2014 Winter

2014 has been a winter to remember so far, and we're not out of it yet. Here are some shots that I took this winter in my backyard.

Snowfall

Deer in the snow

Icicle forest

Icy fingers

Icicle up close

And this is what an icicle looks like up close.

Icicle Magnified

On the positive side only 30 more days to spring. Here's an early bloomer.

Spring blooms

Personality type test

Do you

1. Receive the most calls from yourself  i.e. your home or work phone,  to your cell phone, in your attempts to find it's last known location?
2. Build in an extra 20 minutes before your daily commute, to allow yourself multiple trips from the car back into the house to retrieve forgotten items, one at a time?
3. Find yourself grocery shopping with your daughter, and get a call from the softball coach who's not very happy to have your son on his field instead?
4. Forget what you had for your last meal, which was like 2 minutes ago?
5. Respond with a lost blank stare when asked what your hobbies are?
6. Find yourself in mismatched socks like your 8 yr old daughter wears, except that your attempt at such fashion, was not exactly planned?
7. Pay the waitress the bill and a $20 tip, and then a few seconds later ask the bewildered lady for the check again?
8. Ask your son to warm up the pasta in the refrigerator for exactly 30 seconds?
9. See your family use  "tell me something new" as a fairly regular chant?
10. Share posts  like this?

So what personality type are we?

Resources to teach kids!

I will keep this list updated as I find resources that I have found helpful for teaching my kids.

Reading:
Fry word list - Most common words
Prefix, Suffix, Root Word Master List
Word lookup -  Dictionary   and OneLook.  Onelook extracts definitions from multiple sources so you may compare definitions.

Writing:
Thesaurus.com  is a good resource (you can also get to this from dictionary.com)
Grammar sites - JackLynch's grammar site from Rutgers University
Grammar and Writing
Common Errors in English language

Geography:
Found these sites for print & color maps for kids:
 http://www.coloring.ws
http://www.coloringcastle.com/state_coloring_pages.html 

Dictionaries:
Sanskrit: sanskritdictionary.org

Math:
Multiplication made easy the Japanese way - YouTube video

Don't have a scientific calculator at home? No problem - Use this link:
http://www.meta-calculator.com/online/ 


CMT Resources:
https://sites.google.com/site/sciencecmthelp/ 
http://www.sde.ct.gov/sde/lib/sde/pdf/student_assessment/cmt/2013_grade_8_tem.pdf
http://newhavenscience.org/8currpage.htm
http://qworkbooks.com/CT/samples/CT_RAS_Sci_8.pdf

SBAC Practice Test: (Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium)
https://sbacpt.tds.airast.org/student/

Discussion on feeder schools to the Ivy Leagues. Some practical advice in there:
http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/43718.page 



Religious Books:
Indian Mythology:
Mahabharat in a simple pictorial  form
Mahabharat - An easy to read abridged version in English
Links to complete Mahabharat - All 12 volumes can be found here