Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Random tidbits

We had a pretty good Easter weekend. Saturday morning we colored Easter eggs. Saturday night I went out with a couple other ladies for our monthly "Mom's Night Out". This month we went to see a movie. We saw Failure to Launch, which was actually pretty good. I liked it more than I thought I would. Then we grabbed a bite to eat.

Sunday morning we did a egg/candy hunt for the boys outside. Brendan had fun. Adam didn't quite grasp the concept, but he had fun playing with one of the plastic candy-filled eggs while Brendan found everything else. After that it was pretty much just like any weekend day- cleaning, laundry, etc. Joe fixed a lawn mower that the previous owners had left. They thought it was just a dead mower and it had been sitting outside in a little shed thing for probably 10 years un-used. Joe got it running in one afternoon! He's so good at stuff like that. When we first moved in about 3 years ago, he fixed the riding mower that the previous owners had tried to fix, had taken somewhere to get fixed, and never had any luck. They were going to get rid of it, but didn't want to haul it off, so Joe told them to just leave it and we'd take care of it. He had it running in time for us to mow the first spring we lived there. Those are just 2 of many similar examples.

Totally changing subjects here, but on our local freecycle group someone posted a link to this article about a guy who is trying to barter/trade his way from a red paperclip to a house! I found it kinda interesting and amusing. He has a blog about it too. HERE is the article about it, and HERE is his blog. Kinda neat!

Again, totally changing the subject, but this keeps popping into my mind and bugging me. At our recent meeting with the Parents as Teachers lady, she gave Brendan an alphabet writing chart. She explained that when he starts Kindergarten that the teacher teaches them to write their letters a certain way... now I understand the lines and that they want the top of the letters to the top line, etc. But what I don't see a purpose for is that each line of each letter was numbered with 1, 2, 3 instructions kinda like this. She said that the Kindergarten teacher will stress doing it just like that with them following those 1, 2, 3 instructions/arrows, blah, blah, blah. My question is...why does it matter if he does his lines of the letters in that order or direction? As long as it looks like an A when he writes it, I don't see the problem. Seems like a petty and insignificant thing to me. I mean, if he didn't already know how to write letters at all I understand using that as a teaching device on how to write an A, but he has been writing his letters for at least 2 years now, and it seems like now he's going to go to school and be told that he is writing "wrong", even though it looks just exactly the same? I know this is not a big deal, it just struck me as strange that they would be a stickler for it being done a certain "right" way in "right" order when an A is an A. lol (I don't even write my A in that order, I start at the bottom. I guess I would flunk out of Kindergarten! heehee)

1 comment:

Melzie said...

*giggle* Just you wait! :) Just think of it as "main streaming." They don't care so much as the kids get older, like 2nd/3rd grade. But right now- they do. He won't be graded for doing it differently- it's just in his class, they'll all be doing it that way. You get to know this, so you can help him do it at home. It's easier for the teacher as well... I promise! :D