Spent the morning messing with the sidebar (and dyeing stuff). The "patterns and how-to" section was getting too long to be useful. Now patterns have a separate section, as does lace knitting. Added some links to food, mostly the chocolate and apple jack posts. Let me know if there are any links that don't work.
A few notes from the far side:
-thanks to those who pointed out that upping my thyroid meds on my own would ultimately draw the attention of the doctors. I know that. My pharmacy in particular is bad about rationing every last damn pill, to the point you can't even refill a prescription (even for the non-dangerous, non-addictive stuff) until a week or two before the numbers say it's expired. Tuesday I'm going to be making an appointment with another doctor to discuss things (Monday the military is closed for Columbus Day; if you want to declare war on Nebraska, that's the day to do it). One of the topics of the discussion will be, "I've upped my dosage. Deal with it or offer damn good reasons why I can't." So they will know. They may not like it, they may not like how I'll tell them, but they will know. Fairly soon. Even when I quit meds, I try to notify them and keep it documented; in the long run it makes things much easier, especially for the rare doctor who actually reads my medical records. What with the chronic pain, tinkering with my medication is a fairly common thing. But I do realize it's good for them to have some idea what's going on. (Plus if I'm honest all the time, it looks better on the rare occasion when weird stuff happens.)
-thanks also to those offering info and ideas on the Goober and her gifted status. The husbeast and I were both 'gifted' kids who were largely ignored by the school system because we already knew everything, and we both pretty much slept through grade school. I am hellbent on avoiding that with the Goober. Either we'll put her forward a couple grades, put her in a gifted program, SOMETHING. Home schooling is a possibility, lurking at the back of my head, but I'd rather avoid it, for several reasons (social for her, wanting some time to go back to school myself for me). A friend of mine, ages ago, had a daughter who was good at math. REALLY good at math. She kept her daughter in regular public school, though in a gifted program, and then also enrolled her in math classes at the local college. By the time her daughter graduated from HS, she'd maxed out the teaching abilities of the University of Virginia math department, and had full scholarship offers from several really good schools. I forget if the kid wound up going to Stanford or MIT. But every time she had a fit over clothes or boys or dates, her mother would think "Thank god, she's normal." That solution comes to mind whenever the Goober comes out with something brilliant; public school and the local college. Many college professors are thrilled to take on a gifted kid as a private student, one-on-one. My mother-in-law is a retired teacher at both public school and private college level, and I'm sure will be very helpful. Mostly, at this stage, I keep throwing information at her and we'll see how school goes, when we get there. Though I'd like to start her in kindergarten next year. Again, we'll see. That depends most on her social skills when she hits age four, and how annoying the school system is, wherever we move to. (That's another deal - the Goob will not be going to public school in South Carolina. Ever. Over my rotting corpse.)
Otherwise, I'll be spending the rest of the day knitting, and possibly, at long last, finishing some stuff that's been laying around here WAY TOO LONG. Photos will be posted if events shake out as expected.
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8 comments:
Good ideas for the Goob's school. My kids aren't gifted (okay, Ladybug might be) but we have literally moved hell and high water to manipulate the school system and our finances to get them a better education. I'm bitterly disappointed that Mate dropped the ball for the Cave Troll's school enrollment--but we'll fix that next year. Good for you for thinking about homeschooling. I couldn't do it. Part of that was that Big T had some special needs that I really couldn't cope with and part of that was that Chicken and I fought like cats in a sack--I came to realize why you can put a grade school teacher, a high school teacher and a special ed teacher all in the same room and we could all look at each other and say "I could never do what you do."
But good luck with the Goob--I was much like you and your husband. When we moved to a school district without a GATE program, I was just the weird kid who liked to read,
www.hoagiesgifted.org is a good place to do some "research"
too bad "no child left behind" doesn't spend the time and effort on g/t kids that it devotes to pushing algebra for kids w/50 iqs.
i once heard a prof whose specialty was gifted ed say that in japan, teachers teach to the top 25% and let the rest cope as best they can, but in the u.s., they teach to the bottom 25%. and that was BEFORE nclb.
So far, I have to admit that the public school isn't too bad - we do a lot of extra stuff on our own right now, but I think I'd be doing that anyhow. My kid is the weird one who thinks doing workbooks is a super fun way to spend the day. It certainly beat the private school we paid serious bucks for last year. I hope to not be here too long though... Then again, that's totally dependent on the economy.
It sounds like you've got some good options for her. I'm sure having been through it, you can both sort out something that suits the Goob.
My son is pretty bright (in K and reading well and adding, subtracting, and some easy multiplication and division). He also tends to cause trouble when bored. We found a language immersion charter school that seems to fit him very well, is much smaller than our area public schools, and doesn't charge tuition. I don't know if a charter school is an option for you, but it might be something to look into.
I second the hoagiesgifted.org web site. I can also offer an email support community when you want it. I do tagfam. Just contact me.
When my kid is having problems in school, I often think of homeschooling, but I can be so disorganized, I worry he'd be left at 4th grade level.
Okay, so he reads over 12th grade level - he'd learn something. But would it be 500 levels of World of Warcraft?
(I'm just suffering the aftereffects of the gloomy teaching assistant. Who I'd like to dynamite.) ahem.
I went the public school route because our other options around here were the catholic schools and no way was I sending my kids there. What I ended up doing was supplementing and spending a lot of time talking and giving them challenges and problems to solve. They are great problems solvers and good critical thinkers and that's about the best I could ask for.
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