Loose change, loose teeth
OK, just a quick update then.
Mr. David hates "doing school." In fact, he told me today that "I wish I was four again. So I didn't have to do school." Well, kiido, if it weren't me, it'd be somebody else. You simply HAVE to go. Sorry!
But to make it a little more tempting, we got him the Legos Star Wars game. The deal is that once he's done with ALL his school for the day, he may play. There are other ground rules, too. No harassing to play ("Am I done yet? Am I done yet? Am I done yet?") , you have to quit when we say so, and you have to put effort into your schoolwork. No breezing through and failing simply to get to the game faster. It's only been three days, but he's much better about it already. He works well on goals.
Today we started with Math...and we reviewed "greater than" and "less than" and learned what "odd" numbers and "even" numbers are. To illustrate this they had a little video where they balanced butterflies on each end of a see-saw. If any butterflies didn't have see-saw partners, it was an "odd" number because there were "leftover" seats. Lauren watched this little demo and she was just stricken. She looks at me with huge, sad eyes and says, "But...but what happens to the butterfly who's ALL ALONE?!?" She's about ready to weep. "Ah...um...well...he'll just have to take turns on the see-saw with the other butterflies, that's all. I'm sure they'll all share and take turns." This wasn't TOTALLY satisfactory with her, but at least she thought it would do. For now.
Phonics was next. David hates Phonics. Today was the ending sound "-all" in words like ball, hall, call, etc. And then Lauren decided she just HAD to play with the letter tiles. So I ran HER through a lesson. At the beginning of the year they automatically switched David over to first grade Phonics. Which would be great if he'd gotten that far, but true to his little engineer nature, he hadn't. (In fact, he still makes his A's upside-down if he's not concentrating on it. His handwriting is atrocious, his spelling mediocre. On the other hand, he's just fine with four-digit place value and negative numbers.) So I called the company and asked them to switch us back. They certainly could, no problem...but they would send us the first set of Phonics materials. You can't get out of it, they just send it to you. No charge. So I figured what the heck. Let her try. She knew all the letters on sight except for "N" (well, in the set that I showed her), demonstrated the concept of "beginning, middle and end," and learned the sounds /t/ and /m/ at the beginning and ends of words. She was insanely proud of herself, but was getting restless toward the end of it.
History was about George Washington; we're doing early American history at a break-neck pace. You do an overview of some of the Indian tribes, and then hit on Columbus, the pilgrims, the Quakers, the American Revolution, Betsy Ross (and of course the symbolism in the U.S. flag), George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Lewis and Clark, Paul Bunyon (huh?!?!?), Harriet Tubman, and I'm not sure after that. But it zips right along. Today was the story of the cherry tree, of course. (What else would a kindergartner be impressed with?) Sigh. Political commentary: So we go from "I cannot tell a lie," to THIS?!? Man, what happened?!? (I mean besides evil henchmen.)
David declared at lunch that his tooth hurt. I asked which one, and he pointed to the very front bottom ones. Later I checked it out and he apparently has his FIRST LOOSE TOOTH! This is probably the same one that was the first one to come in when he was four months old. (Lauren didn't get teeth until she was 11 months old!) David says that he deeply hopes the tooth fairy (which, yes, has been explained in its entirety) leaves him $100. I told him super good luck with that. We'll put that right alongside his request for an iPhone for each member of the family.
Oh! And neighbor friend down the street got me a super-fab gift...a reindeer!!! He's made entirely of spoons and forks, and I think I'm going to name him Olaf. I LOVE HIM!!!! I need an amazing thank-you, but I haven't worked out what that's going to be yet...
Heard on the radio that they're doing the Nutcracker. Realized after reading to Lauren tonight that she sort of has a THING for nutcrackers and then wondered if she'd think the ballet was tremendously cool or not. I hit the website to look at ticket prices and show times and such, and see that they have a (sold out) Sugar Plum Fairy Tea Party for the little ones. I KNOW she'd like THAT. So now I have to call them tomorrow and ask about availability.
Tonight I sat down and focused on working on Flash. I got a lot accomplished, I'm closer to getting a decent website up and running. I didn't think I'd be able to do the kind of animation I wanted to, but I was able to take an existing piece of animation and alter it to my liking. That's far more than I've been able to do in the past! Now if I can just integrate that particular piece into a larger whole...sigh.
Thought I lost my cell phone, when in reality it slid down between the car seat and console. Ack! Also thought I'd lost my coat but learned I'd simply left it at school. You know...I'm going to just start stapling things to my body. Less chance of losing them that way.
Mr. David hates "doing school." In fact, he told me today that "I wish I was four again. So I didn't have to do school." Well, kiido, if it weren't me, it'd be somebody else. You simply HAVE to go. Sorry!
But to make it a little more tempting, we got him the Legos Star Wars game. The deal is that once he's done with ALL his school for the day, he may play. There are other ground rules, too. No harassing to play ("Am I done yet? Am I done yet? Am I done yet?") , you have to quit when we say so, and you have to put effort into your schoolwork. No breezing through and failing simply to get to the game faster. It's only been three days, but he's much better about it already. He works well on goals.
Today we started with Math...and we reviewed "greater than" and "less than" and learned what "odd" numbers and "even" numbers are. To illustrate this they had a little video where they balanced butterflies on each end of a see-saw. If any butterflies didn't have see-saw partners, it was an "odd" number because there were "leftover" seats. Lauren watched this little demo and she was just stricken. She looks at me with huge, sad eyes and says, "But...but what happens to the butterfly who's ALL ALONE?!?" She's about ready to weep. "Ah...um...well...he'll just have to take turns on the see-saw with the other butterflies, that's all. I'm sure they'll all share and take turns." This wasn't TOTALLY satisfactory with her, but at least she thought it would do. For now.
Phonics was next. David hates Phonics. Today was the ending sound "-all" in words like ball, hall, call, etc. And then Lauren decided she just HAD to play with the letter tiles. So I ran HER through a lesson. At the beginning of the year they automatically switched David over to first grade Phonics. Which would be great if he'd gotten that far, but true to his little engineer nature, he hadn't. (In fact, he still makes his A's upside-down if he's not concentrating on it. His handwriting is atrocious, his spelling mediocre. On the other hand, he's just fine with four-digit place value and negative numbers.) So I called the company and asked them to switch us back. They certainly could, no problem...but they would send us the first set of Phonics materials. You can't get out of it, they just send it to you. No charge. So I figured what the heck. Let her try. She knew all the letters on sight except for "N" (well, in the set that I showed her), demonstrated the concept of "beginning, middle and end," and learned the sounds /t/ and /m/ at the beginning and ends of words. She was insanely proud of herself, but was getting restless toward the end of it.
History was about George Washington; we're doing early American history at a break-neck pace. You do an overview of some of the Indian tribes, and then hit on Columbus, the pilgrims, the Quakers, the American Revolution, Betsy Ross (and of course the symbolism in the U.S. flag), George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Lewis and Clark, Paul Bunyon (huh?!?!?), Harriet Tubman, and I'm not sure after that. But it zips right along. Today was the story of the cherry tree, of course. (What else would a kindergartner be impressed with?) Sigh. Political commentary: So we go from "I cannot tell a lie," to THIS?!? Man, what happened?!? (I mean besides evil henchmen.)
David declared at lunch that his tooth hurt. I asked which one, and he pointed to the very front bottom ones. Later I checked it out and he apparently has his FIRST LOOSE TOOTH! This is probably the same one that was the first one to come in when he was four months old. (Lauren didn't get teeth until she was 11 months old!) David says that he deeply hopes the tooth fairy (which, yes, has been explained in its entirety) leaves him $100. I told him super good luck with that. We'll put that right alongside his request for an iPhone for each member of the family.
Oh! And neighbor friend down the street got me a super-fab gift...a reindeer!!! He's made entirely of spoons and forks, and I think I'm going to name him Olaf. I LOVE HIM!!!! I need an amazing thank-you, but I haven't worked out what that's going to be yet...
Heard on the radio that they're doing the Nutcracker. Realized after reading to Lauren tonight that she sort of has a THING for nutcrackers and then wondered if she'd think the ballet was tremendously cool or not. I hit the website to look at ticket prices and show times and such, and see that they have a (sold out) Sugar Plum Fairy Tea Party for the little ones. I KNOW she'd like THAT. So now I have to call them tomorrow and ask about availability.
Tonight I sat down and focused on working on Flash. I got a lot accomplished, I'm closer to getting a decent website up and running. I didn't think I'd be able to do the kind of animation I wanted to, but I was able to take an existing piece of animation and alter it to my liking. That's far more than I've been able to do in the past! Now if I can just integrate that particular piece into a larger whole...sigh.
Thought I lost my cell phone, when in reality it slid down between the car seat and console. Ack! Also thought I'd lost my coat but learned I'd simply left it at school. You know...I'm going to just start stapling things to my body. Less chance of losing them that way.
posted by Kelly at
2:34 AM
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