bookbard
-
Posts
2,492 -
Joined
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Blogs
Classifieds
Store
Posts posted by bookbard
-
-
I have a gifted 13yr old who seems to have hit this stage around 11 and we're still going. If you ask her to do anything at all in a quiet low voice, it's "stop screaming! if you asked NICELY, I might do it, but now I won't until you apologise!"
-
1
-
3
-
-
3 hours ago, KrissiK said:
I am reading “Agnes Grey” by Anne Brontë. I had initially thought it would go in the “Read a Classic” category, but then I realized that it wasn’t a classic, just because a Brontë wrote it. It’s a sweet book. But it will go into the “Read a book that’s at least 100 years old” category and I ordered “Silas Marner” for the classic category.
I would consider anything by the Bronte sisters a classic, really. Anne is underrated!
-
7
-
-
So I must be getting old as I ended up re-buying a book I already have so I can read it on my e-reader. The original copy's print is just a little too small for comfort, plus pages are falling out. Basically no fun to read in bed. However, at least by buying this e-book the authors get money; I am pretty sure the original was second hand.
(Oh, it's Freedom and Necessity by Emma Bull and Steven Brust - a brilliant book written via letters about the Chartist movement in England, also there is magic if I remember correctly).
-
7
-
-
And just to add another severe storm yesterday, probably the most severe storm I've ever had to drive through with zero visibility, hail, flooding and falling branches - but nowhere to pull off the road safely. Fortunately I was close to home and so knew every twist and turn of the road. Lots of people lost power and lots of fallen trees. So that's at least 3 severe storms within a short period and it's predicted more coming this way.
-
6
-
-
3 hours ago, Ausmumof3 said:
I know of four people who’ve had Covid in the last two weeks after quite a lull. It coincides so nicely with the start back at school every time.
We got a message from school that someone has Covid, luckily for us in the primary school. I wonder how many schools are still notifying parents when there is a case? Part of the reason I chose this school is that they have air purifiers and still enforce staying at home until testing negative for Covid.
-
5
-
-
1 hour ago, Ausmumof3 said:
This is barely even making the news. Feels like we are becoming too accustomed to natural disasters.
I agree, it's just constant - Queensland had horrific rain and floods at the same time, a woman drowned in her car yesterday. It's floods and fire all at the same time. And the electricity is going to be down for ages in Victoria due to the weather, there's serious damage to the system.
-
9
-
-
1 hour ago, Kareni said:
I'd not heard of this so am intrigued. Sadly, I see no Kindle version and nor does my library have it. Perhaps I'll encounter it at a thrift store.
It's Australian from the 90s, so maybe not. I can send you a second hand copy if you like? PM me.
-
2
-
1
-
-
Jasper Fforde's new book, Red Side Story, came out. This is a sequel to his book Shades of Grey which unfortunately came out at a similar time to the other Shades of Grey and so kind of disappeared from view pretty quickly. If you know Jasper Fforde, you will know his books are bizarre and quirky, but with kind and interesting characters. Usually full of wordplay and clever puns. I enjoyed his new book.
Re-read three fantasy favourites, Tam Lin by Pamela Dean, War for the Oaks by Emma Bull, and Lines Upon the Skin by Julie Haydon. All great books, female leads, romance, and big ideas.
Just reading a new Laurie King mystery - her series about Sherlock Holmes and Mary Russell - this one is about India in the 1800s, very good.
-
4
-
-
We also had a terrible storm that day, but we're in NSW. It was really localised to the upper mountains - other people got nothing, while we had 2 hours of really severe lightning, hail and heavy rain. And to think we were worried we were going to move into drought this summer. It's been so wet and cold.
-
2
-
-
2 hours ago, Rosie_0801 said:
My kid couldn't learn to write at all until I taught her to join her letters, but I guess you've tried that? We used Spencerian because I figured it was easier to simplify pretty than remediate ugly, and she was doing well despite the dysgraphia until Vic Cursive entered her life.
Does his handwriting look better if he writes in all caps?
He can write, and it's legible - it's just babyish (large and poorly formed). I can't think of a circumstance where I'd advise all caps, except perhaps an adult learner - it really does slow you down, and it doesn't look good. I've seen a few tradies write that way, but not for anything more extended than an address or a label. My boy can write stories and essays, but I feel like his babyish style takes away from what he writes. I think I will definitely focus on decreasing size and remediating the worst letters (generally the ones with curves).
-
1
-
-
3 hours ago, Ausmumof3 said:
I was a messy handwriting kid and I always hated my handwriting teacher because in my brain I knew how to write and I thought it was a total waste of time.
Yeah me too - I was always like, I'll never make MY kid worry about their handwriting! hahaha . . .
-
23 hours ago, Lori D. said:
NOT a sales person for them AT ALL 🤣 , but, Callirobics was helpful for DS#2 who struggled with the act of handwriting and with mild dyslexia. His letters wandered all over and were irregular in size, much like a young child's who was just starting to learn to do handwriting.
thanks, I will take a look today at this!
22 hours ago, Rosie_0801 said:Goodness, I wasn't suggesting you pay for any of that crap.
Oh, that's not what I meant. I mean I've looked at a lot of stuff in the field and so much of it is 'remediate this thing and something different will improve'. And there's no evidence that the something different does improve. Anyway, not here to argue about retained reflexes and their effect, but it's not something that I feel is evidence-based. I did look up a massive meta-analysis of all handwriting interventions and the only thing that does seem to work is the daily slog . . . consistency is my greatest challenge.
-
7 hours ago, popmom said:
Does he type/keyboard well? My dd is really good at typing. And in college it’s really much more typing than handwriting. I mean…I know that hand written notes are best for learning and retaining info, but there are work arounds. Just thinking about the long game. 🙂
Yes, he's pretty good at typing and I agree long term that's more important, but he'll need to handwrite for school.
4 hours ago, Rosie_0801 said:Retained palmar is easy to test for. Have him open his hands and stroke them with a paintbrush or something several times. If his fingers curl up more or less immediately, that's a retained palmar. I was taught that it is considered integrated when it can be tolerated with no more than mild annoyance twenty times. (Others might have more up to date information than I do.)
I am a sceptic when it comes to retained reflexes - having worked for years in the field of special needs, it brings back memories of a lot of scam courses for families which were pricy but never did much (Doman and Delacato in the 90s, then braingym, then there was another one - they show up, take money, and then crash a few years later).
. Retained primitive reflexes: are they real? | Skills for Action
Occam's Donkey: Mind Myth 9: Primitive reflexes, a new old fad (occamsdonkey.blogspot.com)
-
1
-
-
1 hour ago, popmom said:
I’m wondering if using narrow (college) ruled paper might help. As opposed to the wider ruled paper used in the earlier grades. I’m sort of thinking that might have been what helped dd make the shift to much smaller print.
Thanks, good idea.
4 hours ago, Rosie_0801 said:How's his palmar reflex?
No idea. But really his handwriting story is the same as mine. I used to get hassled all the time too. Low tone, I think, which makes it hard to persist with anything muscle related. Both of us terrible with anything sport related.
1 hour ago, popmom said:I will say that there was a change around 14 years of age maybe?? And she improved. Now she writes smaller than average print. I wish I knew how this happened. I would’ve never predicted it. It was a total flip flop. It’s not pretty, but it’s legible, and much more efficient.
Interesting, I do think a lot of it is developmental. He's down the bottom of the graph for a lot of stuff - short stature, teeth way delayed, overall growth is slower. Very similar to a lot of people in my family - small and uncoordinated, but very clever with words and language. It makes it hard for me to really push him, because I identify with him so much! I do wonder if a bit of peer pressure once he actually goes to school might make a difference.
Regarding OTs, I did enquire with one, but really she couldn't offer anything unique and she admitted it. There may be a brilliant one out there but they've all got year-long waiting lists, and I'm not really interested in paying hundreds of dollars to be given generic advice about letter formation and pencil grip.
-
1
-
-
Ideas please. I have used handwriting textbooks but it isn't generalising to ordinary writing. He's in year 6, going to high school next year (Jan in Australia) and his handwriting looks babyish. I have very low standards, but legible and not babyish is important.
-
1 hour ago, Clarita said:
At some point kids have to choose to want to learn.
Well, that is the whole problem with school. The kids don't want to be there, and don't get any choice in the matter. They don't get to choose their subjects till (in Australia) year 9. They don't get to follow their interests or to have their interests valued - at the moment in NSW primary schools they're returning to direct instruction and have thrown out any type of show & tell or similar. They may as well be a cog in the system.
-
1
-
1
-
-
8 hours ago, Rosie_0801 said:
There's also a koel bird that shows up every year. Last year he spent weeks beginning his mornings, before dawn, in a tree in my backyard.
Deep sympathy for you. We call it 'the alarm bird'. We had one for a while too, fortunately not now. They're so mournful and persistent. The other bird like that is the Wonga-Wonga pigeon. I love them, but whenever they're apart, it sounds like the world's ending for them.
-
2
-
-
Lately we have noticed a bush turkey rummaging around under the trees. They can dig really big holes so fortunately it only pops around occasionally.
On a regular basis we see cockatoos (yellow-tailed black cockies, also white cockatoos), rosellas, king parrots, sometimes rainbow lorikeets and occasionally gang-gangs. We see kookaburras, magpies and currawongs regularly. Swamp hens and ducks pop up from the dam. For little birds, we have blue wrens and fire finches, honeyeaters of various types, willie wagtails and fantails.
1 hour ago, Melissa in Australia said:Twin 2 found an some egrets nesting in a tree near the house. He noticed parts of small crabs on the ground and looked up. We are very close to the ocean
That is very cool. One time I was walking down the paddock and saw a whole lot of passionfruit - I looked up and the tree was full of white cockatoos who were taking turns to fly into the neighbours place, steal a passionfruit and fly back to my house to eat it, as though they were protected once across the border fence! We are in the mountains, far from the sea - for some reason I had imagined you were out west somewhere.
-
5
-
-
4 hours ago, Ausmumof3 said:
Top story on ABC today
I came here to post this story! It was very good.
-
1
-
-
Thought this was interesting: https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/more-resilient-than-we-thought-during-lockdown
I was just reading about 3 researchers who used the lockdown to explore biodiversity in their own backyard. https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2024-02-10/biodiversity-hotspot-lockdown-housemates-brisbane-species/103210874
It made me think about how important it is to have interests and abilities before something like this happens.
-
4
-
-
We've had so many natural disasters since 2019. Fire, flood, landslide, covid of course, storms. I still say the best prepping is to connect with your neighbours and to be embedded in your community. You can offer one another different things rather than needing to be on top of everything.
-
3
-
-
35 minutes ago, Melissa in Australia said:
Back to the city a few times
It may feel unthinkable, but have you considered moving closer to the city? If I remember rightly you had a daughter in Melbourne? You might find more possibilities for respite for the twins, as well as medical care for yourself and your husband as he ages.
(I say this but can't imagine leaving the rural area I live in, either. However we have a hospital 45mins away and the major hospital is 1.5hrs).
-
Still walking daily. Have had one day since the beginning of the year where I didn't make 10000 steps due to having to drive people all day. But so far so good. We'll see how it goes once it gets colder (although it was 12 degrees celsius/ 53 fahrenheit this week which is crazy for this time of year - usually Feb is the hottest). Trying to do stretches daily as I have hip pain, but I need to work out how to integrate into my day. I do an hour's drive (big kid to school) then work/homeschooling then hour's drive to pick up kid. Super tired this week but hopefully will get used to it.
-
7
-
-
Saw a friend today who got covid before Christmas and has been really ill. 50 something I guess? He has definitely lost a lot of weight and just looked grey. He said a week ago something changed and he's starting to feel better. Lost a lot of muscle mass and has had major lung issues but is focusing on building back strength now.
-
10
-
Omicron anecdata?
in The Chat Board
Posted
This is what I just don't get. Look at what is happening in the UK in terms of the workforce! It's a disaster.