Slope-Intercept, Face, Freddy Fish and Phone Numbers

Math Stuff

So I got an email from David. "im having problems with SOLVING A SYSTEM OF LINEAR EQUATIONS. the explanation didn't make sense, as of now. :-)"

We covered this for the first time last weekend, and I knew it would take more than once. I told him to do other review exercises in his assignment, and he did. So we lined up the equations, reminded him of LCDs and discussed the signs - after all the goal is to get to zero - and off we went. I expect it won't be the last time ...

We are concurrently (ALEKS is like this) working on graphing equations, x- and y-intercepts; and of course, using the SLOPE-INTERCEPT standard linear equation form: y = mx + b. It took quite a while for David to parse this out so that he understands that "m" is the slope - not "mx + b" or "mx." So I finally gave him what seems to be working as an audio-visual memory tool.

If you are familiar with Children's TV, you may be aware of a character called, "Face." Face morphs shape and color to teach elementary concepts of shape and color. He often starts, "Hi There; Face Here." Many phrases are alliterative and exaggerated, with his voice going up/down and phrases semi-sung.

"R-r-r-ise!" I said, pointing my arm up and using a high sing-song voice and holding the vowel a couple of seconds; then thrusting the arm out in front, lowering the tone, and saying, "R-r-r-un." (This was later followed by "B-z-z-z-z-z." (for "b") It seemed to r-r-r-esonate with him. :-)

Freddy Fish and Phone Numbers

Mikey loves a children's computer game called "Freddy Fish." There are several iterations of the game; Freddy Fish IV lives at our house. In the game, there is a part where Freddy advises the game player to memorize a 3-digit number, which becomes the "combination" to unlock a safe later in the game. So on the way home Mikey started reciting his phone number and declared it was the combination! One never knows where his mind will go, but go it certainly does.

Ordinary Days

Yesterday was a "math day" for David, and I was at his house.

One of the types of problems that David forgot how to do is to find the nth value in a set if the average value of the set is some number. [For example, if a student scored 85, 95, 93, 82 on four tests, and had one more test to take, what would his score need to be for his average score to be 90?] I tried a couple of approaches that did not resonate with him.

Finally, I said, "David - look at me. If I gave you $.96 Monday, $1.04 Tuesday, and kept doing that; and if I gave you an average of $1.00 per day, how much money would you have by Friday?"

"$5!" was the almost immediate reply ...

Anyhow, that seemed to clear up the concept for him.

Oh, and I neglected to mention that David's mom interrupted his lesson, so David could show HER how to do something with iTunes on the computer!

I also waited for Mikey to come home. It was swimming day for him, so while he was chowing down on the M&M cookie grandma brought, I asked him what he'd learned in school. He responded, "Swim."

"Mikey, what ELSE did you learn today?" I asked.

"Australia!" was the response.

Wasn't able to get any more out of him. BUT - a friend of mine who lives in Australia did bring us a wonderful picture / coffee table book about it, so it will definitely be featured on the coffee table today. (It's usually there, except when the Christmas decorations come out.)

Looking ahead to the holidays

It's often a challenge to find a "good" present for the boys, let along one they'll like. David is a little easier these days - he's happy with a slew of iTunes cards. The Mikey Mystery-Wrapped-in-an-Enigma kid is a much harder challenge. His interests vary, wax and wane like the stock market these days.

However, that said, we are in discussions on two things: an annual passport to Disneyland for Mikey and the used Macintosh computer I bought to be given to David.

Mikey and Disneyland

Mikey loves Disneyland (as you can read in earlier posts) and Disneyland is VERY supportive of special needs kids. There are "special" passes for Southern Californians. They are cheaper than regular passes, and have more date restrictions. However, that's almost a plus for a pass for Mikey.

Think of it this way - How do you find the "best" days to take him? You look for the less-crowded days. How do you know what those days are? You can guess, but DISNEY knows. And BTW, that knowledge transfers into - passes with blockout days on the really busy days ...

And I think I can handle him alone for a few hours at Disneyland or California Adventure. He is very familiar with the parks now and he continues to improve by small amounts. He listens better. We still use "set the rules" documents (one pagers with pictures and words that set expectations).

David and the Mac

For a long time, we've had a PC that is referred to as "Mikey's computer." David uses it part of the time, but we got this used PC so Mikey could have a reasonable but not too expensive machine to access the Internet.

David has gotten totally into music recently. Mactintoshes have software called, "Garage Band" that is pretty sophisticated, and David's friend Bonnie and he spend time at her house making and recording music. She uses Garage Band.

SO I got this Mac as an experiment. The first time David tried it, he did not know what to do. (Neither do I but I understand Apple has a first-rate tutorial.) But I think David ascribes to The Music Man theory of learning - The Think System! Experimentation!

The next time we had the Mac out, David discovered "Magic Garage Band" which has a bunch of instruments and pre-recorded stuff you can use as background; he spend the next several HOURS recording what, to my obviously unsophisticated ear, was a bunch of noise - but it was a bunch of noise with multiple tracks. Go David!

There are several reasons to give it to him and several not to ... we'll see ...