Prime factorization and a box of tissues

Yesterday was our first day back to school, and it went much better than I anticipated. Both of the kids were up, showered, fed, and on the computer doing their math by 8 am. I have really been enjoying the ALEKS system. Both of them are more than halfway done with their levels and they just started the program in November. Among other things Aiden is currently working on prime factorization and Zoë is doing common denominators. Of course within the hour that they work on the program they're doing at least 4 different topics, but those were the last things they worked on today. Aiden was especially proud of himself when he solved the equation 35 = 3X - 13. He came running into the kitchen shouting "Mom, mom, look at the algebra I did!"

Right now we are studying Asia and reading the book "Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes." I'm thinking they should have included a box of tissues with this literature unit! It's my second time reading the book, and it's not any easier this time around. I've decided that Zoë is so empathetic that it wouldn't be a good idea if she read the book alone. So we sat in front of the fire today and read aloud half of the book. Aiden did a great job and would step in reading whenever I was too choked up to go on. Zoë listened while she knitted, and we all discussed it together. Part of me was tempted to skip this part of the curriculum, but when I evaluated my reasoning for this, I realized it was really just my desire to shield them from bad things, and in the end they would be better served by having an honest discussion about the book and how we felt reading it. So next week we'll have our box of tissues ready, and hopefully make it through the end of the story. I still can't figure out why they would pick this book as part of a gifted curriculum knowing that extreme empathy is often associated with giftedness!

On a completely different note, I heard that Missouri is trying to put forth legislation to allow open enrollment. I'm crossing my fingers that this goes through. One of the districts near us has a gifted school and I would certainly look into having them attend there if we could. In the meantime, I'll do some research into the program and see if we can't write some letters to our representatives urging them to push the legislation through! Once again I'm reminded how stupid it is to base education on arbitrary boundaries and dates of birth instead of abilities. Now if we could just convince people that "athletic prowess" is NOT a legitimate reason to hold kids back from receiving a better education!