Math Bowl Mania

The Rationalist joined 4 other students from the third grade for the first stage of the county's Math Bowl.

The entire Bowl consists of 10 questions with 5 minutes allotted for each question.  The points for getting a correct answer are weighted; 10 points for the first minute, 8 points if answered in the 2nd minute, etc.  After each minute a timer beeps, informing the students of the disappearing window for answering the question.

Although I love to show my support for my son, I hate the Math Bowl.  The entire time I look on as his team huddles together, pencils scribbling, arguments erupting, time slipping by.  It's hard for me to watch.  The questions are quite tough for their grade, but are easy enough for me to figure out within a few moments of reading them on the projector screen.  Knowing the answer, I have to sit still and quietly hold my breath while I observe them working it out.

Completely. Nerve. Wracking.

It's even worse when, on occasion, I realize that they have misunderstood the complicated directions and are working on the problem from the entirely wrong angle.

Alas...they came in fifth place...just above the middle of the pack, but not one of the top three teams going to the finals.

Watching your children compete is so much worse than competing yourself.

Summer Is Officially Here

Let the games begin!

School has officially ended for the boys. They have partaken of the requisite 4 cupcakes, 5 cookies, bowls overflowing with popcorn, and red, fruity drinks at the end-of-school celebration in their classrooms. They have carted home at least 2,317 loose papers in various states of crumplification, 3 half-empty bottles of glue, 12 multi-colored folders stuffed with graded homework from September, approximately 48 nubby crayons, and at least 22 Time--for Kids magazines.

How all of this fit into their desks, I am not sure. My bet is on some sort of tear in the fabric of space/time which exists only in school desks, allowing 100 times more matter to inhabit its interior than seems logically possible.

The kids are already excited and have an erroneous assumption that they will playing with the Wii for at least ten hours each day. No school. No homework. What else could possibly stand in their way?

Ah...such foolish innocence...so quick to forget the mean mommy who will place limits on them.

Brainiacs

Warning: This post contains copious amounts of mommy-blogging, maternal pride.

DH and I have continued to be successful at raising the next generation of brainy geeks. Our kids really never had a chance to be anything else...poor souls.

The Rationalist has been selected to participate in a Math Bowl for the second grade. He and four other children were tested and chosen out of the entire second grade to represent their school against a few others by the end of April. He stayed an extra hour after school yesterday to practice with his team. He is very excited about it, and sees it as the first step in getting on a game show in real life, something that would totally rock his world. Go Math!

Intuitive Monkey was sent for gifted testing last week by his kindergarten teacher. In a surprising move, the counselor actually tested him the next day. This was surprising because it took two years of teachers hounding the counselor to test The Rationalist. Time after time they had been put off by him until he probably got sick of hearing from them and did it.

What's funny is that Intuitive Monkey actually scored two points higher than The Rationalist, a secret that The Rationalist must never discover. His competitive spirit would overtake him. He relishes that he knows so much more than his brother and usually seizes any opportunity he can to correct Monkey. Upsetting his psyche in this area would probably cause his universe to implode.

The whole thing reminds me of that Frasier episode where Niles and Frasier try to discover who scored higher on an old, unlabeled, IQ test from their childhood.

Hilarity and Hi-jinks ensue.

It brings me great pleasure that our kids like school and seem to thrive in a learning environment. I am even happier that they are just as content to wrestle around the living room, or dig in the dirt in our back yard.

Although they sometimes drive me crazy, I love watching the continuing evolution of their personhood.

Kids, School, and Parenting

Today I am going into Intuitive Monkey's kindergarten class to help tutor some of the kids that need a little extra help. His teacher was looking for volunteers, and I happened to have some time on Tuesday afternoons. I'm actually looking forward to it. I have always wanted to be more involved with the school, but until this year Monkey was always with me. The school wouldn't let me bring him with me for field trips or to help in the classroom. So, even though I stayed at home and didn't work, I could never chaperone The Rationalist's field trips in Kindergarten and 1st grade.

Besides that, The Rationalist's teachers have never seemed very welcoming. Schools always say they want more parental involvement, but what they really want is for parents to participate in the PTA and fundraising drives. They are less interested in actually communicating with parents about their child's education. I took five years to raise these kids and get them prepared for public school, only to hardly hear anything from these teachers. Every once in a while, I come a few minutes early and stick my head into their classrooms to touch base with them for 30 seconds as the kids are lining up to leave. I don't interrupt anything or stay long. They always act surprised to see a parent and a little annoyed that I dared to say,"Hi!"

It's really strange. They have sign up lists to help out in the classroom. I fill them out and they never call for anything. Once again, I think the administration has them put things like that out during Open Houses, but the teachers themselves don't want to be inconvenienced by having miscellaneous parents in their classes.

Another intriguing development on the school front involves The Rationalist's reading choices. Like me before him, he has developed a reading level far above what the average seven-year-old has. His school participates in a program called Accelerated Reading. Students check out books, read them, and take quizzes to test for comprehension. They are rewarded with parties, certificates, and so-on. The Rationalist is reading books that are rated at a higher level. They try and push students towards the upper limits of their reading abilities. Once they have scored 100% on a certain amount of tests in a certain reading level, they are moved up to the next level.

This has resulted in The Rationalist reading books that are written for an older audience of 4th graders and above. Yesterday, he brought home a Goosebumps book from R.L. Stine--The Haunted Mask. I was familiar with Goosebumps, in general, but I had never actually read one of the books before. I told him that I wasn't sure that I wanted him reading it, and that his father and I would have to read it first to see if we thought it was OK. He understood. We have had to have several conversations about TV, movies and books before, telling him that just because something is on TV or written in a book, doesn't mean it's good for us or appropriate for them at their current age.

This was especially true when I answered a phone call one night and told them they could watch TV in my bedroom while I was talking. I finished the conversation and walked in to find them watching Family Guy. It had just been put into syndication on a local channel and was being shown at 5:00pm. I had to explain that not all cartoons are for kids and that even I didn't watch that cartoon, and I was a grown-up.

But back to the point.....I am having to try and find the balance between encouraging a voracious reader, while at the same time making sure that he isn't prematurely exposed to things that he's not ready to handle. I don't think a seven-year-old is ready for Goosebumps. The story I read was a serious horror story. It wasn't a watered-down kid version that frightens but ultimately ends well, or is more of a parody.

Here's a picture from the TV version of the book he checked out.




That's Carly Beth in her haunted mask which takes over her body and won't initially come off, making her behave and act in scary ways to her friends, including an incident where she tries to choke her best friend, stopping herself at the last minute.

Uh...yeah. Goosebumps gets the kaibosh.

I seriously don't know what's up with that school library. First they let my five-year-old check out a book about Japanese zookeepers starving elephants to death, then my seven-year old is given books that will probably give him nightmares.

I should probably talk to the media center about age-appropriateness, but I was trying not to be the annoying mother who is pestering them constantly.

Empty Nest

I can never seem to have my emotions at the right time.

When The Rationalist started Kindergarten a couple of years ago, nary a teardrop was found in my eye. He gave us a hug, went into his class and we all walked home. Instead, two weeks before his first day of school, I went through two days of regret, worry and sadness. I wondered if I had prepared him enough for being part of a large group for six hours a day. I felt badly that I had always looked forward to his starting school, easing the work for me at home. I mourned the loss of his personality throughout the day. Mother guilt overwhelmed me.

After those couple of days, I was fine. We cheerily bought school supplies and uniforms for his big day. When it finally arrived, we smiled and congratulated him on becoming such a big boy while weeping parents ambled away from the school, red-faced and and sorrowful.

School starts in 17 days. Intuitive Monkey will finally be in Kindergarten and my nest will be empty. I am a wreck. Have I been a good enough mother? Could I have been better? Now that I am handing both of my children over to other people for a huge chunk of the day, will our relationship stay the same? What the heck am I supposed to do with my life now?

I'll be OK. We'll shop for school supplies and uniforms. We'll tell him he is such a big boy and congratulate him. We'll cheerily drop him off while first-time mothers are gulping down their silent sobs. We'll move into a new phase of life.

I'll be OK.