July is almost over. We’re starting school up again in September. I’m not yet sure exactly *when* in September, but it’ll be fast on the heels of whenever her summer activities are over.

I have Singapore Earlybird math and science. I have the first Explode The Code book, but not the teacher’s manual. I still need to buy that. I also have a book of kids around the world that we can look at together with our map. I bought Singapore art, but the lack of a supply list and my complete inability to do art has meant we stopped after the first lesson. I’m going to sign her up for an art class and a music class. I bought a geography game that may be above her level, but between that and a puzzle map of the US and a general kindergarten game, she’ll get a gleaning of general knowledge which is more than I got from Kindergarten. I also got some new Dick and Jane books and between those and the library she’ll have some reading practice. Last year we did dance and gymnastics as well. The year we may try soccer again too.

I’m torn between being free-form and having a schedule. In the end I will probably come up with a schedule to use as a guideline. We have many educational games, and those she plays when she feels like it. Her interest tends to come in spurts, and so far I have followed that and supported her interests. I guess that’s worked out all right. I wish I knew if I was doing this right or not. I don’t want to stifle her interests or to have school become a chore, but on the other hand I don’t want her to lack tenacity or a work ethic.

When I think about these things too much I send myself into a real panic.

I’ll probably adjust as I go depending on what I see happening with my daughter. I’ve managed okay so far, so I should be able to handle kindergarten too. Right?

It’s something tots do naturally. We browbeat them not to when they become kids (I’m doing this right now with my 4 year old. I forbid her to talk about farting outside the house). Then, if they are lucky, they learn how to again as older teens or young adults. At least that’s how it seems with girls. Maybe boys are different, I don’t know.

Some people just aren’t going to like your opinions. And some of them won’t like you, just for disagreeing with them. You can see that a lot on the internet. It’s pretty impressive the insults you can get for not liking a book or restaurant. Of course, that’s all the stupid stuff. Disagreeing at school or work is a much bigger problem.

My own opinion has always been that I like to discuss things and I like to talk to people who don’t share my perspective. I don’t mind being disagreed with, so long as its done politely and not as an excuse to insult me. Those who can’t tolerate not having their opinions chiselled in gold on my walls needn’t bother to speak.

So it was with some amusement that I saw my Amazon reviewer ranking. It’s 206829. Now, I’m not big on reviewing products–I’ve only got 14 reviews up. But I noticed that my ranking is based on the votes of readers on whether or not they found my reviews “helpful”. Which of course means whether they agreed. I have a lot of no votes from one book I panned (probably too tersely. I tend to be too terse). Anyway, this thing is a diet book called Eat, Drink, and Weigh Less by Mollie Katzen, who is apparently some kind of big name author, and Walter Willet. It got great reviews. So I bought it, regretted it, wrote about it, and pissed a lot of people off.

I can live with that.

But I did go back and give everyone who *I* agreed with a positive rating.

Last week I took dd to the library. As we were in the elevator another mom got on with her kids. We were going to 4, and she pressed L (lobby). Dd4 commented that L was wrong, and that we were going to 4. I explained that they were getting off on L, and we’d be going to 4. The other mom asked dd’s age and commented on how smart she is. Now, as much as I like hearing that, I don’t think that any real amount of intelligence was needed to understand. But okay, I’ll happily accept the compliment. Then this woman asks if dd has older siblings. Yes, I say, she has an older sister. Ah, she says, nodding her head wisely. That’s why.

Gee, thanks. I’m just here to do the laundry and cooking.

TWO REVIEWS:

1) Horsez for PC, by Ubisoft $26.99 on Amazon. Rated E.

First of all, what’s with the “z”? Is someone in the software industry under the impression that a game about horses is inner-city cool? Do the ponies rap? Maybe the folks at Ubisoft just forgot to run their spellchecker.

This was an impulse buy when I took dd4 into the game store to get a Sims 2 game for the teengirl. It has a mare and foal on the front. The back of the package says, “Pick your perfect pony from lots of adorable breeds. Learn how to raise, groom and feed him.” The three other comments on the back say that you can participate in horse shows, compete, and join an academy.

I guessed from this that dd would be able to play the initial game of picking a pony and riding it around, and we’d just skip the rest.

I got the damned thing home and installed it. It’s a linear adventure about people in a riding academy. There was no horse picking. That must come later in the game. Instead, I got to deal with their interface. I don’t have a lot of patience for things that are made poorly, and this crap is well into that category. I finally quit when I had to select a class schedule by clicking and dragging classes onto a scheduler. Except that I couldn’t do that, and I couldn’t exit the screen either. The manual, as it’s laughingly called, didn’t address this or any other issue I had. So I made my apologies to dd, packed up the disks, and I’m taking the whole thing back to the store.

I think this might be a good game for a preteen girl who likes horses and has some patience with stupid game design. If Ubisoft had put *that* on the back, I’d have saved some money.

Website is here:http://petz.us.ubi.com/horsez/
I think the graphics look like something from the Teletubbies.

2) Nebel’s Elementary Education: Creating a Tapestry of Learning, Bernard J Nebel, Ph.D., Nebel’s Press for Learning. 2001. $18.27 on Amazon.

This is a 429 page softcover book that purports to be a “how-to” manual/guide for providing a complete K-5 curiculum. I figured it didn’t when I bought it, but I was curious.

Nebel has an interesting educational philosophy stressing comprehension and the interconnectedness of all knowledge. He divides his book into seven “themes” that made little sense to me. Water Wonders is a separate theme from Physical Forces and Principles, for instance. Other themes include Communication and the odd blend of Values, Purpose, History and Society.

I found the first few chapters of this book very useful, and they are the reason I will keep it on my shelf. In them, he talks about the practice of teaching. Through page 54 in the middle of the third chapter, I loved this book. Just for example, Nebel discusses how to handle student questions, how to praise, how to say you don’t know, and different teaching methods. After that, it becomes more focussed on what to teach than on how to teach it and I found that far less helpful. Perhaps if he’s put all that information into a list format I’d have liked it better, but its all embedded in prose. On the positive side, each chapter ends with a section of resources for the reader. In sum, for me the first few chapters were worth the rest of the book. If you are an experienced teacher you likely don’t need this, but I’m not and I will certainly use it.

Website is here: http://www.pressforlearning.com/