Oh, the flashbacks to kindergarten "Alphabet Surprise". It was a kind of show-and-tell where kids were supposed to bring (hidden in a bag) a household object starting with a specific letter, with three clues for the other kids to guess what they had. Not once did 4YO DS select an actual, physical object for his word. The times we had, trying to figure out what to put in that bag! (never mind the poor kids trying to guess from his clues).

And since I'm here DS, now 11 (math monster, avid avoider of all things Language Arts): We should play haiku charades. You create a haiku as a clue for each word, and then once the other team guesses all the words, they have to put them in the right order to create another haiku that is itself the clue for the final answer...

The first time my son played 20 questions, he was just 4, he chose an animal. One leg. Yep, a flamingo.

ODS9 created a very thorough plan to teach YDS5 chess. He also made a teacher's notes page for himself, which includes spaces for what his brother does "great" at already and what he needs to practice. YDS was literally bouncing as this plan was read off to him and is so excited, it's really adorable. This morning after breakfast, the plan was put into action. There was no fighting!

At DS9's catholic schools Christmas service, I sat behind him and a friend in the pew. They were quite chatty and mischievous, and their teacher sitting in the pew in front had to turn around a few times to admonish them into silence.
After the service I went up to her to say goodbye and merry Christmas. She told me how pleased she was with DS9s development. I said I was rather embarrassed by how often she had to turn around and say something and she exclaimed: "but that's just it! He is finally relaxed enough to clown around with friends and get in trouble! He never did so, he was always so tense, but right now he is so well integrated into the classroom that this is happening as well. I have to tell him off of course regardless, like I have to do with the other kids, but secretly I am so pleased!"
I am rather glad now that we did not push for the second acceleration into middle school last year - I did have a feeling there was room for social growth there which was not going to be completely cancelled out by the comparable stagnation in academics. Now we can decide on whether to let him start at a middle school for high achievers (around 60% percentile and up, will later be closer to 75% percentile due to attrition) together with friends from elementary which is geographically close or the actual gifted program (around 95th percentile) which will involve an hourlong bus ride each way. Horribly hard choice but it also feels good to know that there are choices, both of which might work socially.

What a delightful anecdote! And I love the teacher's attitude.

DD 6 decides to watch a documentary about Einstien on the history channel. All of a sudden you hear her yelling, "Why do you keep saying the same thing over and over? We get it. He published four papers in the mircle year. Say something else." Then she starts wondering aloud, "Have I seen this before?"

Eyreparent I love your story!

My DD11is pretty upset about the extinction of quaggas....

That is my pet peeve about the History Channel too!

10 minutes of distinct content repetitively delivered over 60 :-(

Having to deal with breaks for adverts and cater to channel surfers who may have just started watching x% of the way through just does not help the poor people making these shows.

I have sometimes wished - given that they have random access these days to all to all of its media - that they would also allow 'distilled' 10 minute versions to be made and shown on streaming media like Netfix.

Just imagine how cool that would be!

While eating our gyros at Greek Fiesta, DD10 begins a discussion on the DNA of major Disney characters. She goes on a long monologue about eye color, magical powers, etc and how those characteristics relate to Elsa and Anna from "Frozen" and several others. DD11 just looks puzzled and asks "What in the world are you talking about????" DD, of course, found it online in her never ending quest for knowledge of all things.
By the way - did you know that Tarzan MAY be related to Anna and Elsa? Their parents did not die on the open sea but were swept along to Africa where they had a baby boy who grew up to be Tarzan. I just learn so much hanging out with DD!!

That's fantastic, greenlotus!