Look! There is a thing!
Jul. 13th, 2017
10:41 am - Too cute (if you like kids)
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A couple of days ago I asked, Do You Know This Vid? I got a couple of things wrong -- the little girl's hair is light brown, not blonde -- but fayance kindly pointed me to the correct site and video. Unfortunately, it didn't allow "cross-domain access". Does that mean I have to be a member of Facebook? I'm not.
But, with a title, I could search Youtube, and found it quickly. Mila talks (the title under the other vid-page) took me to a page of this little girl's discussions about life. The specific vid I wanted was Traveling disasters by two year old Mila.
This little girl is obviously bright, very verbal, quite opinionated (but what little kid doesn't have strong opinions? <g>), and extremely expressive; she's a hoot to watch.
There are several others; Cindy and I will watch this afternoon.
Y'know, it occurs to me... this is the kind of child authors are thinking of when they write a kid into fanfic. *waves to Aly* There are children at the high end of the curve, whose mental and verbal expressions seem two or three -- or even more -- years older than their chronological age. Those of us who work more often with "average" children -- or even those striving to reach average -- may forget that such standouts exist. (More than a few times I've conducted a speech test with a child who seems stupendous -- he/she is answering every question, and I'm sure they will hit standard scores of 12's or 13's, but when I score it, they're only reaching 9's and 10's. I've worked with below-average children so long that my perceptions of "average" are skewed.) But, yeah, the above-average kids are among us, and who can fault an author for putting them in a fic, if they want to include a child? After all, most of our heroes, in fic, movies, or TV, are considerably above average; may as well let our OCs -- adult or child -- have something approaching parity with the leading characters. <g>
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Posted at Dreamwidth; please comment there --
https://starwatcher.dreamwidth.org/4595
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Jul. 12th, 2017
12:01 am - Do You Know this Vid?
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I'm trying to find a video on youtube, for which I do not have a name. Cindy opened it on her facebook page and showed it to me. I'd like to show other people, but on facebook it didn't show a name or a link so I could search. It went thusly:
A little blonde girl is sitting in a big easy chair, describing an experience. Her speech is not always clear; there are captions to help us understand her.
She explains that she was riding on a plane, and the lady in the seat next to her kept talking. "She was a real chatty Cathy." The lady asked what she wanted to be when she grew up. "I don't know; I'm only two!" The girl wished the lady would quit talking. "Then the miracle happened! I pooped in my diaper. After that, nobody talked to me anymore."
Those quotes may be a word off, but they're pretty close. I've tried searching, but the terms are too broad to find it. Has anyone heard of this or seen it and can toss me a link? I'd love to bookmark it.
Here's the DW link; please comment there.
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Mar. 10th, 2017
10:47 pm - I coulda been a contendah!
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Or, in this case, a science teacher.
I work with a sweet little boy who is very verbal. The output is extensive, but the input seems difficult for him. Example...
On Monday, the first thing he walked in my room, he said, "Miss Linda, how come when my sleeve gets in water, my arm gets wet?"
"Because your shirt soaks up the water."
"Oh. What's 'soaks up'?"
Pause for a moment. How do you explain 'soaks up'? The thing is, we shouldn't need to explain the idea; most children observe the interaction of water to fabric/sponge/whatever at a very young age and develop a gut-level understanding of what 'soaks up' means.
I immediately discarded the idea of trying to explain with words and tried to figure out a way to demonstrate. Ah! I keep paper plates in the room (for lunches that might overflow in the microwave), and I always have a glass of water to drink, and paper towels to clean the therapy table. (I wipe it with alcohol between sessions).
So... I poured a little water onto a paper plate, folded the paper towel several times along the long side to present a concentrated surface, and dipped just the corner into the puddle of water.
"Look! See the water climbing up the paper towel? See it going up? Water follows water."
"Can I do it?"
So I cut off the wet end and gave him the paper towel, which he duly dipped into the water and watched it absorb upward as I repeated, "See? Water follows water." Then I cut off the wet end again, and we repeated the cycle twice more.
As I threw the last soggy bit in the trash I said, "Okay, time for speech-work," and we went on with our normal activities. But as he walked out the door 20 minutes later, he was reminding himself, "Water follows water. Water follows water. Water follows water."
<g> I enjoyed science classes... well, chemistry, biology, and geography. Physics wasn't fun, but that was a less-competent instructor, I think. Regardless, I think my creative spark arose from years and years of explaining things to youngsters -- simplify, simplify, simplify!
Just wish I could do it all. *checks my credentials* Nope; still only human.
Automatic cross-posting isn't working. Please comment on the Dreamwidth post.
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May. 19th, 2014
03:19 pm - Maybe it's a childhood thing...
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One of my students came in to finish a test after she'd seen a program. "How long is this going to take?" she asked. "Cause Mrs. L is going to make us coke floats." I assured her it would only take 10 more minutes, and she'd be there in plenty of time. (And it did, and I'm sure she was.)
But what struck me was the anticipation on her face. I remember my dad waxing nostalgic about floats-- root beer, in his case. One summer day when I was 17 or 18, Dad bought some bottles of root beer and some vanilla ice cream and made root beer floats for all of us (5 kids). We all dug in, but I... thought it was a dreadful waste of two perfectly good foods. Especially the vanilla ice cream -- MUCH better when slathered with chocolate syrup than with a crystallized coating of root-beer fizz on the outside.
Obviously, I'm not up on the finer things in life. <g>
= = =
In other news, left my spare keys at the bread store in Hobbs, so I have to make a 25-mile side-trip before I get home to pick them up. Sometimes I think I'd forget my head if it wasn't screwed on.
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Comment at Dreamwidth by Name, Anonymous, or Open Id -
May. 17th, 2014
03:14 pm - "I was poopin' and then there was a turtle."
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Ever since my first job -- in a small school for what we then classified as 'trainable' or 'educable' mentally retarded -- I've realized that I have a face that very young children are drawn to. Many times, as I walked through the big room where there were several stations for physical therapy, I'd stop to talk to a fussy child. They'd often focus big eyes on me and stop fussing.
Despite advancing years that have given me white hair and a few wrinkles, the attraction factor seems to be still in play. Of course, part of that may be the fact that -- as a speech therapist -- I answer when the little ones speak to me. Have to encourage that speech development, you know? ;)
So today at lunch there was a cute little girl at the next table -- maybe 2-1/2 or 3. She said, "Hi!" and I said, "Hi!" back, very enthusiastically.
"I never..." she started to explain.
"You never...?" with rising voice, inviting her to continue.
"Never, never! I never (unintelligible something).
"Well, that's okay! You can do it however you want." (I always project approval even when I don't know what I'm showing approval about.)
She went back to eating, and I went to pay and get my plates. Then a little later it was --
"What's your name?"
"Linda. What your name?"
"Olivia."
"Hi, Olivia, nice to meet you."
"Nice to meet you."
We both went back to eating (and me to reading on my laptop, of course). A little later she turned to me and explained very seriously, "I was poopin', and then there was a turtle."
"Wow! I bet that was a surprise!"
"No it was the poopin'."
I haven't a clue; I'm sure there was a connection in her mind. It does give rise to a number of interesting or strange possibilities, but I'll never know -- her daddy told her the lady didn't want to hear about the pooping, and took her into the other room to play games. (It wasn't that abrupt; she was finished eating.)
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In other news, I've realized that the main reason I don't update very often is I tend to make a long, drawn-out story of everything. Key-word -- story. I feel like I have to polish / explain everything, just like when I write a fic. But that takes time -- I have three or four half-finished posts saved in my HD (if I can find them again) -- and I seldom have that much time to spare. So now, in the interests of staying connected, I plan to toss off the short little things I notice in my world. I'll aim for three or four times a week and see how it goes, but don't hold your breath. <g>
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Comment at Dreamwidth by Name, Anonymous, or Open Id -
Jun. 16th, 2011
09:28 am - For the very young kids.
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Somewhere in a post this week, someone linked to Andy Runton's site.
The author writes comic books for very young children, featuring "Owly" and his friend "Wormy". I told my niece, and she says her daughter loves Owly, and they have several of the books. But for those who want to look before they buy, the site has six free comics, readable / downloadable as PDF files.
If there are kids under five anywhere within your circle of friends, pass on the info; gotta feed that love of reading.
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Comment at Dreamwidth by Name, Anonymous, or Open Id -
Aug. 12th, 2007
12:46 pm - Kid Pic - Me
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Aly just said that she pictured me in long hair, braided, when I was little. (Like Laura in Little House?) No such luck -- I desperately wanted long hair, but Mom wielded the scissors and would not allow it.
But I do have an old picture of myself, taken in black and white, but hand-colorized at the studio.
( InsideCollapse )
10:05 am
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I once read that 'a literate person can never be successful at cleaning out the attic'. I believe it. I need to do some housecleaning today. In picking up papers, and going through them to decide which to keep and which to throw away, I came across the 'SUPER Performance Evaluation Chart'. It might even make the boss's critique entertaining.
( Read more...Collapse )
Aug. 15th, 2006
08:59 pm - Out of the mouths of babes...
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1) I got a chuckle out of this. One of my coworkers passed on a conversation she overheard between two little girls (first grade) while she was in the restroom.
"Ashley, hurry up!"
"I'm tryin', okay?"
"But what's taking so long?"
"I can't help it, I have to P - U - P."
Shocked/thoughtful silence. Then, "Do you know someone else is in here?"
"Of course I do! That's why I spelled it."
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2) Several years ago, a second-grade teacher told this story. She was giving a lesson about the ocean (remember, we live in New Mexico; most of our kids have never seen the ocean), and asked, "Who can tell me, what is a beach?"
One little boy raised his hand enthusiastically. In a Mexican accent he announced, "Teesher, Teesher, I know! A beesh is a girl dog with puppies!"
(His dad raised greyhounds.)
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3) Many years ago, I was giving a speech test to a three-year-old. One of the pictures is supposed to elicit the 'zh' sound, and the question is, "What is the long word for TV?" Most kids that age had no idea; they simply said, "TV." Slighter more aware kids would answer, "Teeeeee - Veeeeee."
But one canny little boy realized I must want something different. He thought and thought, and finally guessed, "Boob tube?"
(His mother nearly died of embarrassment. Had it been an IQ test, I'd have given him top marks for that. *g*)
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