a blog by Ian Kennedy
In an ironic twist of fate, 56,000 lunch boxes distributed by California’s Department of Public Health with the logo Eat Fruits & Vegetables and be Active were found to contain high levels of lead paint. Yes, these were manufactured in China.
A full recall is underway.
What’s 23 x 33? Here’s a visual way to solve the problem.
Draw 2 lines and then 3 lines to represent 23 and cross them with 3 lines followed by another 3 lines for 33 as in the drawing above. Add up the number of intersections in each corner of the square as if they were columns.
A=6 for the hundreds or 600
C=9 + B=6 is 15 for the tens column or 150
D=9
Add 600+150+9=759.
This new method of addition is all the rage in Japanese who have imported it from India as a new way to teach young children how to break down complex problems into smaller, solvable problems.
Tyler is at grade level in all areas. He is well behaved and well like by others. He is a hard worker. He only needs improvement in working quietly at his seat. He talks a lot and is very interested in what others are doing. He needs to take his time with his handwriting and make sure the letters are on the lines.
Somehow, we had a feeling there would be something in there about his talking everyone’s ears off. He is full of ideas and it’s almost like if he can’t get them out, he’ll explode. Today he informed me that he had invented a new numerical unit. You know how they have million, billion, and trillion; thanks to Tyler we now have killion. “This number is so large that by the time you count to it, you’re dead.”
Noted.
Over on the work blog I’ve posted about switching jobs to work at Yahoo. I’ll be starting next week so I’m spending this week clearing the decks and getting ready. Tyler’s bummed because I will not be able to walk him to school anymore and it’s been the time of day when we get to talk about things mano-a-mano. Today, I took some pictures of what we see each day during our 10 minute walk.
Tyler’s never been one to dread the classroom and despite having had only one month off for Summer because of his two months at Japanese public school (shhh, he still doesn’t know that the rest of his friends had three months off), he was eager to get back to see his friends and crack the books.
This year Tyler is going into the 1st Grade and knowing parents have told me that this is a big step. The first few weeks are ok as they just review what they did last year. This shouldn’t be too taxing as they spend 26 weeks covering the alphabet taking an entire week to explore and savor each letter. After the review, the whip comes down and things get serious. It gets darker in the mornings and the days seem longer – the kids get tired and they have homework that actually challenges them. All this makes them cranky and even a bit sarcastic.
We’ll see if this happens to young Tyler. I just can’t imagine a sarcastic Tyler, he’s still so wide-eyed and genuinely inquisitive. We’re going into the Labor Day Weekend and over breakfast he asked, “What does labor mean?” to which I replied that it meant “to work” and then I knew what was coming next.
“Daddy, why do you have a day off work on “to work” day?”
Kerfuffle. It’s funny how some words bubble up from the collective subconscious and you hear and read the word more and more around you. Since Memorial Day it seems as if more of the world around me is Kerfuffled or being subject to Kerfuffling.
Every now and then, a new word makes its way through our office as if everyone is reading and talking to the same people. They look up the word, think it’s useful, then incorporate the word into their daily conversation. I too will succumb with orthogonal.
A tough questions from the weekend from our little inquisiter, Tyler:
Who was the first mommy? With all the debate around intelligent design it wouldn’t be fair to just point to a picture of a monkey and leave it at that. I need to think about this, gather all sides of the debate and present them for his little sponge mind to ponder. Evolution, how it works, evidence that points to such a theory, and even a little side lecture about the scientific method.