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DawnL

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Everything posted by DawnL

  1. Awhile ago, I bought a Brother 2040 B&W Laser Printer. I love this thing, it's totally a workhorse. I've printed quite a lot by now. Well, the drum light flashes while it prints now. I've looked that up and it means it needs a new drum. I went to an office supply store and the drum is $135. That is twice what I paid for the printer! So, does anyone have any experience with this? Is that the best I'm going to find? I am hesitant to purchase generic or refurbished, but will consider if someone can recommend from experience. In the end, I will likely bite the bullet and get the drum. Because if I had to buy a new printer to replace this, I would buy the exact same printer. I just wanted to get an idea of what options I have. Thanks!
  2. Do you think it would be interesting and relevent if we measured that strength, human hair vs. other mammal's hair, by how much weight it could hold? I will walk my dd through all options and possibilities. Some things she will need me to lead and guide her a little, while other things she will figure it out. I just want to have some kind of idea of where she's going before she pursues it. But I ask becasue the whole "Can a full grown human really climb up a tower using human hair?" was her idea that she came up with on her own. I don't want to completely kill her enthusiasm. However, I may be able to persuade her to use that test as the starting point. You know, have her measure that way, get some preliminary results, and then have those tests and results point her into the real meat of her project. (if that makes sense :confused: ) I would like to see her doing a lot of research and even needing to contact others about her project. Whether it's contacting a barber to inquire about different hair samples or contacting a zoo for different mammal's hair samples. She loves animals (which is why I have been trying to steer her toward a project involving animals ;) ) and so I think ultimately she would likely go for comparing human hair to the hair of other mammals. So, if she sticks with her original idea of how much weight can hair hold, do you think this would be an adequate measure for comparing hair strenght among different mammal's hairs? She was impressed with the story from the 1800's of the American settler who survived being scalped. He kept his scalp and tried several times to have it reattached to his head but was never successful. He lived for years after surviving his own scalping. This would be a good point to make as to why a person using human hair to climb a tower would need it anchored by something more than a scalp. But again, if she winds up comparing human hair to other mammal's hair it will be an irrelevant point. Thank you so much for your input. It really means a lot. I don't want to fail as her teacher by having her work hard on something that isn't going to impress anyone.
  3. Thank you! We will definitely check those out. They look interesting :)
  4. No thoughts? I've had her looking up different uses of hair, such as animal hair for paintbrushes and such. I hope this isn't a topic that won't be well received at the Science Fair.
  5. My daughter is gearing up to work on her 3rd science fair project. I posted previously how she didn't do as well as she anticipated in her last science fair and she was very discouraged. I promised her I'd help her "bring her A+ game" so she can produce a high quality project. We've gone back and forth on what her project this year should be. She hadn't come up with anything and everything she considered stemmed from my suggestions so her heart wasn't in it. Suddenly, she came up with her own. She was hesitant to suggest it, mostly because last year's project was an overdone topic and not really relevant. Last year her project was testing which was more electric, fruits or vegetables. She did well, but only received an honorable mention. I understood why, but not until after everything. Her consideration is, can a fully grown person really climb up a tower using human hair? You know, the whole Rapunzel thing. I think this is an interesting question and I told her that as she writes this up she needs to make sure that she not only includes all the scientific verbage that is relevant, but to also discuss how her research and results can be useful. She isn't sure her topic can be useful. I think it can be useful, although I'm thinking perhaps more as a physics question. Such as, if one hair holds Xoz and another holds Yoz, do they together hold Xoxz+Yoz or do they hold Zoz? She is correct when she tells me that no one is going to be using human hair to climb with, but I told her that it could be relevant somehow for mountain climbers. They may not be using human hair, but they certainly could use information about the strength of what they are using. We also discussed the variation....does the color of the hair affect the strength? Does the age of the person with the hair affect how much weight it can hold? If the hair has been chemically altered (colored, permed, straightened, etc) does that effect how much weight it can hold? Another consideration we discussed was, if we tied the hair around something to test how much weight it could lift, it could likely lift more because it is wrapped around the object more than once. So it would be a more accurate test to have the weight tied to some kind of clamp, then clamp the weight to the hair, much like a hand would clamp around the hair. I'm mostly thinking out loud here, but I'd love any suggestions or opinions. I do not want to fail my daughter by not adequately preparing her for the challenge of her next science fair. She was starting to say she shouldn't do it this year, but I wouldn't let her chicken out. I don't want to build her up to fail spectacularly. Our state science fair grades each participant on their own project. If every child in a grade did an A+ project, they could all earn a 1st place position. I doubt that's ever happened as the judging is truly fair, but it gives you an idea of what she could potentially achieve. Now that she is in 6th grade, as a Middle Schooler there are secondary contests as part of the Science Fair, too. I have told her that they are difficult to win so she shouldn't count on those, but we discussed it as a goal to work for. She would consider that an ultimate achievement.
  6. Ditto! I was fortunate enough to be able to "splurge" a little and get some school toys,. YAY! I don't care how old you are, school is much funner with toys. I looked at everythng Timberdoodle had listed in the standard curriculum for my kids' ages and found some great stuff.
  7. Our Legos live on top of the fridge or upstairs in the boys' rooms. Even my oldest, my 11 year old daughter loves Legos. My oldest son is an aspie and he gets super obsessed with a couple of different subjects. I've decided I'd much rather him be obsessed with Legos than with video games, because the Legos make his brain work and the video games....not so much. So yes, we love Legos here. And I can second the Trofast system from IKEA. They are even good if one of them has a project going on they want to continue later. It can get put away with them needing to take it apart.
  8. My dd is 11 and she read the first book and part of the second. Then she decided she couldn't handle the rest right now. She's really good at knowing what she can handle. Earlier this summer, she said, "I seem to be on a dystopian kick this summer!" :) She's discovered that she likes many of the teens series now.
  9. My color printer just isn't working any more. This is fine, as it eats through the ink, and the ink is expensive and limited in availability. (It's a Dell) Does anyone have any recommendations for an affordable color ink printer that works well? Preferrably one that doesn't eat through the ink, but if the ink cartridges are inexpensive and easy to find, that might be a secondary consideration. Thanks!
  10. How did you like it? I hadn't heard of this before, and, of course, we are all set for this year. But it is something to keep an eye on and learn about. I like to be sure of stuff before I buy it.
  11. Just spreading the word. Scholastic's Teacher Express has their Dollar Days right now, through 8/27. :D
  12. I think the Dr was mistaken in making a blanket statement, saying all kids with Aspergers treat every person the same. That's not true. I had a frustrating time with the developmental pediatrician the diagnosed my son. He simply didn't listen to my long list of concerns and I was sure he was going to just dismiss us and not test. He did the ADOS testing and quickly changed his tune. He said that he could see my son scored so high on the ADOS that he didn't even have to wait to score it and get back to me. The Dr did go on to say that it bothered him that my son wasn't more "odd", though. Well my son is plenty odd. He just doesn't into trouble at school because he's homeschooled. (Which is why we chose to homeschool in the first place) I am surprised the Dr that saw your child didn't consider a diagnosis of PDD-NOS.
  13. I brought my dd home from public school after 3rd grade, too. I started her on Delta, which is division, because that's where she should have been. We got partway through and I discovered that she really didn't have a good handle on the multiplication like she should have. I decided to get Gamma and backtrack. She didn't complete the entire book of Gamma, but we went through most of the multiple digit mulitplication. When she had mastered that, then we went back to Delta to do the multiple digit division. My daughter does NOT enjoy math, but doing it this way really helped her. I'm not sure if you would count that as doing two books of MUS in one year or not, but we did work from both books.
  14. Math U See and the manipulatives really helped my daughter with this. She was in public school through 3rd grade and they really didn't do a good job teaching her multiplication. I didn't realize how bad it was until we got partway through division. I had to go back to the book before the one she was working on and reteach it to her. When I pulled out the manipulatives, she felt she was way too big for them. I made her use them anyway. When she watched the DVD, the students could answer the questions just by looking at the blocks. She said they were told what to say before filming the DVD:D We "played" with the blocks every school day for a couple of weeks. And I kept coming to the problem 12x13, which was the problem the kids "were told" the answer of. It didn't take long for her to realize just how helpful those blocks are. And she understood it. It took the visual of seeing 12 rows of 13 to see that 12x13=156 She really understood it because of the blocks.
  15. Thanks! :) I figured I probably needed both but thought I should ask, just in case.
  16. Maybe I should consider a good inkjet, and then just get one of those continuous ink systems.... It might be more affordable that way.
  17. And it's probably a silly one. Do I need both the teacher's manual and the student pack? I'm looking to buy level 2 and 3 to try to get ahead of what I'll need. With level 3, should I buy the homophone book, too? Has anyone used that, too? Thanks for any input. I'm trying to finish up everything in the next 2 weeks or so, so I'll be all ready in September.
  18. Oh that poor girl! What an awful feeling. I hope she does catch a flight soon.
  19. I love my B&W Laser Printer, by Brother. It works great and is so economical. So, is there an affordable Color Laser Printer out there? Are there any affordable ones that are any good? Does it cost hundreds of dollars to replace all the ink? I mean, if I buy a $300 Color Laser Printer that has ink that lasts a long time, it's still pretty pricey if I'm paying $275 to replace all the ink cartridges. Any thoughts or experiences?
  20. I believe the dry erase crayons are included and there's no limit that I have seen. And unfortunately the pencils are not included :( I've found that Toys R Us prices are typically more than the prices at Walmart. However, with this deal, the cost per item is much less than at Walmart. I know if you get a 24 pack of crayons, it's just as good to get it during back to school sales at Walmart or Target, because the 24 pack is the one size that's always on sale. But any other size, such as 48, 64, or more crayons, this Toys R Us sale is a good sale. Also, the Washable markers never seem to be included in the back to school sales. It's always just the 10 pack of the non-washable markers and I've never seen the Pip Squeaks markers on sale, either. So for anything other than the non-washable 10 pack of Crayola markers, this Toys R Us sale is a good one. The sale ends today, Saturday, 7/14. If they follow past years, this upcoming week should see the Crayola buy 1 get 1 free. Still a good deal, but not as awesome as getting 2 free, of course. I hope everyone is enjoying the back to school sales!
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