conuly

Ana is reading at somewhere above a "J" level. J seems to mean "A Porcupine Named Fluffy", which I just outright bought her for Christmas because she kept taking it out for school and I thought she should be fair to the other children.

Last year she was among the best readers in her class, reading at a "G" level. Children reading above an "F" level were to write five sentences in their reading log over the summer.

The teachers judge what level a book is and write the letter with a sharpie on the cover. It's not just this school, I've bought used books that clearly come from other schools that have the same system.

How do I know what level a book is? What's a reasonable range of level for first grade when they started teaching reading in kindergarten? I want to get (more) books for the classroom as a gift, but I want to get books that are most useful, not ones that will be too hard or too easy for most children most of the year. How is this determined?

Help? Please?

A walking school bus is basically like a carpool without the cars. Except that sometimes you can get help from school staff as well.

Jenn and I have periodically mentioned to each other a desire for a WSB at Ana's school. (And Evangeline's!)

Only thing... the school doesn't have many students yet (as it only goes up to the second grade, and only has one class there as well) and, worse yet, many of the students live much too far away to reasonably expect them to walk. (Or even unreasonably, given how young they all still are!)

But it occurs to me that due to a quirk of history, our school is less than five minutes (walking!) from the next-nearest public school! (And it's only 5 minutes from the nearest non-public elementary school as well, smack dab in the middle of the two schools in what's basically a straight line.)

THIS school might not have enough students to really make a walking school bus work (although it'll ultimately have 440 students), but this school plus PS 16 plus (if we could work with a non-public school) Trinity Lutheran certainly does.

How does one go about suggesting this sort of multiple-school arrangement to the PTA? The logical thing to do, just working in the one school, would be to send letters home asking people who are interested to sign up and then use their addresses to plot "bus stops", just like we do for the real school bus. And to do this in more than one school and insist that there be a parent volunteer per route per school. But how do I say that in a polite and convincing way? I don't always exactly have the gift of the gab, you know.

(Not that I know how much she can really read, but I'm going off what she admits to.)

This means I want suggestions for books in two different categories:

1. Books without words, where the kid works out the story alone

2. Beginner books that are intended for early reading - I've heard of, say, Bob books, or republished Dick and Jane books, that's the sort of thing I mean. They don't have to be inspiring, they just have to be simple.

Any suggestions?

Oh, and I've added a lot of books to my various online catalogs, if you're interested in what the nieces already read.

I have more books in Amazon than the others because I also include books there that I don't actually own - ones we took out from the library or read at the bookstore, especially if we happened to decide *not* to get it and I know why. After all that effort I'm now slightly irked that so few people call my reviews helpful there. (Well. Not that much effort. I get lazy after the first two words!)

I've asked over in parenting101 and I've asked over in TBW and the answers that I've gotten have mostly been... less than helpful*.

Angelique has been asking (again!) about how the baby is made. She still thinks that we're cooked to become alive, and she presumably still thinks we're eaten, too. Which makes a certain kind of sense, and is why I no longer say that a baby is in a tummy. It's always "womb", and often even "womb, which is near the tummy, but not, because the tummy is for food, right?"

Last time she asked, I told Jenn, and we agreed on getting a book, and... nothing ever came of that.

So today, I want book recommendations. Books that treat the subject simply and plainly and honestly, and that will make sense to a fairly bright four year old, or even a not so bright four year old who thinks, or wants to think, that we're baked like cookies.

And please - unless you have a copy in English that I can buy, no links to scans of that German book that actually shows what goes on prior to conception and says that people have sex because it feels nice. While that's the sort of attitude I appreciate (though I'd of course run it by Jenn and 'dul first!), I don't want it in German. This child is still learning to read, after all!

*_{How do you politely clarify your request without also telling the person who gave you totally the wrong type of advice that their advice is the prime example of the sort of stuff you don't want to say? Somehow, this nice woman managed to hit all three points of things that I did not want! And she meant well, and it would be good advice if I was coming at it from the same direction she is. I felt bad.}

Edit: I've now gotten better advice elsewhere, so with that advice and your advice here, I should be set. I hope.

I seem to remember a fanfic I read a while back, and totally forgot about.

Harry and Dudley both had been attacked by werewolves. Other Dursleys killed. Adopted (?) by McGonagall and renamed. Filch was actually believably likable. (There's only one E in that word? Since when?) Everything was going different, but for believable (more or less) reasons.

Title almost certainly had moon or wolf or both in it, but what do you expect?

Help?

And I don't know, maybe I moved the computer funny, but I heard a pop. One of the hinges on the monitor is slightly out of alignment, it looks like.

How fixable is this? Right now, the monitor is just not as slow-to-move as it ought to be, and I obviously do not want to cause any *more* damage.

This has really not been my week :(

(Well, I did manage to make chocolate chip cookies today and hide the evidence so well that 'dul didn't know I'd baked. That's good.)

There's this woman I talk to at the Farmer's Market, we've been friendly since forever.

And every time I see her... well... she knows about our various financial situations. She keeps slipping me money.

So today, I talk to her, we're good, and as I turn to go - she hands me some money. After arguing, I finally just take it, because how do you politely tell somebody "don't give me money!"

And as I leave she slips some more money in my bag.

It's like being pickpocketed, but worse. It's putpocketing. It's really damn embarrassing. Youse guys know I don't mind asking for stuff when I need it, but this isn't the same at all!

And I can't just tell her to knock it off, because I do like her, and anyway, she's old, and I apparently feel that one shouldn't just up and yell at old people, not without a really good reason. "Stop giving me money" isn't a really good reason, much though I think it is.

Heeeeeeeeelp meeeeeeee.

One of my friends (who's neither confirmed nor denied that this is okay, so I'm saying this vaguely) needs a bit of help. She's looking into schooling/therapy options for her young son who is very likely (but not confirmed) autistic. Big issue right now is communication. She understands him to some extent, but he's not talking or signing or anything like that.

I'm hardly the expert on autistic education here, so if people who know more than I could just give a quick rundown of things she wants to look out for because they're Very Very Bad, and provide links on what they think is more useful, that'd be good.

Thanks. Most of my friends who know about this know more than I do, so I'm really counting on youse guys to help.

Please add more information/resources as you know them. Sorry this took so long.

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I may add "the big ones" with no comments on them later.

I already knew my adapter for my laptop was going to hell... probably for the same reason my glasses always have scratches in them, y'know? The part that goes into my computer has three tiny holes, and each hole has some metal - but in one of the holes, the metal was gone, so it kept coming nearly undone. Then, on top of that, for the past few days, the adapter itself would stop working until I plugged it out and in. Oh, I knew, it wasn't long for the world, and being near it was completely and totally a bad idea...

Yeah. Burnt my fingers when the wire completely burnt out and got a hole in the casing. Unplugged it, turned off my laptop, on my mom's (because I never wear down my battery if it can be helped).

I *think* that this might actually be covered under the current Dell recall, but I'm not positive because I can't make out my sticker, and don't really care that much. I need to buy a new one. I'm just going to trek the old one with me to the store to ask people who can see it what I need to replace it, but I'm wondering if anybody knows 1. how much this should cost and 2. where this will be cheapest and 3. why I am doomed, doomed, I tell you.

I'll be gone for a few hours, since my mom is using the computer. She's refusing to say anything cute for the journal. Le sigh.