Quote about brothers

While Quinn had some alone time with Popo, they were playing with Bebe (her dog) and Quinn said "It's not as much fun without Brock"

All that you say is true....

I had a very important conversation with Quinn this morning. I told her a secret that most adults don't even know. I told her everything that she says is or will be true. This came about, because yesterday that she said that "she wasn't good talking to people". I told her that because she said it, it is true. I told her that it didn't have to be, but she has to say it. I told her that she is a good helper and a good problem solver, only because she has declared that herself. If she wan't to not be good at talking to people, it was okay, but if she didn't like that quality, then all she has to do is declare it differently, and it will happen.

She was listening intently and asked several questions. I think that she got it.
One of the questions that she asked went like this.

"My friend is always mean to me".

I said, "yes, by you saying that, it is a true statement. You won't be able to see any of the times that he is nice to you, or even not mean to you. If there is a rare case that you do discover that he is nice to you, you will think that something is wrong or unusal, as you have declared the truth that he is always mean."

Quinn then revised her statement to be "he is usually mean to me, but sometimes he is not"

By Jove, I think she's got it!

P.S. She hasn't yet declared that she is good at talking to people.

Movie kiss

Last night for her goodnight kiss, Quinn closed her eyes and cocked her head, like a movie type kiss. Uh......... kinda lost on that one.

Food rules

So far here are Quinn's food rules as I have determined them to be.

Ice cream must be mixed: peach ice cream  - no good, peach and strawberry ice cream - good*. Entree's must be separate: hot dogs good, pasta good, hot dogs on top of pasta- no good. Lunches have to be finger foods, no utensils, and not messy (eliminates most leftovers, even pizza). Breakfast is limited to yogurt, cereal, pancakes or bacon; french toast, eggs, sausage, everything else is excluded. Cakes / desserts must be chocolate or have chocolate chips.



* (this is what she said, haven't tested the mixed ice cream yet)

Filibustering

Loving the in car filibustering... Quinn makes up a super long song so that Brock can't talk/interrupt.

Blown away by reading level

I went away to a conference for 3 days. When I got back Quinn was reading entire chapters from her Greek Mythology book, out loud, with less than 1 word per page that she needed help with. Wow!

Jobs this year

I've been behind at keeping up with Quinn's Jobs.

Here is a quick rundown for the year to date

2/23/13 - Librarian. Quinn categorized and organized all of her books. Age appropriate books were given to Brock, and Quinn came up with a system for finding the books on her shelf. She even created a (short lived) system, where Brock could check out books from her room.

3/5/13  - Computer Programmer. We tried to animate a flower. Quinn expected that you could draw a seed and press "go" and it would become a flower. (Sounds like some of my clients). She didn't realize that you had to draw the seed, the sprout, the seedling, the little flower, and the big flower. We lost interest before we could finish. Sigh

4/2/13 - Chef. Quinn choose the recipe and chopped all of the veggies for it. She even got to use the big chef's knife all by herself. She also made a birthday cake for Popo, all by herself, minus actually putting it in the oven.

4/20/13- Plant Operator. This one was great. She had the opportunity to spend the day with Ms Brown, Kolter's Plant Operator. Quinn got to unlock the playground gate for her friends, turn on the lights for the teachers, go into special places that no students are allowed, and replace the paper towels.

4/27/13 - Shelf Builder. Due to a power outage - refrigerator cleaning - utility room organizing, we removed a built in ironing board and added shelves for the kids paints. Quinn helped build the shelves. Mommy had her out in the garage, wearing a bright yellow swimming mask as safety goggles, helping cut strips of wood with the radial saw. Quinn did most of the drilling and screwing to get the shelves in place too.

Dr of education

When mommy becomes a Dr of education, she can fix papers if they get torn. ;-)

Choreographer Teacher

Quinn is learning a song and "dance" for a performance in April.

Last night she was trying to teach it to Brock with great success.

She was giving me instructions about when to start / stop the video.

And every couple of measures, she would show Brock the corresponding arm gestures.

Then she tell me to play the song from the beginning and they'd go through each part to that point.

It was awesome.

The only blind spot, was that Quinn was not able to recognize when Brock was done with the task and ready to move on. But hey, sometimes we parents even have a hard time with that.

Super cute.

Here is the reference video and song.

Discovery Learning works!

Yesterday we went to fly kites in the driveway - ala run really fast and have a piece of paper on a string not be on the ground. Quinn went out barefoot, and after a couple of laps, said that her feet were hurting. I asked her what her options were, and she said that we could sweep the driveway.

"Ok", I said, "but can you think of any other options, maybe any that might be faster?"

She said, that "that [putting on shoes] takes too much time."

So while I mentioned that I disagreed with her, we went to the garage to get the brooms.

The kids happily swept the driveway, and Brock and I had a great time of chase and choo-choo trains and singing Mary Poppins.

Quinn had made it through 3 sidewalk squares, when she went back inside, got her shoes and joined us in our games.

I believe I got my point across, AND Quinn got to be right.

Well Duh Food Experiment #1: What is the best tasting shape pasta

So in an ongoing effort to increase the diversity of the food that Quinn eats, we did an experiment yesterday.

I cooked five types of pasta, all from the same brand. The goal was to determine which pasta shape tasted the best.

We had rotini, bowtie, penne, elbow, and linguini.

We guessed and proved that they would / did all taste the same.

She even surmised that the reason was they were all from the same materials (ingredients).

We further gathered that adding a meatball to the top pasta, that the meatball was still good.
Going further we buried the meatball in the pasta, that was still good too.
The final step, was we cut up and buried the meatball in the pasta, that was still good.

The experiment fell apart when we mentally tried to substitute the meatball with chicken. Apparently chicken buried in pasta is no-good.

But the chicken results are inconclusive, as we had reached our attention span for the experiment.

Notes to tooth fairy

Here is the note that Quinn wrote to the tooth fairy for her second tooth. Her tooth got lost somewhere at school.

"Dear tooth fairy, today my tooth (h)as come out. Can you hlpe (help) me fide (find) it. Love Quinn")

This is the stuff the warms the soul. :)

Cornbread

Halfway through eating her cornbread animal muffin, I made the mistake of asking to pass the cornbread. Quinn puts the half consumed muffin down and cries out that she doesn't like cornbread.

No amount of discussion could convince her that she was enjoying eating the cornbread just moments before.

When does rationality kick in?

Cooking class with mom

Quinn asked to take a cooking class on Thursdays. When asked where the class would be she said at home with mom. She said that she thinks her mom is a great cook and wants to cook like her.

Sewing a pillowcase

Quinn got to break in her new sewing machine, with Tia Mandy's help. She made a pillow case. It is super awesome with pink, and black and sparkles. She was *SO PROUD*. She specifically gave instructions for us not to check on her, because she wanted to show it to us in the morning. When she came out in the morning, it was all wrapped up and she was beaming with pride. AWESOME

Maturity levels rising

A couple of incidents recently were very remarkable to me.

Quinn was nearby when Brock had fallen over her  and hurt himself. She quickly tried to explain to me that is wasn't her fault. I pointed to Brock, indicating that I wanted her to acknowledge that he was hurt before she told me about. She did, but then went to her room to cry.  I went in to talk to her, telling her that I saw the whole thing and that it was purely an accident, that Brock ran into her, and in no way was it her fault. I said it was important that she still recognized that Brock was hurt, if she was inches away or across the room. She nodded in agreement, but not in a dismissive way, but in a way that, I believe, represented a fundamental understanding.

The second incident was around one of her hanukkah gifts. She wanted a phone from Santa this year. And we convinced her that Santa doesn't give phones, but Mommy and Daddy could. Before we gave her the phone we had the following conversation. (Note, this conversation was precisely timed for efficacy, after breakfast and during morning peak energy). We basically said that you will be getting a phone and instead of giving you alot of rules... there are certain things we value. Family, friends and play time. We will be making up the rules as we start running into areas that conflict with our values. We left it at that.

Then a couple of hours later, Quinn and I had some alone time were we were working on wrapping presents. I asked her if she understood what we were talking about regarding the phones. She responded very clearly and correctly with examples when using the phone would be appropriate and not. She was very understanding that we wouldn't be taking the birthday party or to school, yet we could take it to a restaurant but only play with it after she and Brock had finished eating.

It is hard to describe in words, but I'm really impressed and really proud of her.

Homonyms

While we were counting her allowance, we discovered that we had 339 cents. Then I said you also have a 3 dollars and 39 cents. Does that make sense?

Then I was trying to explain the difference between cents and sense, when Quinn tells me that those are homonyms

Jaw dropped.

Taking Quinn to work

So the day before Thanksgiving, Quinn didn't have school, so she went to work at Lonestar College with Pam. Overall, this wasn't very productive for Pam, but that was expected. The surprising thing was that during Pam's "Best Start" class - the class that helps students identify what they want to do and who they want to be - Quinn says that she wants to be a nurse because she "wants to help people and be a part of her community"

Jaw dropping awesome.

Wrench Nose Shark

Quinn tells me (completely out of context) that there is no "wrench nose shark".  Having no idea what she is talking about, I ask her to repeat it a couple of times.

Finally she says, that there is a hammer-nose shark (hammerhead) and a saw nose shark, but not a wrench nose shark.

Is she my kid or what?

Writing and counting in Chinese

Quinn is not only signing songs in Chinese, but she is writing numbers in Chinese as well...

That's so cool!

Wizard of Oz in School?

Apparently she watched the first part of Wizard of Oz, until just after meeting the scarecrow. She was singing "Ding Dong the Witch is dead" on the way home from school. I'm intrigued by this, as I think that Oz is kinda scary for her, and I'm not sure school, esp kindergarten, is the right place for it. 

Lost a tooth

Yesterday, while picking up Quinn from school, she came walking down the hallway covering her mouth. She was super excited to show me that she lost her first tooth.
Then she talked about how she wanted to be a pumpkin for Halloween because now she looks like a jack-o-lantern.

We talked a lot about the tooth fairy, and what kind of toy she brings. I told her, when I was a kid, I remember the tooth fairy only bringing a quarter. Apparently these days, she brings a dollar :)

Quinn's Kindergarten reading level

So since this is my forum for bragging, Quinn just received her DRA (Developmental Reading Assessment). Quinn's *beginning* reading level is a 4.

The end of year goal for kindergarteners is 4. It is 2 months into the school year.

Although the information that we don't have is, what was the G/T class average? What is the non G/T class average. Is the goal of 4 for all kindergartens or tailored for the G/T class?

Update: The DRA level is the same for all Kindergarten classes. Most GT students (Quinn's Class) are already on level 4.

I'll be really smart when i'm older

Quinn said that she'll be really smart when she is older. She said that is the case because she pays attention when she reads. She recognizes the difference between fiction and non-fiction.

I also told her because she pays attention outside of books too. And she works hard, and she stays focused, and doesn't give up.

And she nodded on agreement.

Awesome!

School lunches

Quinn decided to participate in the school lunch program yesterday. This is AWESOME. For us it means we don't have to struggle with the guilt of only sending her with jelly sandwiches and hot dogs. For her, she gets a healthy variety of foods.

We are very excited that she has decided to do this.

Jobs: Geneticist, Bicycle Repair, Electrician, Cartographer

As a geneticist we watched movies about DNA, made DNA out of pipe cleaners, and did a study on the diversity of mommy cookies (with chocolate chips), daddy cookies (with m&ms) and kid cookies (mixed together)

As a bicylce repair person, Quinn helped assemble her new bike, put air in all of the tires, discovered grease and that it doesn't come off easily, and learned about gears

As an electrician, Quinn learned about the breaker box, helped install a fan light, helped install a remote for the garage, and we studied light bulbs and the differences between incandescent and flourescent

As a cartographer, we looked at a story book about maps (kinda) and will hopefully draw a map of something (either from our house to school, or her bedroom, or something like that)

Reading and Math

Quinn is doing a fantastic job reading. She is able to cover the high frequency words very quickly and can usually read about 50% of a page easily. If she takes her time she can usually sound out the words she doesn't know, but sometimes she is in a hurry and guesses. Her guesses are usually not even close.
Overall though, she'll be reading and I'll just be watching her in amazement, with some internal kvelling.



On the math front, she is able to figure out all of the combinations to get to a value. For example she has 5 stars left to get to a prize at school. Stars can be earned in 1 (ready to learn) , 2 (Great), 3 (Amazing) increments. She has figured out that she needs 1 amazing + 1 great, 1 amazing + 2 ready-s, 2 greats + 1 ready, 5 ready-s to get to her prize. I think that is pretty cool.

Loose tooth

I think we are getting the beginnings if a loose tooth...

Quinn's sense of humor

Tonight was open house at Kindergarten. There was a game, "How well do you know your kids", where the kids had filled out some answers, and the parents were supposed to fill out the same questions to see if they matched. Ms. Glapion, the teacher, said don't feel bad if you don't guess them correctly, because some of the kids were making up answers... like their 2nd favorite color. I said, that sounds like Quinn, and Ms. Glapion was quick to confirm that yes, Quinn was the tricky one in the group who decided to write down intentionally incorrect answers.

So I guess her 2nd favorite color is yellow :)

Skating Achievement

Quinn was able to roller skate two blocks to the park today. Granted it was *really* slow and holding my hand most of the time, but it was her on her skates non-the-less.