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DS6 has been getting some fairly lame writing assignments for homework lately-- at least from his point of view, with which I openly concur much of the time. The latest was to use all of the months of the year and days of the week to write a story (I think that this was done to reinforce the spelling of these words, which appeared on the standard spelling list for the week). His story which he is turning in today:

Once upon a time there was a boy named Mud, who was given an assignment to write a story containing all of the months of the year and days of the week. Mud's story listed January, February, March, April, May, June, July, September, October, November, and December. (He forgot to add August.) [I think he stuck this in because he forgot to add it. ] Then his story listed Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. When Mud turned in his story, he got an F-.

Gotta love that self-advocacy. After he wrote this he brought it to me to look at, and told me he had been thinking of using infinitely nested frame stories but that he was too tired to write it all down. I'm guessing he was too muzzy-headed to think of how to structure it properly, never having done anything like that before (it was around midnight when we realized his homework was due today and it was a rush job).

I told him he should take some time this weekend to write a proper deeply nested story, and we'll probably start by reading over "The Three Storytelling Machines of King Genius", which contains possibly my favorite bit of whimsicality by Lem, the tale of Mymosh the Self-Begotten. I also put a copy of the Arabian Nights by his bedside.

I'd love to know how this turns out.

Thanks for sharing. Searching "marine" at http://cty.jhu.edu/family/science.html and http://cty.jhu.edu/family/creativeconnections.html may suggest some family outings. In Boston there is the New England Aquarium.

Iucounu,

In case the teacher misses it (a lot of teachers aren't looking for that kind of cleverness from kids so young), please let your boy know that someone else not related to him gets the joke about how the boy's name was Mud even before he turned in that F- story.

So the kids got off the bus yesterday and EJ is just jumping with excitement. He said the BIG kids on the bus (his school is prek thru 6th grade) were quizzing him on the bus with multiplication and division. I have NO clue how they figured him out, maybe someone was doing homework and asking questions and he answered? But he only missed one of their questions. AND he somehow figured out the 11 and 12 tables lol Yes my kinder kid has been accepted by the BIG kids ahahaha

Have to share. DD 4 spent the morning asking me if she could "please please please dissect the owl pellets you ordered" LOL. I finally got them out and she just spent to the last 3 hours dissecting 2 of them, identifying the bones, figuring out that the pellets she dissected contained 2 complete vole skeletons each, and then decided to figure out how many pellets an owl produces a day, week, and year and how many voles her eats a day, week, year, assuming that the owl produces 2 pellets a day and thus eats 4 voles a day. She came up with the owl eats,4 voles a day, 28 voles a week, and 1460 voles a year. Seriously impressed with her focus and math skills. She even figured out how to multiply 365x4 when before I had only seen her do simple 1 digit number multiplication.

Owl pellets!  The boy just asked me, "mom.  Can we kill a bird and cut it open and see what's in it?". I'm going to assume it was something he saw on Wild Kratts.  Either way he has a chemistry set, microscope, box of motors, wires, and battery packs.  I was thinking, you just had to have "pouring science".  Can't that last a little while before you ask for something new?  I was going to wait until hunting season.  He's seen the deers skinned and hanging upside down, but he hasn't seen their guts.  I was going to ask a neighbor who hunts to help him dissect a hog or a deer instead of buying a frog.  But it sounds like owl pellets is maybe a starter to dissecting and identifying?
I'm typing this thinking it makes my kid sound a little strange.  Maybe it's just his mom that should say "ew" when he asks to kill a bird and see it's insides instead of thinking, really?!  Another Science kit?!  We just bought a Science kit not long ago!?  

Nope, doesn't sound strange at all! My daughter gutted fish this summer and was fascinated by the salmon roe (eggs) LOL. She asked dad if he could buy a gun so that they could go duck hunting this spring/summer. She wants to see the inside of a duck LOL.

DS 4 is also fascinated with the insides of living things. Dissection is the most loved part of fishing! I don't think I learnt what he knows about the human body until highschool but I did enjoy dissection then (still do)

Hi everyone! Long time, no see!

DD is in a much better place this year, but I credit our awareness and our advocacy efforts in heading off many of the problems that school otherwise seems to be determined to shove her direction... anyway. I digress.


DD, 12, polished off both 10th and 11th grade honors English with a great deal of aplomb and relish. Her 11th grade English teacher announced to her (and me) that one of her writing assignments was "the best she'd ever seen" for the assignment and read it to her typically-aged classmates as a stellar example of innovative and masterful descriptive writing!!

Her algebra II teacher also told me privately that she's at the 95th percentile (and stays there) in that class, too.

Her high school GPA is at 4.4 for fall term, and her cumulative GPA is 4.2 (because of weighting for honors coursework and AP).

We've also really tackled perfectionism issues this year and have a MUCH better handle on those things now; DD is in a much healthier, better place overall. Of course, life with a mouthy, quick-witted adolescent girl is far from perfect. We occasionally tell "Katie" (as in Katie Ka-Boom) to "go home now." LOL. But it is so much better than a year ago.