mathmom's blog

Yesterday, Amanda got home from school and wanted to go play on the play structure. Fine, I thought, and I put her school bag and lunch box on the porch. We played and went in, and I forgot about the bags until this morning. This morning, when I went to make Amanda's lunch, I remembered that the bags were on the porch. They hadn't gotten wet, so I brought them in and got out the lunch bag. It didn't take me long to realize that the lunch bag was full of ants. I chased them down, killed most of them, and washed out the bag. YUCK! Then I got to the school bag. The inside was coated with ants too. I emptied them into the sink, and washed them all down. If giant ants emerge from the sewers in a few months, you can blame me! In all, making lunch took about 10 more minutes than I expected, which was OK because today, I was running about 10 minutes early. Now we just have to get rid of the stragglers. Hopefully we are not in for a long process. In the mean time, I keep...

Yesterday I was able to see Luke's preschool class walk across to a small playground. Luke had his jacket partway in his bag (it was a beautiful day) and was trying to stuff it even more into the bag. It fell out as soon as he stopped stuffing. Then one of the children who was following Luke called out, "Hey, Luke! Your jacket is on the ground!" The teacher who was leading them (the other teacher was back in the room) called out to Luke to leave it on the ground, but none of the kids following Luke was able to pass it. The kids in front of Luke walked to the playground like nothing happened, the kids behind him watched anxiously as Luke went back to his jacket, managed to stuff it all the way in, and then continued on the way to the playground. Catastrophe adverted! It reminded me of the scene from the beginning of "A Bug's Life" where a stick (or was it a leaf?) falls in the middle of the train of ants bringing food to the offering. The ant just behi...

Amanda yesterday came home talking about the "brownhog," which comes out of his ground on brownhog day. If he sees his shadow, he "runsdowntohisholeasfastashecan!" and goes back to sleep. She then told me that we get 6 more weeks of winter. (I was never sure whether this was a good thing: 6 more weeks of winter sounded great compared with 3 months in MN...) She is also learning a southern accent while at school---her teachers are from South Carolina and Georgia. She's definitely a mimic. Noone would be fooled by her accent, since she lays it on pretty thick ("Ahhd lahk to go out saahhd!") but it is pretty humorous...

Luke's class at school made "stone soup" a few months ago. Luke was very impressed with making it, less impressed with how it tasted. At any rate, one of his beloved teachers apparently splashed some stone soup on Luke's nose and wiped it off with a kleenex . Luke came home and told us the story, and now whenever he has a runny nose he wants us to wipe, he says "I have stone soup on my nose! Wipe it off!" This comes in varying degrees of intensity, depending on his emotional state at the time. This would be the end of it, except of course that Luke's pronunciation is that of a 2 year old boy, and so when he says "stone soup" it comes out as "tone poop!" When trying to get him to say "soup", it often comes out as " sssss poop". I have finally started to understand what he is talking about, so I don't get one bodily function confused with another. But his older sister (Amanda, not Eleanor, who is too old to...

....pation. The rule in our house during the school year is that the kids get dressed before they come downstairs. I explained to Luke that he had to get dressed, because today is his second day of school. He didn't seem outwardly excited, but as he was coming down the stairs he said, "I go in car!" Yes, after breakfast, I explained. He repeated himself a few times---why say something once when you can say it 10 times? I turned away to make breakfast and I heard the garage door unlock. Luke was trying to get into the car, but was stymied by the fact that the doors were closed. Michael had to talk Luke back into the house. I don't know what he said, but Luke did eventually come in and eat toast. Interestingly enough, I cut his toast into 4 triangles today. I'm not sure how much he had thought about triangles before, but he repeated the word (giangle!) and repeated counting the sides with me. I asked him how many triangles he had, and he counted them by him...

Eleanor had a homework assignment this week: research a mammal, write 5 facts about this mammal (using best handwriting and editing), make a model of the animal in its natural habitat. This could be fun, I thought. Eleanor had chosen the cheetah. My mind immediately started thinking about how we could do this... we have lots of shoeboxes . Hmm , don't cheetahs live in grasslands? Maybe we could paint grass...oh, or paint the sky and use yellow construction paper for the grass... We could use clay for the cheetah, or I know! That clay that gets hard when you bake it! We could make something that really looks great! I hope you see what was happening to me before I did. I eventually managed to bite my tongue. I bit it very hard when Eleanor drew her initial sketch for the habitat as a rain forest. I merely suggested she look for a picture of a cheetah in its natural habitat before she created the background. Sure enough, Eleanor came up with great ideas on her own. Some thin...

Someone obviously lost the memo explaining that it is March , in North Carolina , and planned a snow storm. So all my plans for babysitters and helping in Amanda's class and a teacher conference trading babysitting so a friend could go to a career group and driving kids to school and getting Michael to watch friends kids are up in the air. I guess that will teach me to try to make complicated plans... At least, unlike Maryland, they have not preemptively cancelled Eleanor's and Amanda's school. I am expecting (hoping, actually) that it is delayed, but we'll see. They seem to have the attitude that if you can make it in, you should, because school is fun.

Eleanor's class in school has been doing an "Economics unit." In December, they set up a "factory," where parents helped kids mass produce Christmas presents: Russian tea, bath salts, trail mix, and so on. Eleanor made bookmarks. The kids were "paid" for their labor, complete with bonuses, and the next day they shopped for presents using their money. It's amazing the difference in motivation when you are adding up to see if you have enough money left over for a present for yourself, as opposed to doing yet another worksheet. Eleanor got quite good at adding 2 and 3 cents together. In January, the kids were assigned to do jobs around the house (jobs they don't regularly do) to earn money to go to an Italian restaurant. Eleanor worked sporadically at unloading the dishwasher (.05), making her lunch (.25), folding socks (.15). She earned $5.05, so we advanced her .95 so she could go to the restaurant. Eleanor now can add quarters, nickels...

Eleanor's last day of kindergarten came on Friday. I had no idea how hard it would hit me---she is growing up and growing out on her own. She's grown a few inches, and she is much more mature in her behavior. The biggest obvious difference is that she learned how to read. But she has also learned to follow a schedule, to participate in a group, to make and lose and re-make friends on a deeper level than seeing them once at the park. She is closer to being able to make her dreams come true without help (the latest one is a cooking club: "Eat the Alphabet!" More on that later). She is by no means perfect, and I will complain about the things she does in this blog sometimes (even knowing that she reads it sometimes---Hi Eleanor!). But I'm pleased with the change I've seen over the past year, and I am looking forward to seeing the change next year. The biggest change for me, of course, will be having to take care of 3 kids full time this summer. I'm try...

Eleanor and her kindergarten class have been studying the presidents. Eleanor actually has all 43 (more or less) memorized. The other day Eleanor asked me if there had ever been any "girl presidents". I told her not yet, but that Hilary Clinton was running for president. She told me, "I hope Hilary Clinton wins." Today she told me that the other 3 people at her "table" in kindergarten were all Obama supporters! I can't believe they talk about this, but apparently Eleanor has decided to be in the minority at her kindergarten table. I can respect that. She sometimes calls Obama "Maraca Bama" (the Maraca is her third favorite instrument). I had to laugh when she told me what Duncan said about Clinton---he hopes that until the end of time forever and ever we have boy presidents. Eleanor says she hopes there can be some girl presidents as well.

Eleanor, in the car after school today: "During 'rest and read' today, Justin took off my socks and threw them in my cubby. That's why I don't have any socks on now." What!?!? She continued: "It's hard to believe that a nice boy like Justin would take off my socks." "Eleanor, did you have your shoes off during rest and read?" "Yes." (Apparently many of the kids take off their shoes.) "Why did you let him take off your socks?" "I was asleep, mom, really." Anyone who knows Eleanor knows that this is very unlikely. Hmmm. Perhaps I don't really want to know. I'm glad she was sitting in the back of the car and couldn't see my face.

Today I had the chance to visit Eleanor's Spanish class. They sang an alphabet song, learned how to say some letters of the alphabet, reviewed color words, and so on. They also played a highly amusing game. Imagine about 22 kindergartners gathered around a rug. There are 4 letter cards in the center. The Señora announces they are going to play the matamosca game, and the children practically cheer! I don't know what she is talking about until she gets out two fly swatters. She chooses the first players: Eleanor contra Ashley. She announces, "Matamoscas arriba!" She then tells them (in Spanish) to point to the letter G. The first one who points to the correct letter is the winner, although I'm not sure that anyone except the winner paid attention to this. After each round, she announces the next combatants: "Jim contra Amanda!" A murmur goes through the crowd, as they pick their winners (and place their bets). It is almost exactly the scene in th...

Well, Amanda finally had an allergic reaction at school. Yesterday one of the "sensory experiences" set up for the kids was a flour table (wheat flour, of course). Amanda was so interested that she went over there even before she had washed her hands and got completely covered. There was no immediate reaction, but she was completely covered in it. She started itching (I don't know if she had any hives, I don't think so) so the teachers gave her Benadryl, washed her off and eventually changed clothes. If we had been really concerned about exposure to wheat, we could have asked that the classroom be a wheat free zone (just like it is a "nut free zone") with no playdough and no wheat snacks. If we were extremely worried, we could keep Amanda home and have Eleanor take a shower and change clothes when she gets home from school (I know some people do this). The truth of the matter is that Amanda just isn't that allergic to wheat, if at all. The risks ...

Here's another thing I didn't know happened in kindergarten. Today was a hard day---I had to take the girls to school with baby Luke, so we were running just barely on time, until as we were driving down the block I realized I had forgotten something at home. Then we got behind a school bus. Then we came to an accident: someone had tried to pull a u-haul trailer across a ditch, and had gotten stuck half-way into the right lane. So we were really late. Then Eleanor started complaining that her tummy hurt. Well, Eleanor complains that her tummy hurts all the time. We finally figured out that she's lactose intolerant, so that helps quite a bit, but she still has a lot of trouble. Fortunately, it usually passes and is not severe. This time, however, she was saying that she felt like she had to throw up and she looked awful. Well, I hadn't planned on keeping her home, but that was ok. But then she perked up when I said it was my turn to help in her classroom. Hmm, ...

This post is in response to Chanson's post about French schools---it started out as a comment and grew and grew... Unfortunately, I can't quite figure out how to link to it (and I need to do the laundry and shower before Luke wakes up), but here's her blog, it's September 20 th's post. I went to a public southwest Minneapolis elementary school. It was mostly white, until about 5 th grade when waves of Hmong refugees started coming into the city. The Hmong students were pretty much as nerdy as I was: my best friend Hai outscored the 6 th grade teacher on the Iowa test of basic skills. There were not many African American students there, though. When I was in 7 th grade, I went to a South Minneapolis jr . high---it was certainly integrated. However, the experience served mostly to confirm whatever vague prejudices I had gotten from TV: the black students were interested in smoking, making out in the back of the bus (these were 7 th and 8 th graders!), and...