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jniter

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Everything posted by jniter

  1. Check out the US Postal Museum website and see if you can entice them. It is essentially connected to Union Station, and that's a fun place to wander around too. But no worries. The Childrens Room in the Archives is pretty interesting for kids, so you might enjoy it w/the 6yo. Also, I would skip the Air and Space Museum in DC and consider driving down to VA to the Udvar-Hazy Air and Space Museum instead. That's where the Discovery shuttle is, tons of real fighter planes, IMAX theater, observation deck, historical planes, etc. You wander around a huge hangar full of planes, memoribilia, uniforms, and historical information. The Air and Space Museum in DC is in serious need of an update. It is really showing its age and compared to Udvar-Hazy, it is almost kitschy. The museum is free, just a parking fee. Oh...and the only food available is McDonalds. My kids love going there to see the SR-71, F-series planes, helicopters, etc. Edit to add: this is also a Smithsonian museum, and it is near Dulles Airport. Not that far from DC.
  2. Ditto skipping the National Archives. They do have a *very nice* childrens area with coloring pages, projects, and books to read on US history (I really hope I'm remembering the right place), but they will enjoy it much more if they already know quite a bit of US History. For the American History Museum, go to the lower level to the Tech/Industry area, where they have trains, etc. If you are movie watchers, the area w/Dorothy's red slippers and other movie memorabilia is fun. Honestly, if you haven't studied much US History, I'm not sure your 6-year-old will get much from seeing the monuments. The Washington Memorial can be seen while on The Mall visiting the Natural History Museum or American History Museum, and that should be "good enough". Maybe walk by the White House? Houses tend to be more interesting. My kids actually really enjoyed the US Postal Museum. Some fascinating interactive areas, videos on how stamps are made, huge vertical file drawers with stamps from all over the world and letters from famous people, and you get to see a mail wagon and Owney! The US Conservatory has a lot of neat plants, and it can be easily done in about 90 minutes. They sometimes have kid backpacks to guide them through areas and find plants. We love the zoo! Must go! If you're willing to wake up early and stand in line for tickets, I here the US Mint is really fascinating! If you are willing to pay: National Geographic Museum and National Building Museum.
  3. I found a generator for Seyes ruled paper. http://www.desmoulins.fr/index.php?pg=scripts!online!feuilles!form_feuille_gros_carreaux ** this generator is nice because it will generate a letter-sized document. You can also change the settings for whatever color lines you like. The standard Seyes is 2mm/space for a total of 8mm each row. The ruling for "visually impaired" is 2.5mm/space for a total of 10mm each row. My French is really rusty, but that is what I gathered. Teachers will typically start their kids off w/4mm/space = 16mm/row. When the letter are *perfect*, then they move on to 3mm/space = 12mm/row. It appears the kids may stay at 3mm for quite a while... I bought a bunch of Seyes ruled things for my kids, and standard Seyes is quite small for a kid not yet in middle school. It is very difficult to get your hands on the "agrandi" Seyes ruled paper. France won't directly distribute the paper to the US, and very few sellers on Amazon.fr or ebay.fr will ship to the US. I haven't tried to purchase it, because the cost would be exorbitant. My kids have gotten rather...sloppy w/their cursive, probably because the lines were too small for them. I may be printing a lot of paper to remedy!
  4. There are 53,000 students in SFUSD. LAUSD has almost 700,000. What are we supposed to think of the kids who go to small schools that don't even have AP classes? No policy is going to perfect, whether aiming for full differentiation or one size fits all. I think no matter what a district decides to do, it's lose-lose. Someone isn't happy.
  5. But why mulched? Why would the prof bother to change the lecture, the book, the test questions, etc. just because half the room said they got a 5 on their AP exam?
  6. I'd like to see evidence of a student w/only Pre-Calc taking Calc 1 in college and being "weeded out" because they were in a class w/students who already mastered the material. Calc 1 is Calc 1. I've never heard of my FIL saying he was going to make his Calc 1 class harder just because he found out the students already took Calc 1. A class is a class and the material is the material. The only possible way the Pre-Calc student would be "weeded out" is if the scores for the tests were curved and the kids who had "mastered" the material in HS all aced the tests and the kids who were seeing the material for the first time were scoring in the 40s or 50s. I had a few math classes at Northwestern w/curved grades, but most did not. I assume each professor/department/university might be a little different. There are universities and colleges of all flavors. I taught in Silicon Valley, so I understand the pressure there. Kids are in tears if they don't get into UC Berkeley, UCLA, etc. There *are* other schools that are maybe Tier 2 or 3 that will accept a kid into a STEM major with "only" Pre-Calc. My cousin didn't graduate *that* long ago (4 years?). Honestly, I don't even know why AP Calc AB was ever offered. It should be BC or nothing. One semester of college Calc spread over an entire HS year (well...until the AP exam in May) is *not* a "college experience" and does the students a disservice. They are not truly experiencing how compact the material is supposed to be at a college level. And there are plenty of Top Tier schools that don't bother accepting AP Chem or Phys test scores and make students take a placement test because they know the course the student had in HS is *not* the same as their college course. I appreciate the desire for a fully differentiated experience in a PS so all kids can work at exactly where they ought to be, but I honestly wouldn't be surprised if part of SFUSD's decision was partly informed and influenced by feedback from the UC/CSU school systems. That was a topic we often discussed at NCTM regional conferences and in our math dept. The universities are tired of giving remedial classes and discovering that a kids' transcript is useless. It's a waste of tax payer $! I am so thankful I'm not operating in that space anymore. There is never a perfect solution.
  7. For fluency, I'd actually have them reread several times, even using a text maybe a little below their level. Have them act it out with their voice while reading. Model the expressiveness and have them imitate.
  8. =) I've had the books for years. Used them in tutoring. I'll be using them when my kids get there. =D
  9. I used Reading Detective this year for my 2nd grader (just a few here and there) and it really helped him realize there were different reading skills and strategies to use. They have nice short lessons on Inference, Vocabulary in context, etc., for each section of readings. And I really liked how they ask the student to find the sentence or paragraph w/the supporting evidence.
  10. Since when was doing AP Calc before college the only way to be "college track"? Most colleges and universities require a math placement test before classes begin, even if you pass the AP Exam (possible to be placed into an even higher class of math). Calculus as a Freshman in college is nothing to be ashamed of! There was a girl taking differential equations in 10th grade and FAILING at one school at which I was a teacher, but all the parents cared about was saying their daughter was in differential equations. The teachers and school were BEGGING the parents to let the girl retake classes and the parents refused. This entire discussion only convinces me that you have to *pay attention to your child* and *not worry* about what everyone else is doing or whether your child will be "competitive". If your child has a stellar academic record and the *only* "black mark" is that they "only" advanced to Pre-Calc in HS, I'd really like to know if anyone has evidence that this child was unable to attend a solid college or university. Fine, maybe they won't go to MIT, but there are plenty of folks who do *not* go to MIT and do *just fine*. If you're *that* concerned about math acceleration, send your kid to a community college to take math classes over the summer. My husband went to the local university when he was in HS and finished diff eqs, linear algebra, and multivariate calculus during summers and senior year before graduating HS. And he *only* went to UMich, but he's doing *just fine*. Relax, folks. Edit: grammar
  11. OK, I have to throw in my two cents, because this topic is something I have discussed often with my FIL, He is a world reknowned mathematician. No kidding. The only reason he wasn't considered for the Fields medal is because was too old. He always jokes that he's really "slow". First, I'm all for kids understanding *why*, but asking a 1st grader to "explain their process" for adding or subtracting in writing is too much, and that is the kind of assignment my son got a la Common Core. My son could barely articulate his feelings, much less translate his thought processes into words. I saw that as a sign of his youth, not as need to panic that he isn't a "deep thinker". My FIL says the "deep thinking" issue isn't about how creative or unusual the thinking is. He says American students are always "creative", but they have no TENACITY. They don't keep working at a problem until they understand how to do it. So they default to memorizing steps. I never taught math as "only" a set of steps, but I clearly delineated steps in order to *explain* what was going on. I often tried to used Socratic questioning to lead my students to answers and that was a COMPLETE disaster. I've witnessed my FIL sit and do nothing but think, not even scratch down ideas, for hours! There are plenty of other studies that show students in other countries spend more time on difficult word problems than US students before giving up. And these students are from countries where they "memorize" math facts. My rusty brain says something about Comparitive Education research. Edit: grammar
  12. I taught HS Math in Silicon Valley at both affluent and mixed-income schools. I am now home w/my kids and moved away, so it's interesting to hear what's new. One of the districts I worked for (which emcompassed some of the "premier" Silicon Valley high schools) had progressively worse and worse results for their 9th graders taking Algebra 1. As more and more kids were scooped into Algebra 1 in 8th grade, it became clear that the mix of students we got in our 9th grade classes was all struggling students with a smattering of private school transfers who were pretty irritated when they realized what was going on. Worse, those of us teaching Geometry were not convinced that 9th graders in our classes necessarily grasped Algebra 1 all that well. Many were fine, but a good number probably should have taken Algebra 1 as a 9th grader. In another district I worked for, they had all sorts of middle school classes with different names all with the word "Algebra" in it. NO class was "Pre-Algebra". ALL my kids in 9th grade told me "But I already TOOK Algebra!" They were VERY confused. =P WELL, after a month or so, they realized I still had a thing or two to teach them. ;-) Each district is going to implement things a little differently. I only share this experience because that context may explain why the requirement of Algebra 1 in 8th grade has fallen out of favor. If parents are *that* concerned about having the kids take Calc before they finish HS, there are PLENTY of math enrichment programs in the Bay Area that cram an entire year of math into 8 or 10 weeks over the summer. Some districts allow you to take the course and then take a placement test to advance to the next course. I taught for one of those summer programs. I found kids who were prepared to jump levels and take the placement tests could have studied the material independently. The rest did not have strong fundamentals.
  13. This is essentially what I *wanted* to do this year, but my son really wanted to do experiments! I am mainly getting science curriculum for activities/experiments. From what I can tell, the actual TEXT of these curricula is lacking and could use library supplementation.
  14. I've been picking and choosing what to use, doing a full unit at a time. There are references to previous chapters, but I didn't find that it prevented us from learning the material. A quick explanation from me or a quick look up solved that problem. Mr. Q does write "Remember when we talked about x in Chapter y?" It didn't create a huge hang up. Our County Review requires a health component, so I did Unit 9: Health this year. We didn't get to the anatomy, but it fit in with CC Cycle 3. I'll use some of the other life sciences units for CC Cycle 1 and supplement with library books. The reading really doesn't take very long.
  15. Mm....just got my Visible Thinking in Mathematics 3A and Primary Mathematics 3A materials... Don't know if I'm going to bother w/the Primary 3A. I can see why it is problematic. Topics are broken down more and rearranged a little in the VTM...
  16. I love AoPS and used it to tutor HS kids when I was still teaching. These were kids that wanted an edge for math competitions. I'll have to check out Beast Academy now that my son is probably approaching the 3A level (he's doing the pre-assessment as we speak).
  17. I am going to use Mr. Q for the life sciences (the Life Science text is free), and I got R.E.A.L. Science Odyssey for the earth science. Since CC is a 3 year cycle, a lot of materials don't exactly line up....
  18. Interesting. My son just wrapped up 2B, so this is a good window into what he'll encounter soon. First, a friend from Singapore managed to get me the My Pals are Here math books for 2B, which apparently is more popular in Sinagpore. Also they use Visible Thinking in Mathematics a lot for reinforcement. I was using 4 books and having my son go through 2B really slowly, reinforcing w/MPaH, VTM, Intensive Practice, and Challenging Word Problems. I think the SM expectation is that the child masters the math facts presented in each section, drilling as much as necessary. And while the multiplication facts in Level 2 are only the 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, you're really only missing 6*7, 6*8, 6*9, 7*8, 7*9, 8*8, 8*9, 9*9. The idea is that the child really understands the commutative property from an application stand point. No one in Singapore *only* uses the school issed text and workbook. When my friend went to the bookstore, there was an ENTIRE WALL of *only* elementary math books/workbooks. And it was no small wall, said she. The creator of the VTM series (Ammiel Wan) even has a website and conducts seminars in Singapore for parents on how to tutor their children in math. This is just to give you some context that the gov't mandated curriculum is heavily, heavily supplemented in Singapore. And if anyone is curious, the MPaH is what Math in Focus is supposedly based on...and I do *not* prefer it to the Primary Mathematics series. The books have prettier diagrams, but it has fewer problems and even less word problems than Primary Mathemetics. I think I'll stick w/to not start 3A until his multiplication facts are a little more automatic. Edit: Commutative, not communitative! =P
  19. I just ordered yesterday. I think they must add dings and dents whenever they get them. I was able to order a copy of WTM. I think I'm set for a few years, LOL!
  20. http://www.artiscreation.com/books.html#.VTFK9pNKUrg Someone compiled all these links to books you can download for free. Amazing number of links. I don't know if someone has posted this before. Painting, drawing, art history, color, anatomy, watercolor, print making and sculpture, even magazines...the list is a bit overwhelming, but what a great list!
  21. http://www.artiscreation.com/books.html#.VTFK9pNKUrg Someone compiled all these links to books you can download for free. Amazing number of links. I don't know if someone has posted this before. Painting, drawing, art history, color, anatomy, watercolor, print making and sculpture, even magazines...the list is a bit overwhelming, but what a great list!
  22. Volume 4 Volume 5 Volume 6 Volume 7 Thanks for posting the first few volumes! What gems. =)
  23. ipenstore on Amazon sells Clairefontained notebooks w/French Ruled paper. If you search "French Ruled", a bunch of items pop up. http://www.amazon.com/Clairefontaine-Wirebound-Notebook-French-Ruled/dp/B00A6VVING/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1417997146&sr=8-1&keywords=french+ruled+paper
  24. Hello, my son is in second grade and we're also using KISS at the moment. This is our first year homeschooling, so we're starting with the "Ideal Sequence" at Level 1. We've already covered some very basic capitalization, punctuation, and contractions. Granted, there weren't very many exercises for those topics. Kith the way the KISS website is organized, you might want to go to the directlink for the master list of exercises and find the "focus on punctuation" or "focus on capitalizatioin" exercises and the like. I honestly think that those mechanics would be more covered in a writing curriculum. My son hates writing, so I'm not really focused on mechanics in writing at he moment. Hopefully someone else will chime in, because I'm a little surprised to hear anyone say they think KISS is incomplete.
  25. Loose leaf paper source: http://www.bureaudirect.co.uk/clairefontaine-paper/c964
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