30 percent in math, 40 percent in math

Yesterday, we met a friendly young 13 year old. She was with a friend. We know the friend. I asked the friend how she was doing in school.  Then I asked the young 13 year old.  She said in a matter of fact manner that she was doing fine except for math.  Her math is in the 30 or 40 percentile.  Her comment was, " I do not understand math anyway".  She has an  A in math resource class.  I asked if she was on an IEP and the answer is no. An IEP is an individual educational plan to help struggling students with learning challenges or disabilities.  How do the teachers even try to teach these students?

Naughty Spot compared to Calm Down Corner

I just talked to a friend who is a wonderful mom.  She has a precious 3 year old and is doing a good job being his mom.  She has a wonderful idea I want to share.  Most of us reading this will be familiar with the term naughty spot, time out chair for misbehavior or the term you chose to use.

Her son has a place that he is sent when he is in trouble for a short period of time.  The naughty spot is a place to sit when he has chosen to misbehave. A good place for the naughty spot is the kitchen because mom can watch him. The naughty spot in the kitchen allows mom more freedom to walk away while insisting he obey. This is especially true when he is whining and crying to wear mom down so he does not have to obey.
                                                                                               
This child also needs a place where he can go to calm down when he is not in trouble. He can become over excited and need to calm down. Someone suggested that it could be the same spot.  This mom realized that she did not want him to think he was in trouble if he just needed help to calm down.  Therefore the two could not be the same place or even in the same room.

 The calm down corner is to help him learn to calm down when he becomes overwhelmed.  Mom asks if he needs to go to the calm down corner when she notices he is getting upset. He will say yes and mom tells him to come to her when he is ready. He controls when he can leave the calm down corner. The calm down corner is in the living room where the parents are the most. She does something in the living room so he can see her and be secure.

How often do we give a child mixed signals when we are trying to help them?

different ages in the tutoring building

Today, my grandchildren ages 3 and 4 were over.  They love to play in the tutoring building because of the balls hanging from the ceiling.  These balls can be lowered to their size and encourage hand eye coordination.
Where else can people usually hit a ball inside or throw balls or scarves inside.
I encourage them to play in the building under supervision because of the learning challenges that run in our family.  They enjoy the balance boards and this is good for children.  Supervision is necessary unless I want to spend days finding all the pieces of the games I use to teach and putting things back together.
Today, my grandson, age 11, was excited to play with his younger cousins.
He is old enough to play the games and knows the rules.  He does not understand why the little cousins do not play better and why he has to play his turn quickly or they get bored and go play something else. It is funny to look back on now but it was not so funny when I was trying to keep everyone happy.
It also helped me remember why I usually tutor with a one to one ratio or at least only family at a time.
I ordered Pizza from A J's Heavenly Pizza to make everyone happy for lunch,  Mom and Dad came and everyone was happy.

Finger Thumb test

One test I try to give when I work with a student is the Finger Thumb test.  Last week I forgot to try this.  This is a student I know is smart, so I forgot.  When she was struggling with some math, I asked her to put her thumb on each of her fingers in order from pointer, to tall, to ring to pinkie and then pinkie, to ring, to tall, to pointer.  When she struggled to do this, she looked at me in surprise.  We will work on this. For some reason it seems to make a difference in coordination for those struggling to learn.   I have only had one student who did not struggle with this test.  When a student finds they struggle with this they will practice until they master the exercise.  I also tell them to do the exercise when they are struggling to be still in school or when struggling to learn something.

A successful school day

Today was a success.  It was not a success according to the book as we broke up the lesson.  When we finish the lesson and the student is not sure he knows what the lesson was about, the day was a failure. This is hard for a parent,  tutor or teacher to accept.  At least, it is for me.  However, when I have a happy student and he feels good about what he has done; the day is a success. Hopefully for me, we can pick up the pace in a week or two.

Tax Time

I do not enjoy paying taxes anymore than anyone else.  The hardest thing about taxes is the amount of time spent getting all the information together to file.  There has to be a  better way to do taxes.  There are several good ideas. One is the Fair Tax. One is the 999 plan. One is the Flat tax.  Anyone of them would be an improvement on what we have.
Parents need to help prepare their children for testing and how much time is wasted doing taxes.  I know things came to a slow down at our house in order to get things ready to go to the tax people.