No more Art woes

6thGrader had to pick electives for school this year. His choices were a full year of P.E., Band or Art, or a half-year of P.E., Art, Dance, or Research. He didn't want to do P.E., Band or Dance, so when we marked his schedule choices, he had to put four 1/2 year choices, so we put Research, Research, Research, and Art. He was placed in Art for the first semester's elective.

6thGrader isn't much of an artist, but he does enjoy doing clay and other tactile forms of art. But drawing is his "worst nightmare." And of course 6th grade art starts with drawing. We talked with his Art teacher about just getting through it and on to the next project, and she was making progress with him. But then she became ill and was out for 2 1/2 weeks.

And thus the parade of substitutes. Things spiralled downward very rapidly for 6thGrader and I got the dreaded call from the Guidance office. We've been talking back and forth for the last week and a half and today, when the phone rang, I recognized the number. Ay yi yi! You don't ever want to recognize the school's phone number.

It was the guidance office calling to let me know that 6thGrader was being transferred out of Art and into Guidance Aide for the rest of the semester. 6thGrader asked the counselor if she would please call his mom because he was tired of me asking him how Art was every day.

So his Art woes are over. He'll work in the guidance office for the rest of the semester, doing errands or office tasks, studying, reading, or other things that are productive. He's a lucky boy that the teachers and counselors at his school were willing to figure something out for him.

Why I love the Math Teacher

Can I just say how much I love 6thGrader's Math teacher?

Here are a few reasons why.

1. There are no such things as math "problems." Only math questions or equations. She says that in Language Arts, they ask you to read Question #3. In Science, you answer Questions about scientific things. So why is it when you get to Math class, suddenly you have all these Problems?

2. She's in tune with 6th graders. When teaching the Order of Operatives, she uses a mnemonic device (and yes, dictionary.com is my friend!) to help them learn: Parentheses, Exponents, Multiply/Divide, Add/Subtract. She says that many people learn "Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally" to help them remember, but she doesn't have an Aunt Sally, but she did have four Annoying Siblings and she's sure that her middle schoolers also have annoying siblings (or know someone who does). So she teaches Please Excuse My Dumb Annoying Siblings. Not P.C., but effective.

3. When asked if they could use their calculators for a particular assignment, she told her class that she would rather they use their Florida brain than their Texas brain. And before any Texans get upset, she was referring to the calculators; they're made by Texas Instruments, you know!


I've been having some discussion with some mom-friends who live in various states about school textbooks and how they vary from state-to-state. We were wondering how they can really be all that different, and is math taught differently in Florida than in Georgia or North Carolina or California? One of the moms said she wasn't sure about most states, but she knew how they teach math in Idaho.

One potato.
Two potato.
Three potato.
Four...

Lunch with 4thGrader

4thGrader's class had a special lunch today - bring your grandparents (or parents, if your grandparents can't come) and have lunch in the classroom. Because 4thGrader's grandparents live too far away, I joined him for lunch.

He wanted to just get school lunch, so I packed lunch for me. As it turned out, he didn't like what they had (we don't have a menu this month for some reason or another) so he ended up eating my sandwich while I just had my yogurt and squishy banana. We sat at his desk to share our shared lunch.

After lunch, the children had a play about Strong Verbs that was written by Melissa Forney. If you're unfamiliar with Melissa Forney, she's an author but more importantly a motivator and educator who teaches how to teach writing to students and how to encourage children to write, and how to help even those who don't enjoy writing to, when they do have to write, to write well.

4thGrader then showed me around his classroom as our Open House was the 6th day of school and they didn't have much up, but now that we're in the 4th week, they have a lot more stuff on the walls.

What a wonderful break in the middle of my day!

Foil-a-gami

4thGrader and I had a "me and mom" breakfast at Chick Fil A yesterday since he had no school and I had no work. DH dropped us off while he went to Lowe's for a while, so after we finished eating, we were just hanging out.

(Aside: It's nice to hang out at CFA and NOT have to go into the playroom. I spent a lot of hours at CFA when 4thGrader was preschooler so he could play with his friend while her mom and I would visit and then tell them "10 more minutes" which really meant another hour.)

Anyway, after we were done, we both started folding our chicken biscuit wrappers into different shapes. 4thGrader said "look Mom - it's for-a-gami" which swiftly turned into "foil"a-gami - the not-so-ancient art of folding Chick Fil A food wrappers into swans and airplanes.

Code of the Boys

I found this while being a voyeur over at Found Magazine.

http://www.foundmagazine.com/find/1482