Adventures in Virtual Academy (pt 3)

First a comment on my niece in college at UT Knoxville:

There is a tiger on the loose as of last night. A Tiger. In Knoxville. So I text the niece with the link to the article and told her "I see you are out sightseeing. You better get back to your dorm. It's almost curfew." She thought it was good aunt humor and was pleased I told her, in my weird way, to stay safe. Seriously though, a tiger? It really is like a game of Jumanji...

On with my show:

This week in math the class is studying integers. Now, I remember this!


Miss B is trucking along and we come to one that's 2 negatives. (-2-6 was the first problem. I don't remember the second equation) I told her "You can't have 2 negatives side by side. You have to change the sign of the second one to a positive sign and add." She says, "They haven't told us that." I said, "Well I can't help what they have told you that's the law of math. You do it whatever way you want." She ignored my advice. I made note of the problems because I knew a second attempt was coming. Sure enough, she missed 2 problems. Both of which I knew were the ones with 2 negatives side by side. She huffed. I said, "Go back and next time try it my way." And she did, sure that she had missed something else and the 75 would stand. Wouldn't you know it, she got a 100 on the second try. I said, "See I really am not as dumb as I look." She laughed at me then fussed at the teachers for giving them a trick question. It really wasn't a trick, but I do have an issue about it. I bet you other kids miss those same 2 problems. I was in there for every video and I read along in the book. Double negatives were not addressed.

In case you are wondering the solved equation looks like this: -2-6 = -2+6=4

They finally addressed double negatives yesterday.

In science, they are watching a lot of Bill Nye the Science Guy. I loved Bill Nye and Mr. Wizard as a kid. She doesn't need help with science unless it is a software issue when editing a worksheet, but hey if I'm going to be in a 7th-grade class I may as well get to pick one I enjoy.

What I did not know: Not only am I assisting with 7th-grade academics, I'm having to teach all the bells and whistles Microsoft office has to offer. Yesterday's lesson, how to draw circles and arrows in a word document. Considering these kids have barely been taught how to type it's a tall order. Might I add I have not used this particular set of skills in over 20 years? They are just a bit rusty. At least I'm combating old age brain frog...

Oh, and did I mention the dog now thinks it's appropriate to wake me up at 1:30 to chase a cat that's started roaming the neighborhood? She isn't a cat chaser, she's more of a herder. She counts their heads at bedtime. Seriously. But this cat isn't HER cat, so it's an invader and must leave the yard. While I'm happy she's trying to protect us, 1:30 am isn't the time to be protecting us from some random feline just passing through that decided to survey the world from my deck. I'm not even sure why she knows it's out there. She should be sleeping. I guess for some weird reason she takes a nightly patrol and looks out all the windows she can find.

Maybe my problem is not old age brain fog, maybe it's just a lack of sleep this week.

*****

Edit: If I post anything that pertains to a question/answer from my daughter's class, this is the answer as accepted by a teacher or a digital worksheet that is auto-graded.