Open thread, Jan. 25 - Jan. 31, 2016

username2

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If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

Notes for future OT posters:

1. Please add the 'open_thread' tag.

2. Check if there is an active Open Thread before posting a new one. (Immediately before; refresh the list-of-threads page before posting.)

3. Open Threads should be posted in Discussion, and not Main.

4. Open Threads should start on Monday, and end on Sunday.

Yes, I agree, but there are... complications: 1) she cannot read, write half an alphabet or count beyond 30, because 'nobody at home has the time to teach me', and I keep thinking 'surely teaching her to read is the best thing I can ever do', but she wants to talk about botany, of all things, and I don't really have any formal power to make her do anything else; 2) she doesn't understand the value of observations and records, and I don't want to show her 'tricks' like pigment separation because inferential distance and so on, and so we are stuck with 'simple fast transformations' which are very difficult for me to keep fitting into some kind of system, so I just wing it; 3) for an hour and a half! Torture! We keep veering off into binocular vision, birds and so on, but it's like n All-Biology Test and I hate the lack of structure, but I cannot just tell her to go away; 4) and until today I kind of thought she was a good little polite girl, who humored my rants.

I can show her pictures of time series (of some developments), but it's something you prepare without haste and usually with much trouble. I think it would be a good exercise in pattern-matching, but... there are so many things which can go wrong.

Does she object against learning the alphabet in principle, or merely because she doesn't consider it the best use of the time when she is with you?

If it's the latter, you could prepare her a tool to learn the alphabet when she is back at home. Just print a paper containing all letters in the alphabet, and next to each letter put two or three pictures of things that start with that letter. ("А = автомобіль, антена; Б = банан,..."; free pics.) Or maybe make it two-sided cards, so she can practive active recall. Then give her a book on botany, as a motivation.

1username210y

I think that children are very good at learning even the most unexpected things. I think that whatever you do things are unlikely to go wrong, as long as you pay some attention to what she likes and what bores her and don't force her to do things she hates. Children are curious, but their attention benefits from some direction.