Can’t really think of a better weekend in a long time. Saturday afternoon at Summer Nationals in Worcester. My father in law had his Roush convertible and his ‘71 Monte Carlo at the show and they got a lot of attention. His cars became a stop for the Miss Summer Nationals contestants and photographer so they drew quite a crowd.
As the show at Green Hill Park was winding down we headed out, stopped at a Cold Stone Creamery for ice cream, then arrived in Humarock in time for a cookout then the July 3rd bonfires on the beach. We didn’t get any pictures this year, but it looked at lot like this (from ‘06).
The rest of the weekend was a Spit weekend. My father even made it out to the spit on a sunny day!
Of course Cam had to go snorkling to hunt crabs.
Monday we brought Owen’s dingy and Clay and Cam went off exploring.
Then they learned how fun it was to swamp it and use it as a slide and jumping platform.
After flag football on Saturday Clay, Cam and I went to a boat show in Milford NH. It was my first inland boat show and quite a contrast compared to the coastal shows I’ve been to before. Still the kids had fun looking at all the different boats and telling me which ones they wanted, which ones Mimi & Grampy would want and which kayak we should get for Mom. Personally I wasn’t a big fan of the pontoon and platform boats that dominated the show but they did have a couple nice runabouts as well as Whalers and a few others.
Sunday officially ended the snowmobiling season as we put the sleds away in their tent until next winter and began preparing the docks. Or at least attempted to until Michael and I decided to wait until the next flood tide to float some old finger piers back in place.
Of course no trip back to Scituate would be complete without tech support. I got to install cable boxes for my parents. Apparently Comcast is forcing even extended basic cable customers to move to digital cable. Talk about a pain in the ass. Moving dusty furniture, chasing down and replacing lossy cables and shoehorning the cable boxes into already overcrowded entertainment centers. Fun Fun Fun.
We drove up to Dixville Notch Saturday and watched the vintage snowmobile races at the Balsams.
Vintage racing at the Balsams
Everyone enjoyed themselves even though it was a pretty long day. Not only did the trip convince the kids they want to snowmobile in new places next year it may have created new racers. Camden, of course, wants to race snowmobiles. Clayton was not so enthusiastic about racing, even though he enjoyed watching so much he refused to go inside to warm up. Heather is the other potential racers. She watched the ladies race and decided that might be fun to try. I’m not so sure we’ll follow through with racing, but getting them more enthused is a good thing.
Oh, there was also water cross.
Should elementary schools teach math?
Well, I’m not going to get into if math should be taught in elementary school or not. I think it’s actually the wrong solution to the problem of how to teach math.
the people who teach in elementary schools are not mathematicians. Most of them are math phobic,
[...]
Patricia Clark Kenschaft, a professor of mathematics at Montclair State University, described her experiences of going into elementary schools and talking with teachers about math. In one visit to a K-6 elementary school in New Jersey she discovered that not a single teacher, out of the fifty that she met with, knew how to find the area of a rectangle.
This is the problem with math education in elementary schools. No matter the technique used to teach the subject students will develop an aversion to math if they are relying on a math phobic educator to teach them.
For example at the beginning of this year I asked one of my sons’ teachers about the Everyday Math program used in their school. Despite being taught that math curriculum as part of her education degree, and using it for multiple years as an elementary teacher she admitted to being uncomfortable with math in general and that program specifically. Admittedly this was after I admitted my own confusion about the program and asked about math homework being assigned with no context allowing a parent to translate from “Everyday Math” speak to 1970s and ’80s style math.
I’m certainly not math phobic, in fact I’d say I’m quite fond of math. Still trying to teach a young child how to solve “fact triangles” “function machines” and “number models” when you have no idea what they are is only going to reinforce any math phobia the child may have developed in the classroom.
There are certainly positive aspects to the program, and I think math education does have to improve if we want to have a math literate population. The answer is not to slightly change the system in place. A radical change is needed. Either that or we need to make every elementary educator math literate themselves and ensure they teach math with the same joie de vivre as they bring to their other subjects. When transmogrifier technology is perfected we can attempt the second approach. Until then I suggest we attempt the first.
Benezet showed that kids who received just one year of arithmetic, in sixth grade, performed at least as well on standard calculations and much better on story problems than kids who had received several years of arithmetic training.
So that’s a radical change. But in fact that sentence is deceptive. The students studied were introduced to number concepts, they just were not drilled in formal arithmetic programs. This left potentially math phobic teachers to only teach simple math concepts such as counting and measuring. That’s a radical change. I’m not sure I’d actually support it but I certainly want to think more about it.
Another snowmobile ride over. Clayton finally decided going fast isn’t so bad after all. We finally were able to go over 10mph! Cam also got to ride by himself today, and he did a pretty good job. The snow is getting a little thin down near the gate on Bear Notch Rd, but up top there is still three plus feet of snow.
A hundred or so feet higher in elevation and the snow has piled up. Even here at 750′ or so the snow started to accumulate Friday and it doesn’t look so bare anymore. Up higher there are several feet of new snow. I think snow has fallen for at least part of every hour we have been here. Sure at first it was mostly rain with a little sleet and snow as the temperature shifted but lately it’s been just snow. It certainly proved I need a replacement visor for my helmet. It’s so scratched up I couldn’t see out the trail with it down today and it was snowing so hard I couldn’t keep it up like I have been doing lately.
All in all not a bad day, just one to be glad to put behind me.
This morning started out with a exhaustive check of snowmobile trail conditions and weather forecasts for the day. It was raining in Bartlett, but various weather sites were saying it was mostly snow west and north of here. So we saddled up and drove through Crawford Notch to Fabyan’s in Twin Mountain. Still raining however they got a lot more snow than on this side of the Notch.
After a quick conference with Heather we decide to head north a little ways. Quick drive up to Jefferson and it’s snowing! Clayton even spotted a groomer on the trail. One problem though, I can’t find parking for the truck and trailer. Well, that can be solved by continuing into Gorham. However once we get to Gorham we discover two things. Moose Brook Park no longer has parking and once we get to the new lot a little down the road it’s pouring rain again.
We’re far enough around Mount Washington that it’s easiest to get home via Rt 16 and Pinkham Notch so that’s the way we go. Pinkham Notch is high enough up that it’s snowing again and we spot several spin outs through the notch. We make it back down to Jackson safely however, and back to rain with very little base snow depth. By this point Clay and Cam have been in the truck for over two hours so I decide to humor them with a brief trip to Bear Notch Road. They can at least unload the sleds and drive up and down the road for a few minutes before they get too soaked.
However I didn’t consider that the parking lot would be unplowed with a foot of snow/slush/water over very slick ice. About 100 feet into the lot I get stuck. Even after shoveling out the tires I’m still stuck due to the trailer. Unhitch it and get the truck out. Then unload the trailer and head back in to get it. Eventually we get the trailer out and we have enough time to go for a little ride. On a positive note it stopped raining by this point.
Bear Notch Road is a mess. Trees are down and the trail is ungroomed. However volunteers have been out cutting up the downed trees and the groomer has pushed them aside for the most part. We only go a few miles up the road, to the second turnout. In that distance the new fallen snow goes from a foot or less at the parking lot to about three feet of very heavy wet new snow when we turn around. Luckily we can follow in the path of the work crews and the heavy wet snow packs well so the sleds don’t get stuck anyways.
By 5:30 we are back to the trailer, loaded up and heading back to Michael’s house. Park in the driveway and begin the drying out process. I’m not sure how long that will take though. Hopefully Saturday will be better.
Looks like February vaction’s snowmobile trip will be rained out. Even here up in Bartlett the little snow fallen has been drenched by the rain. The only potential positive is it’s been cold enough that there is still about 2-3″ of heavy wet slush on the ground. If it gets cold enough soon we still may be able to get at least one ride in.
