Random Thoughts 15: Crystal Clear 2021 Edition

[Entropy]

In CR for a couple of days any recs for supper CR peeps. Casual dining no high end stuff.

For Mexican food, it's hard to beat Caucho.
The Map Room has good burgers and a good beer selection.
For more traditional fare, I like Black Sheep.
For the Brew Pub experience, I would go to Lion's Bridge.
For off the beaten path and a different experience all together, it's hard to beat LP Street Food.

 

[NWICY]

What kind of food do you like?

Pretty open to try anything, Los Compadres down on 33rd is my usual go to. Been to the joensy's out on Williams. Went to a sports bar once (forgot the name) but it was way too UofI influenced for me.

 

[Rabbuk]

For Mexican food, it's hard to beat Caucho.
The Map Room has good burgers and a good beer selection.
For more traditional fare, I like Black Sheep.
For the Brew Pub experience, I would go to Lion's Bridge.
For off the beaten path and a different experience all together, it's hard to beat LP Street Food.

I like all these if you're staying down town theme, need pizza is pretty good. I like el super burrito for authentic hole in the wall Mexican. Nara Thai is great Thai food. Of those listed I like map room and lions bridge the best. My favorite dive bar is Sterlite room. That is starlite room but my phone is an idiot.

 

[BCClone]

I received an email this morning that had me confused. I got going earlier this morning so I was tired.

Check my phone emails and while still a little blurry visioned I thought I had one from Adam and Eve. Confused how that got past the filter. I had emailed this guy named Adam about a business deal. He copied in this other employee, who wasn’t at work, and this other person named Eva replied instead. My email will put names of the people for the contacts instead of email addresses. So it was Adam and Eva, not Adam and Eve.

 

[wxman1]

Wx sorry for the kids and the widow (is she hot? asking for a friend) Too bad she hasn't learned. The vax might not stop it a 100% but it sure as hell gives a person much better odds.

In CR for a couple of days any recs for supper CR peeps. Casual dining no high end stuff.

map room,Pub 317,Need Pizza, quarter barrel, Q Dogs, Zoeys, Cappys, black sheep (moving towards high end here)

 

[CycloneErik]

Kiddo broke through her first school struggle of the year. When I started talking to my school for the spring, she suddenly tanked in one of her favorite subjects. She broke through again yesterday and has her swagger back. It's cool, because her and math are good buddies.

She got to do a Minecraft coding class with other kids today. That teacher heard Z's voice the second she said hello, and she had a blast. Something in her code didn't go right, and our little perfectionist laughed and joked about it. It's so huge. She used to cry for (not kidding) 2-3 hours over something like that.

So she's signed up now for a weekly Minecraft class about city building. It's really quite crazy to watch her in action.

 

[do4CY]

Kiddo broke through her first school struggle of the year. When I started talking to my school for the spring, she suddenly tanked in one of her favorite subjects. She broke through again yesterday and has her swagger back. It's cool, because her and math are good buddies.

She got to do a Minecraft coding class with other kids today. That teacher heard Z's voice the second she said hello, and she had a blast. Something in her code didn't go right, and our little perfectionist laughed and joked about it. It's so huge. She used to cry for (not kidding) 2-3 hours over something like that.

So she's signed up now for a weekly Minecraft class about city building. It's really quite crazy to watch her in action.

What classes/programs does she use to learn? I have been looking at some online ones for my kids

 

[CycloneErik]

What classes/programs does she use to learn? I have been looking at some online ones for my kids

This might take a bit....

We're using Power Homeschool for our core subjects, and that's been great. She's been doing a Spanish elective and a coding class on there, too. We're looking forward to an Ecology class on there when kiddo wraps up her original science class in a few days. https://www.powerhomeschool.org/

I wasn't having any success with writing projects, which stunned me. In a Facebook homeschool group, we learned about Time4Writing and enrolled her in a class to build a paragraph (since sentences would just be too easy).

Online Homeschool Curriculum from Time4Learning

PreK-12 homeschooling is EASY with Time4Learning at your fingertips with award-winning online lessons, and parent-friendly planning and reporting tools.

www.time4writing.com

Then we found something called the Night Zookeeper in the same group. Kids kind of take part in an adventure to help the Night Zookeeper. They design characters, write to describe them, do little challenges (which are all based in language arts stuff for their age), and get invited to do various writings that tutors give feedback on. So far, we've seen letters, descriptive writing, opinion writing, stories, poems, and maybe stuff I've forgotten about. It's really impressive.

Night Zookeeper | Reading & Writing Program for Kids Aged 6–12

Night Zookeeper is a children's brand making learning fantastically fun and helping kids unlock their creativity. Home to the #1 reading & writing program.

www.nightzookeeper.com

Atelier has some neat art classes, but it can be really supply intensive. That's been fun, though.

Arts Attack | Video-Based K–8 Art Lessons for Teachers and Schools

Bring art to life with Arts Attack! Award-winning video lessons make K–8 art easy to teach in every classroom—no art degree required.

www.artsattack.com

The Minecraft parts are up on Outschool. That place seemingly has a billion different options for different classes and chances to interact with other kids.

https://outschool.com/

To do stuff with books, we have some things from Moving Beyond the Page sitting around. Those are pretty cool, but takes a little more preparation, maybe.

https://www.movingbeyondthepage.com/

Also, getepic is a great online library for all kinds of books.

Instantly access over 40,000 of the best books & videos for kids on Epic

Fuel curiosity & reading confidence

www.getepic.com

Stuff we're still looking for (and may or may not have found):
1. Another music thing. Kiddo is plowing through music class like everything else. I found a "music around the world" thing which seems neat, and would balance out her current music class, which is awesome but almost entirely European and American stuff.
2. An interactive art thing. The Atelier classes are cool, but it's essentially like a class on DVD. No interaction, and no one else ever sees the stuff she makes.

 

[do4CY]

This might take a bit....

Thanks. That's way more in depth than I was expecting. I need to challenge my son more so I'm definitely going to check this stuff out

 

[CycloneErik]

Thanks. That's way more in depth than I was expecting. I need to challenge my son more so I'm definitely going to check this stuff out

No problem.
We looked at a few dozen things just for curriculum. The rest came just from filling in gaps we found along the way. Hope it helps!

 

[ScottyP]

No problem.
We looked at a few dozen things just for curriculum. The rest came just from filling in gaps we found along the way. Hope it helps!

Wow! You have done your research! I would have only looked at just a few if homeschooling because I wouldn't know what was out there. Makes sense given your background. She is in good hands. Do you think she will continue the homeschooling post-covid (not sure when that will be) ?

 

[CycloneErik]

Wow! You have done your research! I would have only looked at just a few if homeschooling because I wouldn't know what was out there. Makes sense given your background. She is in good hands. Do you think she will continue the homeschooling post-covid (not sure when that will be) ?

Well, we've got a kid in love with online learning, so stuff has to be good.

Next year is a mystery. We did this year at home just because she thrives so much with online learning, and an adjustment disorder leaves her really struggling with in-person learning. Like, she'll hear and remember literally everything that happens, but she'd be hiding in the corner or having other emotional struggles that kept her from showing it and getting work done. So we did online to keep her thriving situation going.

The piece that's missing (which the Outschool and writing programs are now sort of filling in) is that she loves interacting with teachers and showing off her learning. In an online meeting, kiddo talks up a storm and lights up the entire time.

Our goal was to do a remote school option like last year, which had an assigned teacher, but Ames pulled the rug out on that too late. We'll be looking to see if districts like CR or Iowa City include that as part of their online scenarios, and then explore open enrollment as an option. If they just use the Edgenuity stuff, we'd be best off just doing our own thing like we are now.

But employment scenarios might change that. Probably not with overqualified me in the picture, but it's possible.
Also, I expect that Ames would shoot down our open enrollment request, but who knows on that.
Kiddo is so far ahead, too, that talking to a school district will involve overcoming a lot of quiet "sure, Dad, sure, that sounds legit" responses from educators when we talk about class placement. Odds are that she does most or all of 3rd grade by the end of spring, and grade levels just seem like a formality at this point.

So, long story short (TOO LATE!), probably, maybe, but we don't really know. The scheduling freedom with homeschooling is awesome. The expense is insane, but the non-teaching job has thrown in enough raises to make it all doable.

Also, is there an award for spamming a thread with @cowgirl836 length posts? With this subject, have I become what I so openly mock in other threads?

 

[wxman1]

Listening to yesterday's presser and Randy Pete starts his last question by saying "This may annoy you but..."

 

[BCClone]

Wow! You have done your research! I would have only looked at just a few if homeschooling because I wouldn't know what was out there. Makes sense given your background. She is in good hands. Do you think she will continue the homeschooling post-covid (not sure when that will be) ?

Some schools have home schooling coordinators. You could check there also.

 

[CycloneErik]

Some schools have home schooling coordinators. You could check there also.

In the case of some towns, like Ames, just don't expect them to answer your e-mails.
Also, expect that if they do, they'll screw something up and blame you for it.

I suspect it's far from a full-time position, and one that districts would rather not actually deal with.

 

[ScottyP]

I'm trying to eat healthier so I ordered a half pound of brussels sprouts to roast in the oven as a side dish. Hy-Vee adjusted my order it to 3.5 pounds of brussels sprouts. I'm going to be sick of these by the end of the week.

 

[Cyclones_R_GR8]

I'm trying to eat healthier so I ordered a half pound of brussels sprouts to roast in the oven as a side dish. Hy-Vee adjusted my order it to 3.5 pounds of brussels sprouts. I'm going to be sick of these by the end of the week.

I'll cut them in half and put salt, pepper and garlic butter on them and then put them under the broiler until the edges start to blacken.
But I don't think I would want to eat 3.5 pounds of them.

 

[CycloneSarah]

I'm trying to eat healthier so I ordered a half pound of brussels sprouts to roast in the oven as a side dish. Hy-Vee adjusted my order it to 3.5 pounds of brussels sprouts. I'm going to be sick of these by the end of the week.

We've had this happen a couple of times where instead of getting 1 jalapeno pepper, we get 1 lb of peppers. Hubs tried to make a salsa/hot sauce with them once but it didn't turn out so great.

 

[stormchaser2014]

The only thing worse than dropping a piece of wood on your foot is dropping another piece of wood on your foot in the same spot.

 

[BCClone]

We've had this happen a couple of times where instead of getting 1 jalapeno pepper, we get 1 lb of peppers. Hubs tried to make a salsa/hot sauce with them once but it didn't turn out so great.

Cut them in half, take out the seeds, fill with cream cheese and wrap with bacon. They are tasty, not exactly a health thing, but tasty.