Conversation with my 7-year-old

[limabean]

Background: Maybe this is a nationwide thing that doesn't need explaining, but just in case, at my DS's school they have an Accelerated Reader (AR) program, where certain books are associated with a little comprehension test the kids can take on the classroom computer to earn points. In DS's school library, the books that are in the AR program have a green sticker on the spine. So here's the talk I had with DS about it:

Me: I bet some of our books at home are AR books

DS: Maybe. We could check to see if some of them have green stickers. 

Me: Well, our books wouldn't have the stickers, but we might have some of the same titles at home.

DS: But AR books are only the ones with green stickers. 

Me: At school, that's true. But remember you said that the Magic Treehouse books at school have green stickers?

DS: Yeah.

Me: And we have those very same Magic Treehouse books at home right?
DS: Yeah. 

Me: But our books don't have green stickers, but they're still AR books, right? You could read our Magic Treehouse books and still be able to take the AR test about them, right?
DS: If it doesn't have the sticker then it's not an AR book. 

Me: 

[Imakcerka]

And you really think you should argue that logic?  LOVE IT!  Mama go buy some green stickers!

[limabean]

Originally Posted by Imakcerka 

Mama go buy some green stickers!

Ha! I should really freak him out and put random colorful stickers on all the books. 

[hildare]

nah.. cause when your kid advances to the next level the color of the stickers changes. 

your school library *ought* to have a list hopefully on the school website.  when i was a school librarian we sent our list to the public library too, just for that reason.

<grumblegrumbleihateAR>>

[limabean]

Originally Posted by hildare 

nah.. cause when your kid advances to the next level the color of the stickers changes. 

your school library *ought* to have a list hopefully on the school website.  when i was a school librarian we sent our list to the public library too, just for that reason.

<grumblegrumbleihateAR>>

Argh, changing colors!

I ended up finding the list online and now we have an AR shelf. I don't really get the program to be honest. They accrue points, but it doesn't say what the points are for. Ah well. 

[~cassie]

My middle son is just like that lol!

[LynnS6]

Ah, the literal age!  You've got to love it. 

Our son (age 10) has now moved past that into 'debating' minutiae with me. So, I was talking about needing to grade my students' homework assignments (I'm a college prof), and he asked:

DS "How can it be homework if they're not living at home?"

Me "Where ever they live can be considered home."

DS "But what if they do it in the library?"

Me "It's still 'homework' because it needs to be done outside of class."

DS "But what if they do it in class?"

Me "My students don't have TIME to do homework in class! That's the major difference between elementary school and college my dear." (Never mind that I got a fair amount of homework done in some of my more boring classes.)

he did this with a sly grin throughout, so he was just doing it to drive me nuts!

[Tjej]

My DD is like this about a list of books to read from the library.  They have stickers on them there, and she is abhorred by the idea that I want to read the books from the list that we have already at home (with no stickers on them!).  She doesn't think they should count if we don't check them out of the library...

Tjej