Eandhl, that sounds a little bit like a christmas ornament? Am I visualizing it correctly? Bumblebeeze, Deee, Yes, if you don't have kids youve probably never heard of it but duct tape is big! Thanks for the link. Deee -- all the traditional stuff I can think of, I don't think they will find too exciting. ANd without language skills to give in context, not sure ... Bumblebeez --- beads, great idea!!m ooh and glitter! Maire -- yes, i thought I should do that too. Patty -- I see your point, but perhaps they already do enough of that. ANd frankly it takes more skill to pull that off! At this point, I am thinking I will give my school contact a choice of four from: Origami (my son is really good at this so I think we will def do this) Duct tape pencil flowers (my one daughter has done these and they are cute and functional) Beading Marbleized paper, maybe for bookmarks Snowflakes with glitter Baseball hat painting Thumbprint painting Thanks all!

Lynda, I couldn't do Geometry. Nothing about it made sense to me until I took drafting in college. That's when the light bulbs turned on - waaay too late LOL. Kicky, I looked it up and find it very interesting. Thank you for the suggestion. My only concern so far is while the tips & tricks are great, they take as long or longer than factoring the multiplication problem. Only thing is I didn't read very far yet, but I don't doubt he will be able to find some of the concepts helpful in school. Others will be helpful just knowing them and to get the practice. I really find it all very fascinating. Petaloid, I'm going to look at that website, too. Thanx for the recommendation. Eliza Ann, show her the way Carla explained it. I showed Jordan how to follow the numbers through, and he whizzed through his homework that night. He can follow that way pretty well - 8, 16, 24, etc. or 9, 18, 27, etc. to arrive at his answer. I can't believe my daughter nor his teacher nor he had thought of doing that before. But, it's relieving him of the chore so that he's more comfortable that I want to try doing. Carla, I hadn't thought of some of those. Good idea for him to add rows and columns like that in every day life. I think we'll make a game of it. Will be lots of fun with the three of us. His brother, Aaron, is 19 mos younger and answers some of the questions I put to Jordan. LOL He's so proud of himself doing multiplication in 2nd grade. "Let me show you how I did it, Grandmere!" hahaha He tickles me.

When I was in school, 30-40 per class was very normal. And I feel fortunate that I was in large classes. Teachers cared about teaching and we came out able to read, write, punctuate and construct at least a semi-coherent sentence, add, subtract, multiply and divide, and all without having to use a computer or calculator. Oh, and you'd better show your work! Unfortunately I'd lose credit because I could add two or three two-digit numbers in my head. Today it seems like, unless they had a calculator, kids would have to take off their shoes and drop their pants to count to 21! I worked for a school district for seven years and watched the decline of education. It was disgusting. Seems to me we need to start cutting education funding. Make them do more instead of have more. Concentrate on teaching instead of babysitting. An analog clock was a teaching device in years past, but can't do that anymore. Can kids tell time unless it's digital? A GOOD teacher is worth their weight in gold. Unfortunately, there's getting to be so few. And of course the lack of parenting further complicates things and makes for a vicious circle. I can forgive teachers being frustrated when they're not allowed to teach, or when they're expected to do things they shouldn't have to be doing. But when they're more concerned about more time off (from a six month job), than doing what they're supposed to, I start becoming annoyed. And yes, drugging the kids because they refuse to parent. Everyone has to have an excuse these days. They're not brats, they're ADD, and so on and so on. And I'm so sick of this I'm not going to raise my kids like my parents raised me... I got (insert discipline here)... Better stop here before the FGs throw a temper tantrum.

Slight tangent: she has tried for *three* *years* to get a HS history teaching job??!! Oh dear, this has me very worried. My own daughter graduated in May with a history major and secondary teaching certification and her dream is to teach exactly that. She has been shocked and dismayed that although she has been diligently applying all over, even hand carrying personalized application packets directly to schools and has at least had several interviews, she hasn't gotten a job. School starts here a week from Monday and she is feeling devastated...I'm puzzled that the field seems so incredibly difficulty to enter. I didn't dream she wouldn't be hired somewhere by this point. She says once school starts, and she doesn't get a permanent position (which seems likely), she will try to substitute but at this point we're worried nobody will even deign to give her that chance. And she graduated cum laude from a well regarded university! Is it really that tough to get hired as a teacher? Seems all one hears is that the pay is bad, teachers are overworked, disrespected etc, leaving the profession in droves....so why is it impossible to get a job? Semi-facetious, but only semi. Any experience or thoughts welcome. Ann