jeliza: custom avatar by hexdraws (pyjama squid)
2014-06-07 04:35 pm
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a few pics from camp

Because right now I have very few public words beyond the fact that being cabin mom to seven 10 year old girls is exhausting.  Also, internet connectivity at Cornet Bay ELC was limited to random squibs of data every few hours, so my inbox/voicemail/etc is terrifying.



The quiet beauty of this landscape leaves no hint to the deafening roar of fighter jets and other military aircraft passing by constantly.



Outside 80% of the day and lots of activity? D approves.



O at "nature poetry" class at the firepit.



One of my camp jobs was teaching an elective, so I did paper airplanes. And learned a new one in the process. This elective works so much better at camp, where there is plenty of room for testing, than it did in a classroom, where I had to keep reminding them not to throw their planes where they might land on the people in the "caring for guinea pigs" elective that was in the same room.
jeliza: custom avatar by hexdraws (dumbo octopus)
2014-03-11 11:24 am
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math is hard, let's get a cookie

One of the things that is most challenging about helping my little kids with their math homework (beyond the age appropriate attention span issues) is that so much of what they are working on involves concepts that are so thoroughly embedded in my brain I can't explain them. Place value is just there. How skip counting relates to multiplying is just there. That reversibility of addition to subtraction and multiplication to division is just there.

But place values are HARD. Wrapping your mind around there being zeroes in the middle of numbers that aren't, say, 10, or 100, is a serious does not compute. Until it is the only thing that makes sense, and then how do you explain why it was hard?
jeliza: custom avatar by hexdraws (max-killing)
2014-02-25 08:47 am
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the neverending fear of fatness

I just increased the dosage of kid's painkiller O gets for her headache based on the weight she was at the doctor last week, and she got all worried because of the increase. I hate the culture that makes a 10 year old assume that her weight gain is BAD even when she is growing! (And while this would also not be particularly rational if she was heavy, the girl is *skinny* and that still doesn't mentally override the "oh no I've gained weight" thought.)

Fat as an insult is traded frequently around the playground, too. At this age it doesn't appear to be related to actual fatness, though I can't decide if that is better or worse.

[crossposted to g+]