This face is not smiling

Earlier this week, TB came home from school and started telling me about the "smiley face" chart his teacher is using at school. The basic concept is that you start the day with 3 faces, for each time you break a rule, you lose a face. For each face you lose, the punishment becomes more severe. It starts with a warning, then lost recess, then a trip to the principal. This is the first I heard of it, no indication from the teacher of exactly how the system worked or anything. When I grilled TB about the details, I was told that there are no warnings, just "stop talking, take down your face" and that they lose faces for breaking different rules throughout the day. So they could lose a face for talking and another for not lining up at recess and a third for running in the halls.

I emailed asking the principal (I didn't have the teacher's address) about the system and he sent the email to the teacher and advised me to discuss it with her. We had conferences tonight so I talked to her about it. She explained that the kids do get warnings, in fact several. TB's day goes much like this:

TB sit down
TB stop talking and do your work
TB get off of Girl Next Door's desk and do your work
TB you need to be quite and pay attention to your work
TB get off of GND's desk and do your work. You need to take down a smiley face.

My other issue was that part of the reason that he is unable to sit down and pay attention is that he is crazy active and doesn't get enough recess time (through various reasons that aren't totally in the schools control) so their solution to his inability to sit still is to make him sit still longer. Hmm, doesn't make a lot of sense to me. I talked to her about it and explained my reasons for feeling the way I do. I also told her that I didn't have any solutions for her and I know that sucks to bring a problem and not have anything to offer to solve it. She told me that what she has done in the past is to have kids who are breaking the rules do something physical during their punishment time. She will have them walk laps or do jumping jacks or something that keeps them moving. Although using activity as a punishment brings up a whole 'nother set of issues, I'm much more concerned with taking away any kind of activity because he can't sit still.

Overall, the conference was good. TB can't read, he can't write, he enjoys math, he doesn't have much self-control, he prefers to talk to express his ideas, etc. All stuff I've seen at home. All stuff I've been told at every meeting last year. All stuff I already know. So at least there were no surprises. This is the most I've talked to her all year. She seems sort of opposed to chatting in the morning when I'm in there and I'm being a big slacker about volunteering this year so we haven't had any conversations. I did ask her to email me when he loses the smiley faces so I know when it is happening, why it is happening and I can talk to him about it, at the time that it is happening. It doesn't do me a lot of good to tell him, 2 or 3 weeks later when he gets around to telling me, that he needs to pay attention in class.

I also got a bunch of his writing samples. I need to talk to him about them because I can't read most of what he wrote. At least this year, he is including pictures so I have half a chance of figuring them out based on that. The ones I could figure out were super funny. Like the one that said "we went to the library and my mom's car got hit" and the picture is of a person standing by a car holding a card in his hand. We are betting, since they are by the car, that it is the insurance card that was exchanged LOL

Halloween Quiz

Your result for How Long Would you Survive in a Horror Film?...

Hero/Heroine

56% chance of survival!

This character is usually female, tall, dark haired, and virginal. The heroine is never a part of the scene with the requisite horror movie nudity, and she uses her wits to defeat the monster/killer in the end, though, of course, he never really dies. She is the person that will undoubtedly last through the whole movie, because she is probably the first character introduced and the only one with unabashedly perfect moral values and in immense force of will. However, if brought back in a sequel her acquired knowledge of said villain may get her killed (See: The Horror Aficionado).

Heroes/Heroines you could learn something from: Ben, Night of the Living Dead; Peter, Dawn of the Dead; Laurie Strode, Halloween; and Ash, Evil Dead I, Dead II, and Army of Darkness.

All possible results:

Jock/Cheerleader

The Black Guy

The Horror Aficionado

The Hero/Heroine

The Killer

Please remember to rate, but more importantly, please message me if you've found any blatant errors (especially with the results page and links). Thanks!

Take How Long Would you Survive in a Horror Film? at HelloQuizzy

Kick's in Springfield

Yesterday, we went to Kick's in Springfield. I was fully prepared to hate it because it is one of those places where you have to pay, individually, for everything you do and I hate that crap. I was pleasantly suprised once we got there. For startes they offer several package deals, including $10, $20 and $30 dollars, at a discount or you can buy an hour of unlimited play. For us, the by the hour deal was the best deal at $16.99 per kid for an hour of everything they wanted to do. Instead of hauling around handfuls of tokens, they give you a swipe card, that you swipe in the reader at each thing and it deducts your money or activates the game if you have the unlimited. Then, when you win tickets, you feed them into the counter and swipe your card, which records your tickets right there. The major drawback to the swipe card system is that you can only swipe once every 60 seconds. This is designed to prevent sharing of the card but causes problem with quicky games. MT likes the games of chance, where you put money in, the light goes around and you hit the button to stop it. It takes all of 10 seconds for her to play, then she had to sit and wait for the card to reactivate.

In addition to the video games, they also have bumper cars for older kids (TB did great at them but MT was a little too small to be able to drive them), go carts that kids as small as 42 inches can be passengers in (they have to be 54 inches to drive but as long as there is an adult driving, they can ride along), laser tag and mini-bowling. While we were there, the mini bowling was down so that was disappointing.

The games were your standard ticket games for the most part. They had some "drop the token" games which MT loves and took me a while to figure out how to use with the swipe card. There are a couple of token machines that you swipe the card and they dispense tokens for those games. Very handy! I was really impessed with the amount of tickets the games paid out, as well. Skee ball at somewhere like Chuck E Cheese will pay out 3 tickets for 150,000 points where these paid out 20 for 20,000. MT won 150 tickets on one drop on the ball game! The other part of the games were heavy on shooting games and racing games. MT couldn't manage those (although she tried) but TB loved them.

In addition to all the games and attractions, they have an all you eat buffet. The food is "fine". Nothing spectacular and kind of expensive. It is 10.99 for adults and 9.99 for kids. The thing about the kid's meals is that with the purchase of their meal, you get a free $5 of game play. The food was fairly kid friendly, with fried chicken, pizza, chicken fingers, and ice cream. However, it wasn't that good. We all got full but I wouldn't get the buffet again.

All in all, I would give 3.5 out of 5 stars and we will be going back again.

Column Up

Yesterday, I was asked if I knew all three types of columns. I knew one and when I couldn't come up with the other two I felt dumb. I was assured knowing one put me ahead of game but I still felt dumb. So I'm polling you all.

Without cheating (no looking up the answer), do you know all three types of columns? You can just poost yes or no in the comments since I don't want to spoil it for anyone else :)

Shake shake shake your body

Tonight was the retro dance at school. Pictures all around!

I got the kids to pose as soon as we walked in the door



MT found some big girls to dance with



One girl really got along with her.



Then she found a little girl to dance with



and pose with



Then she was all alone in her dancing




The son of the student services coordinator at school, all pimped out




Mr M and his son.



Working the hula hoop






MT finds yet another little girl to dance with



Doin' the limbo



TB posing



Don't mess with the girl at the sock hop. She might just be a biker chick in disguise.

You are screwing with my childhood here

We went to Texas Roadhouse the other night for dinner. Tb said that was where he wanted to go for his birthday so we did. Those of you that have been know, they play nothing but country music there. And they play it way too loud. Seriously, I shouldn't have to bellow to be heard by the people at my table at dinner. Anyway, we got in the car to leave and Joan Jett and the Blackhearts were on the radio when we got in the car. MT relaxed into her seat and sighed, saying "finally, some good music" LOL

TB always wants to "rock" when we listen to music. I have a couple of old CDs that I made a while back titled oh so inventively "rock mix" and "rock 2" so I decided to pop them in. Last night, we were on the way to PTA and TB asked to "rock". I put in "rock mix" and started skipping around to see what was on it. I came across "Bohemian Rhapsody" and let it play. TB told me that it "didn't rock". The net song up on the disk was "1979" by Smashing Pumpkins. Not one of my favorite songs, but fairly iconic of my high school days. I was listening too it while he is yelling from the back seat "change the song". I told him no, it was a rock song. His response? "This song does not rock, in fact it sucks"

This was my YOUTH dude, you will listen to the song and you WILL like it. Then the song ended and "Rat in a Cage" came on and he decided that that was acceptable and rocked just enough. How very lame!

Political Propaganda

If you have a child in a Champaign county public school (not just unit 4, but all of Champaign county) or will have a child in a Champaign county public school, you should check out theChampaign County Class website for information about a referendum on the ballot to increase sales tax in Champaign County. Most of the districts are planning to use the sales tax increase (which applies to all people shopping in the county, not just homeowners like property tax, includind all the students at the U of I) to decrease property taxes so the increase should even out for homeowners. Champaign is planning to build a new school in Savoy, increase seats at one school and remodel all of the older schools to bring them up to current standards. They are planning to make them more energy effcient (sp?), which will save money in the long run.

Many schools in this district are so far behind the times that this something they really need. I urge you to vote yes to supporting area schools when you cast your vote on Nov 4th.

Back to your regularly scheduled drivel, thanks for reading.