This tweet basically encapsulates the challenge of trying to persuade kids to go to school when you work remotely (and from home):
In discussions like these, you just need to resort to your authority as the parent … 😂
NeONBRAND
Tag: kids
I sat down to watch the pre-recorded Austrian Grand Prix after work. My son came up to me …
Son: Do you know who won the race?
Me: No, I haven’t looked. I just want to watch the race.
My son left the room, and returned a few minutes later.
Son: Can I show you something?
Me (thinking this has to do with a game he’s been playing lately): Ok.
He shows me the Formula 1 app on his phone, and gleefully shows me who won the race I just started watching. 😱
Me: Haven’t you heard of spoiler alerts?! 😭
🏎️
By the way, what a race! If you’re interested, here are some race highlights (🚨 SPOILER ALERT 🚨):
I finally took some time to get outside, and exercise for the first time in about a week. I was going to do my usual run (it’s effective but I don’t particularly like it) when my daughter asked me to take her to the park.
I was about to say “No”, and that I wouldn’t have time, and then it occurred to both of us that I could take her to the park, and get my cardio workout.
So we took a ball and a frisbee. Our daughter (and, later, her friend too), threw the frisbee, or kicked the ball, and I ran around fetching it for them.
This worked out to be a win-win, I think.
Categories
Teaching kids fractions
Our son is learning fractions at school. He’s finding them a little challenging, so I’ve been trying to help him. On one hand, my math knowledge still seems to be sufficient at his level. On the other, I don’t remember doing this stuff like he does it at school.
I found a couple links that will hopefully be helpful to him (well, aside from the examples I worked through with him, some artful diagrams with blocks, and loads of patience), so I thought I’d share them –
- Adding Fractions is a pretty simple site that uses pizzas to explain how to add fractions. I was really pleased to see that “my” method is the same as this one.
- Khan Academy has a wealth of awesome resources for kids. The lesson on “Adding fractions with unlike denominators (video) | Khan Academy” seems like a great example. This one has a handy video.
I also found the Khan Academy videos on YouTube (also worthwhile if you just want the videos):
Kids these days have such awesome resources available … (and, thankfully, so do we parents!)
Featured image by Dawid MałeckiI bought the Hello Ruby books for my daughter a couple months ago. She was interested in learning to code, and I had recently watched Linda Liukas’ wonderful TED talk about how she came to write her books.
So I bought both of the Hello Ruby books: one about programming, and the other about computer hardware. I read the stories in both books to my daughter, and then we paused for a time.
I realised that Liukas also made available PDFs of the computers that school kids could download and print to make little cardboard computers. I downloaded the PDFs, and had them printed on 300 gram paper the other day.
Our daughter cut out the various pieces, read about components like RAM, ROM, the CPU, and GPU, and then we sat together this afternoon and built her computer.
Our daughter’s Hello Ruby computer
Our daughter’s Hello Ruby computer
Our daughter’s Hello Ruby computer
Our daughter’s Hello Ruby computer
Having done this, it may be time to return to the books, and start exploring some of the exercises in the books. It’s a great way to introduce kids to what is otherwise a pretty technical field. Our daughter loves the Hello Ruby approach. I’m a fan too.
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Married For 12 Years
Today Gina and I have been married for 12 years. I’ve had the opportunity to wake up next to her almost every morning in those years (well, and a year or two before that too 😁). I’ve loved my wife since our second date. I’ve driven her crazy in all that time. We’ve raised two amazing kids over the years, and I have her to thank for that.
I hope I have many more opportunities to pay tribute to my long-suffering, immensely patient, and beautiful partner. She and the kids are the loves of my life, and I am a better person with them in my life.
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Our afternoon at the Tel Aviv Port
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Our last two anniversaries:
Reconcilable Differences #66, titled “Inherent Injustice”, is both hilarious and cringeworthy for parents. The hosts, Merlin Mann and John Siracusa, were talking about raising young kids, setting examples for them, and issuing parental edicts.
I started giggling at around 31 minutes when they were discussing how kids seem to struggle with this idea that their parents are not servants who exist to cater for their every whim. I had to share this:
I had another laugh at about 1:01:30 when Mann and Siracusa started talking about resolving inconsistencies in rules that parents make for kids. I definitely have a preference for Siracusa’s approach. As with terrorists, there are times when you just don’t negotiate with kids about rules.
This was probably one of the funniest discussions I’ve heard for a while on this show. Even if you don’t listen to the show (and it can be an acquired taste), definitely spend a few minutes listening to these discussions.
Photo by Allen Taylor on Unsplash
Parents often tell their kids they have superpowers of some sort. My favourite myth (which may actually be true) is that mothers can see through walls and whatever our kids are doing on the other side of those walls.
Fortunately kids believe this long enough to give us time to come up with something more plausible (and similarly effective) as they grow older.
Leaving aside the myths, there are times I think we really do develop some kinds of superpowers as parents.
One of my superpowers is the ability to hear a crying child over some background noise (in my case a fan in our bedroom) in the middle of the night and be on my feet and in my child’s bedroom before my conscious mind has even realised that I’m awake.
That sort of thing still amazes me after more than 9 years.
Image credit: Chris Barbalis