I must say, I felt at home when I walked into the art room this morning, as there was an explosion of papers of all shapes and sizes covering the work tables. It reminded me of my desk at home ...
TO THE TEST: Today we finally got around to having the kids take their Accelerated Reader (AR) tests. In case you're wondering, AR is (per Wikipedia) "a daily progress monitoring software assessment in wide use by primary and secondary schools for monitoring the practice of reading."
CJ isn't super suited for multiple choice type tests as he often has an answer that isn't the 'right' one, but it makes perfect sense when he's allowed to explain it. Couple that with him being told it's a timed test and ZOMG. Once he knows it's timed, that's it - all he can think about is tick-tock-tick-tock to the point of preoccupation. Given that, it's amazing he even tested at grade level. The upside of him testing below his abilities is he will get more AR points for reading easy books. And I'm pretty sure getting an average/on point score for a reading test in 3rd grade won't affect his college admissions.
Annabelle, on the other hand, didn't know it was a timed test (which is good, as that freaks her out, as well, for whatever reason). Given that lack of knowledge, she was able to test in the 99th percentile for her age/grade. Of course her reward for testing so well is she'll have to read much "harder" books to earn points.
INTERWOVEN: The kids' science class is still in the midst of its unit on textiles. Today, they got to dissect some swatches of burlap and wool and compare and contrast the fabrics. They also got to take a good look at them under a microscope.
FEED ME: I was cutting a ground beef chub in half today (I known, ewwwww, sounds gross!) and the process resulted in some meaty morsels left over on the knife and cutting board. At that moment, I looked up at the windowsill and remembered we have a supposedly meat eating plant. I asked the kids if they were up to an experiment and they were both totally on board! Much to our delight, with just one exception, each of the Venus Fly Trap's sharp toothed heads went after the meat in a big way. Upon being offered some ground beef, they closed rapidly - almost instantaneously!
CARVINGS: Tonight the kids dug into the pumpkins the picked out at the patch on Monday. Annabelle drew up a Sonic the Hedgehog design, while CJ opted for a scary face.
They both worked really hard and stayed on task (they were BIG pumpkins and took a long time to clean out). I was proud of them.
In the end, this is what they came up with. They were quite pleased with the end result.
MARS & ME: Regular readers may have figured out that I have, well, a thing for NASA. Frankly, this thing for NASA is the primary reason I'm on Twitter. I follow all sorts of NASA branches, affiliates and fans. NASA does a great job hosting Tweetups (gatherings of Twitter followers) for all sorts of NASA events (launches, landings, facility tours and such). I watch each and every NASA Tweetup notice with keen interest, but haven't applied for any - until just recently, when a Tweetup for the Mars Rover Curiosity's launch in late November was announced. I've been watching the build up to this launch for, well, YEARS now, and as soon as I saw that notice, I fixated on it and decided I *needed* to be there for that. So, I threw my hat into the ring and from following Tweets, I knew today was the day notices would go out.
And here's what's funny. When I got up this morning, for whatever reason, my Spidey senses told me I was going to be selected for this, to the point where when I was obsessively checking my email for a confirm, I was thinking not "am I in?" but "what's taking so long?"
Not until 4:30 p.m. did the Best Email Ever come in. It read, in part:
Dear Kristine ...
Congratulations! You have been selected to attend the NASA Tweetup on Nov. 23 and 25 in conjunction with the launch of the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover!
I've booked my flight, my car and a (flea bag) room. It ought to be the adventure of a lifetime, really. Looking at the other people selected it's a little intimidating - a whole bunch of PhDs, physics people, astronomers and such. Oh well. I'll just shift back into my journalism mode and it will all be OK, I s'pose. That, and I can bake them some cookies. ;)
Concentrating on "concentrating" instead of on the topic causes loss of concentration. There are techniques to stop that misdirection. Might be good for CJ to practice them.
ReplyDeleteGreat Pumpkins, especially the scarey one.
Congrats again on the Launch. Guess I'll have to learn how Twitter works.