As far as I can tell from the slo-mo, he drops the two balls at the same time from the same height; they land together on the first bounce, but not the second bounce. love it!
If anyone wants to show off our little Galileo in their physics class, I'm happy to share the original movie.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Sunday, February 13, 2011
"I don't like to write words."
Writing is not Jordan's strong suit at this point in life. Math homework he does with gusto, spelling homework he does willingly (he no longer complains about the weekly spelling tests), but lately he has these story prompts that he is supposed to keep adding to all week long, and he really does not want to do it. Here is last week's:
The prompt is: "Write a story titled, 'My Journey on a Pirate Ship.' You and your friends can star in the story." Here's what he wrote (translated):
I would find my friends. I would drive to a faraway island and wait for a pirate ship. It smells bad. It was loud too. I like to be a pirate, it's so fun.
The first two sentences were his sullen contribution - he wanted to be done after that. I dragged him along to write the other three sentences. The resulting tale did not pass muster with Miss Wodrich. She returned it with that cute red-apple post-it, on which she had written cheerfully, "Jordan, this is a great start to your story. Keep going and add to the story! Keep it up! :) -- Miss Wodrich." I read him the note and explained that he would need to write more of the Pirate Ship Adventure, in addition to writing about whether a monkey would make a good pet (which is this week's prompt).
He had a big, sad tantrum, especially when I said that he would not be able to have any computer time until he had finished his homework. After calming down, he found it in himself to write a decent quantity of sentences on the monkey question. That was yesterday. Today, faced with the pirate ship, he said, "Mommy, I think I would rather write the letter." This was an option I had offered him the day before: I had said that if he wanted, instead of writing one story, he could choose to write a letter to Miss Wodrich, explaining what the trouble was. Here is the result:
"Dear Miss Wodrich,
I don't like to write words. So I could only write one of my stories. The reason I can't do it, well, I just can't think of a sentence! And I cannot think of words to write. But I do like to draw pictures.
Sincerely,
Jordan"
My thinking in letting him do this is that it's still a writing exercise; it's authentic writing, in which he is saying something he actually wants to express; he's giving his teacher a window into what's going on for him, which might help them have a more effective relationship; and he's practicing telling the truth about what he's stuck on, which I think is an important and difficult skill. It seemed to me that he took the letter much more seriously than the original exercise. It was also more work for him just in the sense of writing more lines of text than he would have otherwise.
It's a juicy question, though. Should parents allow students to explain their problem with an assignment rather than doing the assignment? Does that foster mature judgment about self, task, and teacher relationships? Or is it more important to teach that sometimes you need to just buckle down and do things, even if they are difficult, because that's how you learn?
The prompt is: "Write a story titled, 'My Journey on a Pirate Ship.' You and your friends can star in the story." Here's what he wrote (translated):
I would find my friends. I would drive to a faraway island and wait for a pirate ship. It smells bad. It was loud too. I like to be a pirate, it's so fun.
The first two sentences were his sullen contribution - he wanted to be done after that. I dragged him along to write the other three sentences. The resulting tale did not pass muster with Miss Wodrich. She returned it with that cute red-apple post-it, on which she had written cheerfully, "Jordan, this is a great start to your story. Keep going and add to the story! Keep it up! :) -- Miss Wodrich." I read him the note and explained that he would need to write more of the Pirate Ship Adventure, in addition to writing about whether a monkey would make a good pet (which is this week's prompt).
He had a big, sad tantrum, especially when I said that he would not be able to have any computer time until he had finished his homework. After calming down, he found it in himself to write a decent quantity of sentences on the monkey question. That was yesterday. Today, faced with the pirate ship, he said, "Mommy, I think I would rather write the letter." This was an option I had offered him the day before: I had said that if he wanted, instead of writing one story, he could choose to write a letter to Miss Wodrich, explaining what the trouble was. Here is the result:
"Dear Miss Wodrich,
I don't like to write words. So I could only write one of my stories. The reason I can't do it, well, I just can't think of a sentence! And I cannot think of words to write. But I do like to draw pictures.
Sincerely,
Jordan"
My thinking in letting him do this is that it's still a writing exercise; it's authentic writing, in which he is saying something he actually wants to express; he's giving his teacher a window into what's going on for him, which might help them have a more effective relationship; and he's practicing telling the truth about what he's stuck on, which I think is an important and difficult skill. It seemed to me that he took the letter much more seriously than the original exercise. It was also more work for him just in the sense of writing more lines of text than he would have otherwise.
It's a juicy question, though. Should parents allow students to explain their problem with an assignment rather than doing the assignment? Does that foster mature judgment about self, task, and teacher relationships? Or is it more important to teach that sometimes you need to just buckle down and do things, even if they are difficult, because that's how you learn?
Friday, February 11, 2011
Jordan Pollock
Jordan's class made Jackson Pollock-style "action paintings" today. Jordan was really excited about this project -- as who wouldn't be? I want to do it too!
The paintings will be sold at the PTA auction. Maybe we could buy one! It might even be worth having to go to the event, which otherwise I would just as soon miss.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Thumbsucking
Jordan still sucks his thumb. His dentist is increasingly ominous about it. We worry about the effects on his jaw and teeth. In the short term, we worry about him looking babyish, and also it's pretty unhygenic, given how dirty his hands usually are. None of these concerns mean much of anything to Jordan, of course.
In general I'm a fan of being clear on what is your own problem and what is a problem that you think someone else has. The latter problems are usually best left to the person that supposedly has them. However, with a six-year-old, it's tricky. Parents are often in the position of helping their kids be socially appropriate. But at his age, is it up to him whether the comfort of sucking his thumb is worth whatever social consequences there may be? (And, to be honest, I don't actually know what those are, if any.) The orthodontic bills belong to the grownups, for sure, but he might have braces anyway -- Dale and I both did. And it's not like we're so vigilant about hygiene in other areas.
Years ago, we were advised that many kids quit on their own when they're 4 or 5. Then we were advised that mostly any remaining thumbsuckers quit when they start school, from peer pressure. Neither of these occurred. Here are the strategies we have tried:
1. Explaining the consequences (to teeth, etc). This had no effect at all as far as I remember. I think the consequences are just too abstract.
2. Gentle reminders. The idea is to help him break the habit by just saying something brief to remind him not to. This means saying something every time we see him suck his thumb, right? Which can be a lot. Pretty soon it's the most common interaction you have. And it's very hard to stay patient and lighthearted when you're saying the same thing for the 500th time that day. Thus, it becomes nagging. And nagging very possibly increases his anxiety, which ... increases thumbsucking. In any case our observation was that "gentle reminders" were not at all effective and were a bummer for us.
3. Nasty nail polish. I posted about this a year ago (sigh). I think it is genuinely nasty; Jordan doesn't like it. But the fantasy of using it for a week or two to break the habit was not realized; we had to just keep applying it day after day. Forever? And Jordan experiences our putting on the nail polish as a punishment, not as a support (because stopping the thumbsucking is our decision, not something he wants to do). It seemed not very effective and maybe a little brutal. We still use it occasionally, but it is not the magic cure we had hoped for.
4. Positive reinforcement. This actually is very effective in its way. Years ago, we would reward Jordan with a jellybean if he could go for a whole car ride without sucking his thumb. Totally worked, for the length of the car ride, and it was easy to keep jellybeans in the car. These days, the currency is Pokemon cards or shiny rocks. During the day, he gets a point for every couple hours he goes without thumbsucking, and five points gets a prize. He finds this pretty motivating and the thumbsucking is greatly reduced, probably down to 10% of what we used to see. (His tough areas are things like circle time (his equivalent of sitting in a boring meeting), waiting in line, and so on - the same sort of times when I'd be tempted to check my phone.) We have also worked out an elaborate system for nighttime, which you would think would be impossible (how can he control it when he's asleep?): He wears gloves to bed, and we mark his thumbs each night with a red X in washable marker so that if he sucks his thumb, the X is sucked off. This, he can totally do, so he gets a prize every morning. This makes him happy, and it's good to know that it is possible for him to sleep without sucking his thumb.
I was pretty excited about the positive reinforcement approach a while ago. Now, though, I am having trouble, because I don't like the fact that whenever I'm with him, I'm monitoring him. If he slips, I have to make it clear to him, so that he knows he's not getting a point this morning. If he is hiding in a blanket fort he made for himself, I suspect that he's sucking his thumb in there, and I check on him. He knows it, and says "What??" like a teenager as he's whipping his thumb out of his mouth. If he's playing quietly in another room, I poke my head around the corner, and he knows I'm checking on him again. I feel like a spy. And because it's really constant, pervading our time together, it has become a major part of our dynamic. This is not what I want spending time with him to be about!
I posted to Facebook asking friends for advice, and got a (to me) startling number of people admitting that either their children, or they themselves, had sucked their thumbs until they were 8 or 9 or even until puberty, and that nothing stopped them until they made the decision themselves. Between that and the movie Thumbsucker (trailer here), I have been seriously tempted to drop the whole thing. Or at least to see if we can get Keanu Reeves to be Jordan's guru-orthodontist.
After more discussion and advice, we have decided that the right thing to do is to bring Jordan into the decisionmaking. We do our best family teamwork when we're having regular family meetings; we haven't had one in a while, but we are now motivated to reinstate them and have them regularly, with thumbsucking as one of the concerns we address during that time. (here's a sample explanation. Our agenda is: compliments, concerns, plans, and a joke.) Jordan really likes family meetings and is very engaged and creative with problem-solving during them. This will give us some ideas in which he's a participant, and we'll try a variety of ideas, and check back weekly about how things are going. I'm actually looking forward to it. And if it doesn't change the thumbsucking, at least we'll all be practicing our good problem-solving skills.
In general I'm a fan of being clear on what is your own problem and what is a problem that you think someone else has. The latter problems are usually best left to the person that supposedly has them. However, with a six-year-old, it's tricky. Parents are often in the position of helping their kids be socially appropriate. But at his age, is it up to him whether the comfort of sucking his thumb is worth whatever social consequences there may be? (And, to be honest, I don't actually know what those are, if any.) The orthodontic bills belong to the grownups, for sure, but he might have braces anyway -- Dale and I both did. And it's not like we're so vigilant about hygiene in other areas.
Years ago, we were advised that many kids quit on their own when they're 4 or 5. Then we were advised that mostly any remaining thumbsuckers quit when they start school, from peer pressure. Neither of these occurred. Here are the strategies we have tried:
1. Explaining the consequences (to teeth, etc). This had no effect at all as far as I remember. I think the consequences are just too abstract.
2. Gentle reminders. The idea is to help him break the habit by just saying something brief to remind him not to. This means saying something every time we see him suck his thumb, right? Which can be a lot. Pretty soon it's the most common interaction you have. And it's very hard to stay patient and lighthearted when you're saying the same thing for the 500th time that day. Thus, it becomes nagging. And nagging very possibly increases his anxiety, which ... increases thumbsucking. In any case our observation was that "gentle reminders" were not at all effective and were a bummer for us.
3. Nasty nail polish. I posted about this a year ago (sigh). I think it is genuinely nasty; Jordan doesn't like it. But the fantasy of using it for a week or two to break the habit was not realized; we had to just keep applying it day after day. Forever? And Jordan experiences our putting on the nail polish as a punishment, not as a support (because stopping the thumbsucking is our decision, not something he wants to do). It seemed not very effective and maybe a little brutal. We still use it occasionally, but it is not the magic cure we had hoped for.
4. Positive reinforcement. This actually is very effective in its way. Years ago, we would reward Jordan with a jellybean if he could go for a whole car ride without sucking his thumb. Totally worked, for the length of the car ride, and it was easy to keep jellybeans in the car. These days, the currency is Pokemon cards or shiny rocks. During the day, he gets a point for every couple hours he goes without thumbsucking, and five points gets a prize. He finds this pretty motivating and the thumbsucking is greatly reduced, probably down to 10% of what we used to see. (His tough areas are things like circle time (his equivalent of sitting in a boring meeting), waiting in line, and so on - the same sort of times when I'd be tempted to check my phone.) We have also worked out an elaborate system for nighttime, which you would think would be impossible (how can he control it when he's asleep?): He wears gloves to bed, and we mark his thumbs each night with a red X in washable marker so that if he sucks his thumb, the X is sucked off. This, he can totally do, so he gets a prize every morning. This makes him happy, and it's good to know that it is possible for him to sleep without sucking his thumb.
I was pretty excited about the positive reinforcement approach a while ago. Now, though, I am having trouble, because I don't like the fact that whenever I'm with him, I'm monitoring him. If he slips, I have to make it clear to him, so that he knows he's not getting a point this morning. If he is hiding in a blanket fort he made for himself, I suspect that he's sucking his thumb in there, and I check on him. He knows it, and says "What??" like a teenager as he's whipping his thumb out of his mouth. If he's playing quietly in another room, I poke my head around the corner, and he knows I'm checking on him again. I feel like a spy. And because it's really constant, pervading our time together, it has become a major part of our dynamic. This is not what I want spending time with him to be about!
I posted to Facebook asking friends for advice, and got a (to me) startling number of people admitting that either their children, or they themselves, had sucked their thumbs until they were 8 or 9 or even until puberty, and that nothing stopped them until they made the decision themselves. Between that and the movie Thumbsucker (trailer here), I have been seriously tempted to drop the whole thing. Or at least to see if we can get Keanu Reeves to be Jordan's guru-orthodontist.
After more discussion and advice, we have decided that the right thing to do is to bring Jordan into the decisionmaking. We do our best family teamwork when we're having regular family meetings; we haven't had one in a while, but we are now motivated to reinstate them and have them regularly, with thumbsucking as one of the concerns we address during that time. (here's a sample explanation. Our agenda is: compliments, concerns, plans, and a joke.) Jordan really likes family meetings and is very engaged and creative with problem-solving during them. This will give us some ideas in which he's a participant, and we'll try a variety of ideas, and check back weekly about how things are going. I'm actually looking forward to it. And if it doesn't change the thumbsucking, at least we'll all be practicing our good problem-solving skills.
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