blocks made a huge difference to conceptual understanding.