Emily: "We watched this movie at school today about bad behavior and there was this one part where they showed three boys in the bathroom and there was a urinator."
Me: "Aaaaah, do you mean urinal?"
On getting along:
Me (to Rich): "They've been really, really good today. The most well behaved ever."
Allie (very seriously): "Well, yesterday, Anna said that she was going to kill me."
(Laughter)
Allie: "No, really. She said that she was going to kill me and then I was laying on the floor and she came over and was doing push ups on me and danced on my stomach."
Anna didn't deny.
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We've pretty much been snowed in these past three weeks. It's been extremely cold (as I type this at 11:00 AM, it is 10 degrees outside, without the windchill) so playing outside for more than 10 minutes isn't possible. Never mind that it's kind of hard to play in snow that it is 4 to 5 feet deep. I'm still fighting electronics here. The girls can use my laptop or iPhone for short time periods but I still think they are too young for actual ownership. I had briefly thought about getting them kindle fires (especially when I see them on sale on amazon) for their upcoming birthday but I still don't feel that it's necessary at their age. I continue to push creative play and reading. For math practice, we use old school flash cards or what I've found most effective is to sit and go through examples of their timed tests (100 problems) that come home from school. We haven't yet found online math facts practice that exactly meets their needs. It's either too easy or well beyond what they need.
Emily brings home books from her classroom Monday - Wednesday to read as part of her homework. Her teacher has books grouped based on reading ability and has assigned kids to a specific group. She's supposed to read a chapter or two, if they are on the short side, each night.
Emily, my mini-me bookworm, usually reads an entire book in one afternoon/evening.
Math homework. I secretly share the girls' dislike of "explain why" in math problems. This one made me laugh.
Allie then explained that she wrote that because she didn't know the answer so she had to use the calculator. "But you know what 9 plus 7 is." "I know but I couldn't think of a problem where I would need the calculator." "Oh, that's easy. How about 348 plus 289?" "No, Momma. My teacher said nothing over one hundred."
We are in the process of moving desks into the girls' rooms. I need to do some furniture painting but the weather won't allow for that for another few months.
We were slammed by another blizzard this weekend. I hope to have those photos up tomorrow. My throat starting hurting Saturday night and I thought I was okay yesterday but it all went downhill in the afternoon and I crawled into bed very early last night. Very happy today is a holiday. More snow tomorrow! Looks like we are in the range for 3 - 7 inches, which normally would be considered "not much" but when you have a snowbank that's nine feet tall at the end of your driveway, it becomes a "where do I put it" game.
Remember when Rich and I went to Turks & Caicos? I was dreaming about that today. Get passports for the girls . . .
4 comments:
I agree that age doesn't need their own devices. My seven (almost eight) year old uses our iPad or laptop maybe once or twice a week to do educational games after school while I am preparing dinner. There are a lot of good sites out there, but nothing they need to be on constantly. His school recommended this site http://www.arcademics.com/ when you scroll down there are different math facts to practice. He enjoys the Duck Race most
My son is younger than your daughters (4) we do let him use our kindle fire but we have him set up with his own user and I have limited the amount of time he can do certain things, he can read (look at) books for as much time as he wants but the video app- which he only has one option PBS Kids- he can only use for 30minutes per day, this helps me get dinner ready, or lets him wind down also...
I can't imagine having all that snow. We have the cold here, but have been fortunate to not get hit with the snow.
I can recommend the Nabi Tablets especially the DreamTab. It has excellent educational games and great parental controls. You can set that the tablet can only be used from 6pm to 6:15pm so you can have tight control of usage. Nabi has some good info on Facebook and on the website. Any questions you can hit me up also. We own 2 of them, one my MIL uses.
Try a search for math magician it is a great site for practicing math facts. Also you can sign up for xtra math, another great place to practice math facts.
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