I feel certain it came about because math textbook series about 10 -15 years ago started doing what was called calendar math. It was a way of introducing concepts and revisiting them on a daily basis, usually done at the beginning of the day. One of the big things to do was to count the number of days in school. Everyday, a straw or something used that would visually count that day would be put in a cup (usually part of the calendar display). There would be 3 cups: one for the units or ones (1-9), another for the 10's (10-90) and a third for the hundreds. For example on the 10th day of school, you would already have 9 straws in the units cup. On the 10th day you would add another but now you would band the 10 straws into one group of ten and move it to the tens cup. Ten means "1 ten and 0 units. As the year progresses, you would have say for the 75th day, 7groups in the 10's cup and 5 in the units. On the 100th day, you would already have 99 days in school; 9 groups of 10 in the 10s cup and 9 in the units cup. When you add the 1 straw for the 100th day, you would have 9 groups of 10 in the 10's cup and now 10 straws in the units cup. That means you move the 10 units into a group of 10. Now you have 10 groups in the 10s cup but that makes 100 straws so you band them and move it over to the 100's cup. So now there is one big group of 100, 0 ten's and 0 units. Schools would plan big celebrations about the 100th day of school, all centered around math, like measuring and comparing the length of 100 new crayons to 100 new pencils. Really it all was about math concepts and in this case PLACE VALUE. I loved calendar math in my kindergarten class. It really helped the children. One year I had an average student raise his hand on the 100th day of school when we were talking about what "100" means and he said "if there are 10 tens in 100 then there must be 100 tens in 1000. WOW! Sorry this is probably way more than you wanted to know!

I figured that the better school were the ones that might have waiting lists, but I also wanted to make sure that I'm not paying big mony jus to get snooty b/c obviously what I'm looking for is the bedt edcational experience we can expose her to, as long as we can afford it. Thanks for the great questions to ask about. I don't think I'm thinking about this too early. If 2 yrs, vs. 3 yrs. is when I was to start her in pre-school then she'll be starting school next Sept. I read that many schools register by the Jan before the Sept in which they are supposed to start school, which would mean this coming Jan 2003 in our case. That gives me a few months to look into all the school before we decide which one to send her too. If we send her at age 3 then of course I have plenty of time to plan for it. Michie

I really dont feel like his homework load is that much. The longest part of his homework is the read for 30 minutes, and I usually try to let him have a break between the reading and doing the book response. I have been teaching him to write down important things while he is reading so that he remembers them when he is writing his book response. Which, like I said is answering a question like Did you identify with the main character or What did you like about the book or dislike?.... There is sometimes another worksheet or something and sometimes more over the weekend but then you have the whole weekend to work on it. And, while I dont necessarily think homework always helps... in his case I think homework is necessary because he doesnt pay attention in class or do classwork half the time so he really needs the opportunity to think for himself and make sure he knows the information given him. And yes, he is aware that his brother will be in the same grade as him if he fails and it upsets him when we talk about it and he doesnt want that to happen. And like I said, he gets really upset and down on himself when he gets bad grades but right up until he actually gets the bad grade ... it is like is doesnt phase him at all. It doesnt encourage him to work harder or even do all the work for that matter... And, coincidentally enough last night I came home to find out that he didnt do a summary he was supposed to do the night before and apparently the teacher let bm know and that he had spring break to get it done or it would be a zero. Last night we went from him arguing with dad that he didnt have to do it for two weeks... to he did it but he left it at his moms house... to just sitting there doing nothing until I said enough ... put it up go to bed you can start again tomorrow. So, he is at work with me today sitting at the other desk in my office with no distractions trying to get it done. He spent hours and hours reading a six page short story last night. I finally sat down and told him if he didnt make the choice to straighten up and start doing what he was supposed to be doing I would not be signing him up for football and that he was grounded for the rest of the day. I don't know maybe the threat of losing football will work since that is something he really really wants to do. I do like the line of "your teacher can't tell your smart by looking at you...." He has been in summer programs through the school in the past and he was in tutoring throughout this year. But, truthfully I did not want to put him into tutoring... they didnt really do that much that was actually helpful in tutoring and I think there is a line between making sure he succeeds and just overloading him and making him burnout. It is not that he doesnt know or understand the stuff (which is what I feel like tutoring is more for) he just doesnt do it. However bm pitched a fit about getting him into tutoring... and then didnt do anything about it so I called up the county and got the paper work and signed him up just to keep the peace. And the summer program was about the same. I did talk to DH last night and regardless I am going to get the homeschooling supplies for the fourth grade (they have some really great computer programs and he loves techy stuff and the computer) and this summer he is going to work with that. It will be like part of his chores get up get dressed clean your room do what ever other chore is yours for that day do an assignment on computer ... go play and do your thing. That way we know he at least has a back up to make sure that he is getting what he needs to get out of fourth grade. Other than that I am not sure what to do. I am not even sure that I should have thrown the football threat out there but last year he really made an effort knowing his grades had to be up to get into football... So, I am hoping something will click for him.

I'm not sure it was my first day of school but it was definitely one of the first days of kindergarten. My cousin has just moved to my town and we were fast friends. We ruled the kindergarten classroom because we were the only ones that knew someone. Our mom's had to have the teachers put us in different classrooms after kindergarten because we wouldn't let anyone else play with us and we were very bossy. I'm not sure my mom did the right thing on that one. Both of us were very shy after that and didn't make friends easily until much later in school. My DH remembers his first days vividly. His mom walked him and his twin brother to school and they both followed her back home. They didn't want to stay there. This went on for several days and she'd walk them both back to school only to get home and find them back at home. Finally one day when they showed up yet again at home, she put them outside (it was a cold day) and wouldn't let them back in. They finally got cold and walked to school and stayed the rest of the time. I think that is the funniest thing ever. I can just imagine getting home after taking the little rascals to school only to find that they'd beat her home. Today they'd probably call social services or something.