PregnancyFamilyEducation Blogs
November 12, 2009
Eureka
By 10:00 on Wednesday, several friends had already e-mailed me the links to this story on a new study directed by the Motion Analysis Laboratory at Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore, MD. [more]
- Tags: Writing, Special Needs, School Daze, Parenting, Homework, Children
November 10, 2009
The pen is mightier...
People who know me would say that I am a very non-confrontational person, sometimes to a fault. I am a fixer-of-things, and a mediator. I prefer to look for the painless solutions, the ones you can reach with a minimal amount of emotional outpouring, or ugly exchanges, or hurt feelings. I also prefer to do battle on paper, and to outline my thoughts in writing before having a face-to-face discussion. [more]
- Tags: Teaching, Special Needs, School Daze, Parenting, Children
November 3, 2009
Anxious
It was strange to be back in the classroom on Monday. There’s nothing like missing practically an entire week of work to make you feel out-of-the-loop, and very, very far behind. I also noticed that while I have a hard time getting any students to come visit me in my office for a chat about misplaced modifiers, or parallel sentence structure, they didn’t seem to mind dropping by to ask me about my battle with the swine flu last week.
What were my symptoms?
How long did my fever last?
Was I really, really, really sick? [more]
October 16, 2009
Doing the math
L.'s Fall Break ended last week and we're now a whole week into the second quarter of L.'s fourth grade year. I like to stand back and survey the big picture from time to time, and the start of a new quarter seems the perfect time to do that--coming on the heel of a good two-week break for L., and that brown envelope that came home--the one with the report card, and goal sheets; the one that always seems to reduce my child to black and white numbers on a page. [more]
- Tags: Special Needs, School Daze, Parenting, Early Learning, Children
October 7, 2009
Bag of Tricks: Bully Prevention Awareness
Did you know that this week is National Bullying Awareness Prevention week? Even if your child hasn't reported any bullying problems at school, I think this week is still a great time to talk with your children about friendship, kindness, and the importance of reporting bullying of any kind to teachers, staff and parents. So often we aren't motivated into action until something affects us personally; I'm guilty of this as a parent myself. [more]
September 30, 2009
Hunger
One of the things I really enjoy about L.'s school calendar, and the fact that he gets two weeks off for fall break and two weeks off in the spring, is that we get the chance to control the conditions of his day, and make sure he's coming close to eating three regular meals each day; or, if we can't manage that, at least we can send enough snacks his way to feel he's getting something to live on. When school is in session we're lucky if he gets one and a half "real" meals/day, and it takes its toll over time--turning him into a hyped-up, strung out mess. [more]
September 25, 2009
Unlikely albatross
The other day in the car L. mentioned that the year was going by really quickly.
"I can't wait for this year to be over!" he said.
"Is it that bad?" I asked.
"I just can't wait until the next year, and then the next, and the next. I can't wait until I'm eighteen!"
"Enjoy being nine while you can," the maternal voice of (40-year old) wisdom advised him from the front seat of the car.
He was quiet for a minute.
"You're right," he said. "I'll never get these years back once they're gone."
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- Tags: Special Needs, School Daze, Parenting, Operation Bento Box, L., Children
September 17, 2009
IEP take two
Two weeks ago we bid farewell to T.'s speech therapist extraordinaire, and last week I sat down with T.'s new speech teacher and her homeroom teacher and signed numerous documents setting up an IEP for her to receive speech therapy at school. It was seamless transition, really, from private therapy to free services at school. There had been no haggling over whether or not she could even receive speech at school; they accepted her private therapy evaluation without a second thought, and a few e-mails later we got the paperwork rolling. [more]
- Tags: Speech, Special Needs, School Daze, Parenting, Kindergarten, Children
August 20, 2009
Convergence
This made me smile yesterday:
T.'s take on winter science! The hypothesis she was testing? Whether or not frozen rocks would turn to ice.
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