school – Long Island Chick

Sometimes We Would Like to Strangle Them and Then They Go Do Something Like This

Kathleen — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 13:37:54 +0000

While non-parents may be horrified, I consider beating the crap out of my kids on an almost daily basis. One is hitting puberty and thinks that not only his snotty attitude is actually “comedic” but that I am his personal assistant. The other one chucks his teeth when asked to do homework, constantly leaves my basement floor full of lego pieces which I invariably step on EVERY DAY. Ever step on a lego barefoot???? They are lucky they have not yet been maimed.

We had a particularly rough night with Ginger (Matt has auburn hair) and his inability to focus on anything but the opposite sex.

: Ginger has girls on the brain

To make matters worse, Ginger and I missed the bus this morning. So now I have to drive him all the way up to Kellenberg…in traffic. If you live on Long Island, the parkways are a disaster from 7 am on. I also had to wake up Ran who was not very happy about the situation. He demanded that I go away and leave him home. I can’t do that – he is 9. So, slow as molasses, he eats breakfast and gets dressed. Now the drive to Kellenberg has turned into a game of “Beat the Clock” and I am careening around corners and flying up the Meadowbrook. If he is “tardy”, they give detention and I was damned if I was gonna traipse up there again today! Ginger fished a pieces of loose leaf and a pen out of his backpack so I could draft a note on the fly if we were going to be late. Thankfully, we pulled into the parking lot in the nick of time and I shoved him out the door (I did come to a stop first). Ryan and I got home rather quickly, I got his lunch together and took him to Meadow.

When I got back in my truck to go home and turn myself into a human being, I found this on the car seat:

Now I’m gonna have to bake brownies or something. Dagnamit!!!!!

Better Than Flash Cards – Quizlet to Help Your Child Study

Kathleen — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 12:20:13 +0000

Remember breaking out that stack of index cards and writing your question on one side and the answer on the other? Reviewing them over and over again – how boring was that and do you really think it is effective? With the amount of knowledge kids are expected to amass these days in school, the old flash card system is truly outdated. This is especially true if your child has trimester exams or yearly comprehensives which require memorization of entire trimester or yearly work!

My favorite tool of choice for general studying is Quizlet. Quizlet is a free (there is a paid plus version that most people won’t need), internet application where you start with flash cards made by you or you can choose from millions of flash cards sets created by others. But that’s just the beginning – once you’ve got flashcards, you can use several study modes including multiple choice tests and study games. You can add images and listen to audio, and even study on the go with one of dozens of Quizlet-compatible mobile apps. We downloaded FlashCards Sync for the iPhone to my son’s phone so he can review on the bus in the morning. I like that it has a smart study feature – as long as you are honest and check off whether or not you knew the answer, the application will filter out the answers you knew and keep bringing back the problems that gave you trouble.

With Quizlet, you can also create study groups and allow members to contribute flash cards to the group. This is an excellent resource to study for those trimester and comprehensive examinations. What I do, is take flash card sets we already made, add quiz and test questions/answers to them and create a trimester exam study set.

Hope you give it a try and find Quizlet as wonderful resource as we do!

Apparently I’m NOT Smarter than a Fifth Grader!

Kathleen — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 01:19:12 +0000

Not that I didn’t know an answer to a fifth grade question..but that I took my fifth-grader’s answer as gospel instead of trusting my own knowledge. Strangely enough, both my 3rd grader and my fifth grader are learning map skills in social studies at the same time. They both had tests last week and we were studying together. Longitude and latitude were two terms they were both expected to know. When I turned to Ryan (3rd grader) and explained that longitude went north-south, Matt interrupted and said I was wrong. I blinked for a moment, sure that longitude lines went north-south and he said no, that it was an imaginary line that went around the earth and that latitude went up and down. Matt was so sure I figured well maybe I was wrong, I must have forgotten (not that I have ever had anyone ask me the latitude and longitude of any location) and he had to be right and thought nothing of it. We made outlines, electronic study cards on the iPads and they took their respective tests.

Well, both tests came back yesterday and both, of course, got longitude and latitude wrong. I was flabbergasted!!! I got really upset with myself – since when do I take the word of a 10 year old?! I have a total of 15 years more education than Matt which includes not only a Bachelor’s but a Doctorate as well, and I let a fifth grader tell me I was wrong and never second-guessed him. And then I smiled to myself – I always tell my kids to have the courage of their convictions – to have faith in what they believe and apparently Matty embraced it fully. Shame on me!