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December 19, 2007
What My Kids Are Playing Tonight
Tonight, my kids are playing a game of President and Secret Service agents, in which the football keeps getting stolen.
Don't ask me. I have no idea.
Posted by lynx at 6:43 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
December 11, 2007
Connor Math Work 2007/12/11
We are starting to get into the really cool stuff now: primes and factorization. Connor keeps forgetting the rule for divisibility by 3 (though he remembers the rule for 9!), but other than that has the idea of testing a number for divisibility down pat. So we are on to the Sieve of Eratosthenes, and factor trees, and such yummy stuff. The Dolciani book is also challenging Connor to do more thinking. For example:
Explain why the sum of two prime numbers greater than 2 can never be a prime number.
So today I am having Connor do the p91 section A problems, and tomorrow the section B and C problems.
Posted by jeff at 11:38 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 9, 2007
The Golden Compass
Aidan's statement as we left the theater sums it up nicely: "All I ask ... is that they completely re-shoot the movie to make it remotely like the book."
The casting was superb. The look was very nice. The font used in the credits was lovely.
Not only was the movie badly written, it had the distinction of making me want to retch during the final scene. And then, oh, how we laughed! We had to laugh, because it was. that. bad.
And hey! If you scroll down, you'll see a cute post about the cute things my cute kids say. I'm only mentioning it because Ami said it got lost in all the math.
Posted by lynx at 6:10 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
December 6, 2007
Connor Math Work 2007/12/06
We'll be redoing Connor's last assignment, which I didn't post. It's the written exercises for Dolciani 3-1 on factors and divisibility (p87-8), the odds on part A and B, plus all of problems 33-36. Connor didn't do well. This is the latest in a string of events that is prompting me to change the way I'm working with Connor. I am going to try to maintain a set time for math, and go through all of the example problems with him. Connor tends to say he gets things that, I find out when he does the exercises, he didn't really get. Worse, he tends to leave problems blank if they are not immediately apparent, which I only find out when I sit down to review his work. So we'll be doing the work a bit more formally now, to see if that helps us both keep on top of things, and helps him to learn better.
Posted by jeff at 2:19 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 5, 2007
Overheard at my house ...
Me: Griffin ... are you writing with your left hand?
Griffin: Well, Mom, it's one of my favorite hands!
Lachlan: (near to tears) Mom! Nearly all of my favorite dinosaurs are extinct!
Griffin: I have a soul!
Aidan: Whose?
I was trying to creatively inspire the younger children to do their chores:
Me: Even the Jedi had to do chores. Who do you think cleaned up Anakin's room at the Jedi temple?
Griffin: Anakin didn't live at the temple, Mom.
Me: Well fine, who do you think cleaned his room, where he lived?
Griffin: Padme.
Posted by lynx at 11:12 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack