Waking up A

It happened for the first time this morning. I had to wake up A. Normally he wakes up on his own, generally between 6:15-6:30. This morning, I had to wake him at 7 - still in plenty of time to get ready before the bus at 7:45. It's pretty good to go 1/4 of the school year though.

Speaking of 1/4 of the way through the year, it was progress report time this week. Both kids did well. A managed all A's, without too much difficulty (and the one class that was giving him trouble was mostly with remembering homework issues). M managed A's and B's, with more A's than B's. He's been putting in a lot of work, but not necessarily to the best effect (forgetting some assignments, not keeping up with studying his Spanish, etc), but overall he's doing well. We're proud of both of them!

Study Skills

Both kids seem to be in need of some better study skills, though not necessarily the same ones.

A is having issues with remembering:

1) what he has for homework

2) to bring home the necessary books for said homework

3) to take the completed homework back to school.

He has an agenda, but he only really uses it for the classes that require him to (and it only helps with #1). So this afternoon I cleared an even larger area of the dining room table (his preferred study location) of anything extraneous and filled a pencil box with basic supplies. We went over his agenda and I filled in extra assignments. Then we checked the area and the agenda at the end to make sure that all the homework was back in the backpack. I'm sure this will help in the short run and I'm hoping that some of it will stick for the long run.

M is having more issues with time management, trying to multi-task homework, videos, facebook, iPod, etc. And then still be doing homework at 10pm, when he is well past his optimum thinking. He just finished up tonight at 10 and headed off to the shower. He has also had a few issues of forgetting what the homework is or not checking the online sites to see if he has any. He also has an agenda, but I think it gets even less use than A's does!

I know its still reasonably early in the school year, but I also know that things tend to slide rather than improve spontaneously. We'll see. I have a conference scheduled with one of A's teachers next week.

I'm trying to come back...

It's been a long time, as my mom reminds me, since I have posted. I feel like I should go to confessional (and I'm not even catholic).

It's been a long, HOT summer. The heat is finally breaking, but oh, my it was hot. Yesterday was the first day in at least 2 months we've been able to use the attic fan. And it was lovely! It's running again right now. I love having all that breeze when I sleep.

The kids have been back in school for a month now. It does and it doesn't feel that long. But progress reports are due next week, at the 1/4 of the semester mark. M is amazed he has already finished 1/4 of the semester and 1/8 of the year. His freshman year! I can't believe I have a middle schooler and a high schooler this year. They are growing up so fast.

Both kids are handling the transition of schools reasonably well. M is buckling down to the MUCH increased level of homework expected - and with minimal, pro-forma type complaints. The grades are still bouncing around a bit, due to increased expectations and with so few grades, one bad one makes much more of an impact currently. I expect things will settle down as the year progresses.

A has different types of homework than last year - not necessarily more, but he feels he has less time to do it as he gets home 2 hours later than last year (and the starting an hour later is nice to him, but doesn't make up for it to him). He has remarked that he wished he was still in elementary. I'm still clueless as to how A is doing in science as his teacher has not posted any grades. I guess I'll wait and see next week...

Field Trip Frenzy

It must be nearly the end of the year - the field trips are flying right and left. It's not usually this full of field trips, but both kids have an extra trip to go visit their new schools for next year. A to visit the middle (where M is currently) and M to visit the high school (where D teaches).

Even without those new school field trips, M had 2 field trips in the last week, one with just his art class and one for his whole team to a science museum. A has a field trip coming up this week to see the play the middle school is putting on.

M's in to Magnet!

M got the official notification today. He got into the Magnet high school for Science and Technology. M is happy, we are happy, all is good. M actually heard unofficially last night, as D had heard from one of the teachers on the selection committee, but today was the official letter.

M and his friends have been tearing up facebook, as various people waited for the mail truck. M says that almost all of his friends who applied have gotten in. I had to remind him, that it is really just almost everyone who has reported, got in (only one person posted that they had not gotten in). I'm sure that he will hear more tomorrow and especially on Monday at school. For now, though, they are all happy to have gotten in. As I told M several years ago, most of his friends applied to Magnet and will likely be there next year. And I'm sure he will make more friends from the kids from other middle schools.

More ice than snow

I woke up this morning to the sound of D telling the kids that, yes, in fact, school was cancelled - in spite of the fact that there was only about 1/4 inch of snow. There was barely any snow on the yard where I had raked and none on our driveway and nothing that we could see or feel on the road in front of the house. However, no school due to "icy conditions". We thought it a bit silly.

Later in the morning, we walked down to a friends house to look at the ice on the lake. Not so much ice as yesterday, she said, but still quite a bit for our area. We amused ourselves for a while throwing sticks and rocks out onto the ice to see if we could break it. Mostly not. We did crack some right near the edge and see that it was only 1/2 inch or so thick. Lots of warnings to the kids about not going out on the ice! There was some ice in an old rowboat on shore that got up to about 2" thick - its been plenty cold here.

On our walk we did find several patches of ice on the roads, even after noon when we were walking back home. And the radio kept announcing icy patches and accidents all over the metro area, so I suppose it really was a good idea that school was cancelled. D's poker night was cancelled too, as the roads were still bad near the host's house.

Since it never broke freezing (I think we hit a high of 26), a reasonable amount of the snow is still around, and I'm afraid that there will still be icy patches on the road tomorrow. I guess I'll hear tomorrow since D and M have to head out early for magnet interviews and testing in the morning.

Crazy week

This past week or so has just been crazy busy. Especially for and with regards to M. Over the weekend he had to finish up his science experiment, write it up and do his triboard. Tuesday he had math team practice starting at 7:30, then parent breakfast at 8:15 and science fair project due. Then they took the Explore test (some sort of pre ACT I think) all morning. Then after school he had a game design class. Home for a quick supper, then he and I went off to the magnet school to hear about their program that he is applying to for high school. Last it was hurry up and finish packing for the 8th grade trip to Savannah. Whew. Makes me tired just remembering all that. Luckily D could take him to school early on Wed to catch the bus for the trip - they had to be there by 7:00.

The rest of this week has been busy enough, even without all that. A had his usual afterschool activities on Wed and Thur. I've been trying to get us ready for Thanksgiving - baking quick breads and making lists. And realizing that Christmas really is coming up faster than I'm ready for and I'd better start thinking of getting ready for it.

In the midst of all this, A had another project for school. I don't know why the teacher is so insistent that all these projects be "illustrated" in color. We don't currently have a color printer, so anything we print out has to be hand colored - and A HATES to color. He never has enjoyed it, so its a rather tiresome requirement - and one that I really can't see how it adds to the educational knowledge. On top of that, D was gone last night for the last of the info sessions for the magnet school while A and I went to his pack meeting. They were serving dinner supposedly around 6:30, but when we got there, no dinner in sight. In fact, they hadn't gotten started fixing it yet. We finally ate at 7:45. Had I realized it would be that late, we'd have eaten at home! We usually do, but last night, because it would only be A and I at home, I thought it would be easier to have dinner there - and they were serving pancakes - yum. They were good, but not enough of them - I only ended up with 2 pancakes, so I came home hungry.

All in all, a crazy week. I'm glad we've got next week off. But with both kids wanting computer time, I may not get much time on here myself.

Caring for Creation Conference

Friday I went down to Macon (a bit over an hour away) for a conference at Mercer University titled Caring for Creation. It was "a scientific and theological response" to the subject of climate change.

I was a bit surprised overall at the casual atmosphere of the whole conference - I guess I'm too used to industry type conferences, whereas this was clearly aimed at the Mercer students. Check-in was a student writing down my name and not really knowing if I'd already paid or not, parking was free on the street, and our lunch ticket was evidently the fact that we had the green bags from the conference and looked too old to be students (students were supposed to swipe their ID for the meal). The speakers were all quite interesting. I wish I'd been able to clone myself to go to more of the talks.

At the first group plenary session, I was quite pleased to meet Amy, whose blog I read and get lots of good info on when to plant and harvest my garden. We each knew the other would be there, but not how to find each other. Because there were mostly students in attendance, it was easier, but I was still surprised that we connected even before the session started.

Amy posted a very nice synopsis of the conference sessions. I won't repeat it all (also because my notes weren't nearly so detailed), but note that I also initially found out about the conference from Sharon's blog - and the fact that Sharon would be speaking is the main reason I went. I really enjoyed both Sharon's talks and chatting with her a bit afterwards. She was just as interesting and entertaining in person as she is on her blog. And she seemed quite pleased that Amy and I had each come from over an hour away to hear her speak.

During the final break-out session, while Amy went to hear Farmer D, I went back to hear Judith Curry, who had spoken in the morning. She was going to be talking more about what climate change will mean for the Southeast. I must admit that I was a little disappointed - I didn't think that she added all that much new information over what she had presented in the morning. She discussed how we will see more extremes in temperature and rainfall - more flooding as well as more drought and more of our rain in big rainfall events rather than slow, gentle rains. She pointed out that even a fairly modest average temperature rise of 2 degrees F might lead to a maximum temperature for a specific area of 7F more. Dr. Curry also said that climate scientists knew that there was a reasonable probability of a flood in the Atlanta area a month before our recent flood and that there was a high probability a week in advance - but nothing was done to prepare the area or the residents.

Based on her comments, Dr. Curry had heard Sharon's plenary talk, where she told us that a very high percentage of climate researchers thought that it was very likely that the earth would warm by 4 degrees C by 2100. Dr. Curry heard this and did not seem to disagree with it (though all the information she presented was of a lower level of warming), but said that she didn't think she could go so far as to stop watching her big TV or traveling by air. If scientists in the field of climate research aren't willing to change their behavior, I worry how other people can be convinced to conserve and change.

The Last Super Buccaneer

We just had our very last Super Buccaneer awarding tonight. A is now a 6 time winner. Hoo-rah. Somehow after so many times, it isn't quite as exciting as the first time. But, A is happy. And he should be, to be honored in the first quarter. I asked A if he knew why he was getting the award and he said, "because I get good grades". Well, I'm sure that's nice, but no - this is supposed to be an award for good citizenship. I doubt you could get the award if you didn't tend to do your homework, but grades aren't really supposed to enter into it.

Fallingwater

It's finally done! Hallelujah!! Here is A's model:

and then a side view:

As you can see, we didn't bother with fancy bits like railings on the terraces, which D thought we ought to have. Yes, it probably should have them, but A was having trouble with cutting through the foam board and I was getting mighty tired of cutting foam board with him. A's been working on this building for a solid week (with varying amounts of help), from finding scale drawings and getting them printed out big enough to work with, to finding materials we can cut to cutting, positioning, glueing, etc. I'm almost positive we have the plunge pool elevated when it shouldn't be, but there was NO way to get teeny tiny stairs to descend that much elevation in the little space we had (plus I think the river was supposed to be a bit wider there). But its DONE! finis. complete. at least as much as its going to be.

And, of course, while all this construction was going on, A was also trying to write a paper. Someone needs to teach a class for these kids on how to write a paper. I just thought tonight that of course, what I should have done is have A make notecards. It would have been easier to manipulate the info (and make sure that it was in his words) with notecards. But I only thought of it tonight, not a couple of weeks ago. I talked with A's teacher today and we both agreed that they need to do something to teach how to research because clearly most of the kids don't know how to do it effectively - from a book or from the computer.

Last, but not least, A has to give a presentation on his paper/project - which we weren't completely clear on until this morning. The rubric the teacher sent home didn't mention any oral presentation (and my message to her over the weekend evidently ended up in her junk mail folder, until I called today), so he didn't practice any until tonight. I caved and typed up notes from the paper for him to have for the presentation. I wish we'd had time so I could make him do them, but it was almost 9:30 by the time he went to bed as it was - and that was with me typing the notes and him only practicing once. I told him he needs to practice the presentation at least twice tomorrow morning before school.

The final fun will be tomorrow morning when I get to drive the project over to his other school. I don't think that asking him to lug the project on 2 buses is a good idea.

I hate projects!

A has a project to build a model and write a paper for one of his classes. This is turning into a LOT of work, for A and unfortunately for me. When M took this same design class 3 years ago, they had to draw out a house plan for a specified situation (so much money, so big a family) and they did it all during class time.

Now, when A is taking the class, they are writing a paper on a building. Now, they did do some of their research in class, but they had short class one week due to conferences and they had no class at all last week due to a furlough day. So, he had chosen a building and done some (but not nearly as much as he should have ) research. Therefore, all week here during break, I have had to assign him tasks at the computer - go over the assignment with him and break it down into parts. ie, now write a paragraph about Frank Lloyd Wright's background, now about when and where and why he built Fallingwater, now about some other famous buildings he built.

Yesterday and today have been all about trying to build a model of Fallingwater. My word, but that building has a LOT of ins and outs! We found some plans online and D managed to blow them up and print them out. Then I helped A to trim the pages so we could tape them together. Next we traced the footprint of each level as well as the footprint of interior space on each level. Then pinned the level on some foamboard and cut it out. A did a reasonable amount of each of these, but some of them took more than 2 hands, and the cutting was a bit tricky. He did some of that, but the foamboard is a bit tricky for him to cut all the way through. He did much more of the cutting on the styrofoam by himself. Then he started gluing pieces together.

More gluing to come tomorrow. I need to remember to get him to glue the 3rd floor together before church, so it can be dry by afternoon. Then we can try to match up the 3 floors and try to glue them all together. Or maybe we need to figure out how to get the whole thing up off the board a bit so the stream can go underneath.

I will be SO HAPPY when Thursday comes and this project is done. Of course, between now and then, he still has to finish the paper, practice his presentation, and finish the building!

I imagine that the teacher didn't really intend for the building to be quite this involved, but I can't figure out how to make something that looks at all like Fallingwater otherwise. I did see that you can buy a Lego model kit of Fallingwater, but I'm not spending $100 on an elementary school project. (plus its backordered even if I had been tempted).

Your own website as direct mail?

M got some very interesting mail today.  As a result of scoring well on the SAT (for the Duke TIP), he has gotten mail about various programs and now about boarding schools.  Note - we're not actually looking into boarding schools, but these are very interesting mails to receive.  They are generally offering to have him compete for a scholarship.

Today's had an interesting twist - they personalized it.  The front says "M's got talent".  Then on the back of the postcard, they list a personalized website: firstname.lastname.culverscholarships.com  If you know M's name, you can plug in his first and last names and see it.  M is not at all interested in boarding schools, but he was intrigued by this mail and went to look at "his" website.

He'll be taking the PSAT through school this year (funny how he took the SAT before the PSAT) - all the 8th graders take it in our county.  I don't know if they give out the kids info from that, but I've already warned M that in 3 years or so he won't be asking me, "did I get any mail today?", but rather, "how much mail did I get today?"

Procrastination and morning people don't mix well.

Not me.  No, no, no - I am definitely NOT a morning person.  However, the rest of my family is.  And it is causing M some problems recently.  You see, he likes to procrastinate - play on the computer after school and wait until later to do his homework.  Only, when his homework requires him to actually think (like math is now) and it is getting late, say after 8 pm, he doesn't think so clearly.  He did the first part of his math just fine, then he started getting fuzzy.

Finally I told him to go take his shower and go to bed.  He'll get up early tomorrow and do the math - and I'm sure have much less trouble with it then.  We discussed how he really needs to do his math earlier, even if he waits on the rest of the homework.  M agrees in theory - we'll see how well that holds up in practice.

We saw this same issue over the summer with his online Java class.  Only it was worse then, because the assignments were due at midnight, so he couldn't go to bed and finish up in the morning when he was thinking more clearly.

Another Open House

Let's see, it was the 3rd open house tonight - this time for A's gifted program.  He's happy with the classes he got: chess and an architechture/design class.  We got to visit the classrooms and meet the new teacher (he's had the other teacher before).  This program will start up next week and (as always) be the highlight of A's week.

We still have curriculum nights ahead of us.  And I'm still buying back to school supplies.  I'm sure A will come home with a list of things next week, but so far I know he needs straws and pins for the design class.  And I still have to get M some oil pastels - I'm hoping to get those with a coupon at Michael's or Hobby Lobby next week - somehow I don't think Target was going to carry them...  Maybe by then I will be done with buying school supplies... at least until next semester.

First Day of School - 2009

This is the year for both kids to be "big kid on campus", M in 8th grade and A in 5th.  It's hard to believe that next year I will have a kid in high school.  sigh.  It all happens so fast - and I'm sure it will feel even faster this year as we will be starting the application process for the magnet high school before Thanksgiving.

The morning started out well enough.  I woke up a bit early, so I could cook eggs for A - he likes them as a breakfast taco.  He got ready in good time and we headed out for the bus early.  Bus came, right about on time, all was good.  

I got home to find M already up and D finishing up fixing his lunch.  I had breakfast with M (I had a breakfast taco, and M just had scrambled eggs).  We headed out plenty early for his bus.

and this is where things started to go haywire.

First M realizes that he didn't bring anything to write with.  He wants to know if I have any pencils - no I don't carry pencils in my shorts.  I suggest that I can try to go back to the house for pencils, but no guarantee I'll be back before the bus.  Then we think we hear the bus - or maybe it could be a garbage truck.  My mom was going to call me when the bus passed her house, just in case it didn't turn down our street.  Second problem - she calls the house phone instead of the cell phone - so by the time I call her and verify that the bus has passed, it is probably well down the street.  I race back to the house, grab M some pencils and get in the car.  I pick up M and our 2 neighbors and start chasing the bus.  We've done this before and always caught it.  Today though I don't see the bus before the first big turn - hmmm, not good.  I keep going, past the spot I can usually catch it, past the furthest we've ever caught it, past the pool - still no sign of the bus.  We hit the end of the subdivision and it is obvious we're headed all the way to the school.  

We see a bus up ahead, but the kids aren't sure it is the right bus as it is stopping in places it didn't last year.  But there are about 6-8 cars between us and the bus, so they wouldn't be able to catch it anyways.  Later as it turns, we see the route number and realize that yes, it was their bus.  We follow it all the way to the school.  And then get to wait in the carpool line as the school isn't open yet.

Then its back home to put out the laundry, grab the library books and grocery list and head towards town to pick up my mom, where she's dropped her car off for service.

This afternoon A got home sooner than the bus person had told us to expect - amazing for the first day of school.  And M said that they talked to the bus driver (new person than last year) and that he dropped them off at the end of the street.  Now lets just hope that he'll pick them up at our stop tomorrow!

Furlough day

Today was D's first furlough day for the school year.  They are currently planning on 3, but ominously they (and we're not quite sure who got permission from whom) got a waiver for up to 10 furlough days.  Of course, since the teachers work an extra 10 or 11 days over the 180 days the kids are in school, and they have already worked 4 of those days, if they were to furlough for a full 10 days it would knock the kids out of school some.

We are certainly hoping that there are no more furlough days, although I'm sure that many of the kids wouldn't mind.   The state budget is not looking very good though - and it doesn't help that they are still doing things like the current tax-free holiday for school supplies.  Some of the counties have managed to find money in their budget to not furlough the teachers.  Our county has not.  I imagine that if more furloughs come along, some more counties may find money to offset them, but that the initial counties won't be able to continue to eat the furlough cuts.

Since school starts on Monday, D still had things to do at school, so he went in - furlough day or not.  But since it was a furlough day, he was able to sleep in and not work a full day.  In that sense he said it felt a bit like a Saturday, so today was dubbed the first Saturday, with tomorrow being the second Saturday.

Duke TIP recognition

Back before M went off to camp last week, he finally had his recognition ceremony for doing well on the SAT (through the Duke TIP program).  M was invited to the ceremony at Duke, but it was too far and at a bad time to go, so we decided that we would just do the state recognition ceremony.  GA had 4 separate ceremonies - I don't know how many kids were invited to each, but at the one we attended there were roughly 100 7th graders.  They seated them all alphabetically and called them up to shake hands with the president of the university (where the ceremony was held).

Then they separately called up the 4 students who had received national honors (90th % among high school students, 99th % among 7th graders).  M got a medal individually bestowed on him.

The boy on the left had actually received his medal at the Duke ceremony, so didn't get another here, but did get recognized again.  One of the 4 kids whose names were called wasn't there (and I don't remember if it sounded male or female), but the other 3 were boys.  M seemed surprised when I commented that the other 2 had probably scored at the national level in math.  Why, he asked.  Well, among other things, both other boys were "foreign", one Indian sub-continent and the other Asian.  Now, for all I know they and maybe their parents were born in the US, but it is equally likely that they or their parents may not have spoken English as their first language.  Plus, the whole "boys are better at math" idea.  Not that I believe that, but I will say that book publishers clearly think that girls are more interested in reading - based on the number of girl oriented vs boy oriented books available, especially for younger readers (and most especially for ahead of grade level young elementary readers).  Anyway, I don't know where I was going with that other than that was my guess and M was surprised.  

I tend to think that the idea that more young girls are interested in sitting down with a book than young boys are is (unfortunately) true.  Much more so than that boys are better at math.  And in point of fact, there are WAY more girls than boys in M's advanced math class (including M there were 3 boys in a class of about 20).  I think some of this has to do with more boys opting out of the class - it will be harder/more work and I don't want to.  M certainly said that, but we insisted he take the class.  And he did fine, although he did earn his first "B" due to poor organization habits mostly.  Not studying for most of the tests didn't help either, I'm sure...

School's Out!

Last day of classes was yesterday.  Hooray!  First thing M did when he came home from school was run downstairs and fire up Guitar Hero to play School's Out on the Wii (at an extremely high volume!)

I'm glad school is out, but it is a bit more of a mixed blessing for me than for the kids I think.  I see pros and cons to this.

Pro:

I can sleep in

No supervising homework/listening to complaining about homework/etc

General relaxed attitude about mealtimes and bedtimes

Kids have more time so can do more chores

Con:

Kids are together more so often more bickering

Less time to myself

Kids complaining about chores/making sure they do them

 

I'm sure there are other pros and cons.  Overall, I'm always glad when summer vacation gets here, but I'm also generally glad when school starts up again.

Tote Bag as Teacher Gift

Somehow school being out seemed to creep up on me somehow this year, even though it felt really odd to go back after Memorial Day this year (this is the first time in many years that we've had to go back).  I guess maybe it isn't that the end of the year crept up, but rather that I needed to do something about end-of-the-year teacher gifts.

So, I hunted up the page saying what the teacher likes - hmm, cats is one thing.  I could do something with that....  look through my fabrics and I came up with several.  Not enough time to do a quilt, but maybe a bag.  So Tuesday morning I cut strips and sewed the front and back together.  Then after lunch I took the pieces over to the school and "borrowed" the kids out of class for a few minutes one by one and had them sign one side.

Then the other side was blank.  Not so good.  Hmmm.  I tried out several options - would a different strip work, or a big THANKS.  Or... hey, I have some cat prints - try that out.  Yes, I like it!

I finished up the whole bag except for the hand stitching of the top binding on Tuesday.  It would have been much harder if I'd had to supervise homework that night, but A had no homework all week.  Then Wednesday I finished the last of the hand stitching and gave it to his teacher on Thursday.  She was very pleased (and now she knew why I had needed to borrow the kids on Tuesday).

A's Awards Day

A had his awards day yesterday. When he got dressed I saw that he had on a t-shirt and shorts. I told him, no, he needed to wear a shirt with a collar. Well, he decided on his own that he needed to wear his "suit", aka blazer and slacks. He was definitely the best dressed boy in the class!

As usual for the elementary school, A got a boatload of awards -

6 Flags reading program

Book It completion

meeting AR goals

having the highest reading comprehension percentage on AR tests

meeting CCC goals (individualized computer instruction)

highest gain in reading CCC

perfect attendance 4th quarter

Principal's List (all A's), 4th quarter and all year

Here are A and a class mate who did the best on AR points.  She had the highest points, A had the best percentage (and the 2nd highest number of points).  Interestingly, I was helping at the 5th grade awards today and both these 4th graders got more AR points than ANY of the 5th graders!

A's whole class.  They've all just gotten certificates for meeting their CCC goals.