Oh boy. When I arrived to collect V after middle school orientation, she and about fifteen other kids comprised the first wave of students to come streaming down the stairs. I met her in the hall. She said, "Let's get out of here before something else happens." Sounds promising ( Read more... )

Selling cookies teaches her goal setting, decision making, money management, people skills, and business ethics-aspects essential to leadership, to success, and to life.

- GSA, 2013 Cookie Program Family Guide

"There's a blank here for my goal. I'm just gonna see how many I sell and put two less than that in here."

- VS

She called me over to see a question included on her math review: The population of Ohio is 5,512,262 male and 5,632,156 female. Which type of graph would best show this data? a) line graph b) histogram c) circle graph d) pictograph ( Read more... )

Victoria is fun to teach, when I can stop worrying about doing it wrong. Her test scores came back so high that I spent a couple of months wondering why she didn't exhibit any gifted traits--shouldn't she be very curious? Shouldn't she be asking questions, investigating stuff? She's a regular kid: she likes playing with other kids, reading, cats, ( Read more... )

Last week Victoria went to scout camp. Her leader did a fantastic job putting the program together and all of the kids had a great time, even though the first few nights were extra exciting due to electrical storms. They swam a lot--each kid completed the requirements for the swimming merit badge, including the part where you jump in the water ( Read more... )

I mentioned that Victoria has been waiting with diminishing patience for some tooth fairy action of late. I don't have a good excuse: every night she wants her bedroom door open until she has fallen asleep. So before I go to bed, I have to come into her room, turn off her wacky party lights, and shut the door. It would be a GREAT time to take care ( Read more... )

Victoria is having a heck of a month. She was disappointed not to hear back from the local paper after she sent them an unsolicited article about the cat shelter. I think they're dopes not to at least say thanks but no thanks, but then again she might have sent it to one of those big black hole email addresses. She doesn't hold a grudge though--she ( Read more... )

We're wrapping up for the year, except for the stupid hours that are an utter fabrication and, you know, stupid. Things could be worse ( Read more... )

And how you would read about the guy with the world's longest beard and need to share it with someone immediately? Remember how that person's eyes would go blank because this was the 14th fascinating fact you'd felt compelled to share in the past hour, and how this did nothing to halt your flow of words and insistence that the person also LOOK at ( Read more... )

So far (we started the last week of August) this school year has been smooth sailing. I've finally got the hang of writing a plan the night before--something I would not expect to need for a single student, but it's hard to argue with success. Last year I tried to schedule the lessons Monday through Thursday so that we could use Fridays for ( Read more... )