The Mistral, Math, and a Hot Meal

It was a bit chilly with the wind, but I associated it with being near the river. Everyone else was shocked that I was in a t-shirt. I mean it was cool but in the sun it was not too bad. It was honestly like a most wonderful and perfect beginning of fall, fall day.

Anyway, we got back to the house and I put on a sweater. Then I saw that Auriane had a friend over. She either had brought books or was looking through books. I thought that they were going to sell the books outside but I have no idea if that ever happened. I went on my computer to write for a bit and got connected/wired to the internet. Auriane kept coming upstairs so I figured something was up. I finished writing to a friend and then Auriane showed me what math she was working on in school. She then asked me to check her homework (classic!).

I was glad to help but worried that I would show her something differently than she was taught in school; I am sure all of you either remember this from when you were a child or felt it as a parent: someone was doing math homework, the parent would go to help and the child would say NO YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG or THAT IS NOT WHAT MY TEACHER DID! I was one of those that said “I have no idea what you did, you got the right answer, but you did it wrong. I cannot learn it your way, I will get in trouble!” Although as a teacher, I love when students find different ways to do the math (as long as it is correct) I understand the students’ points of views.

She did the first problem correctly, it was all about fractions. Adding, multiplying, dividing, etc; she knew her stuff. The only mistake that I found was that she simplified -1/1 to zero when it should have been -1. She showed me her notes, but those were incorrect as well. She checked her textbook and voila. She made her corrections.

Then came the scientific notation. She was solving problems with positive and negative exponents and then she had to write the answer as a decimal. She did the first part correctly, but her answer was 30 x 10^-8 Now, for those of you who know math it should be 3.0 x 10^-7 she wrote the power to -9. I tried to explain it to her by having her write both out but of course she did not know how to write out 30 as scientific notation properly. This problem took a long, long time. With my lack of French, her lack of English, it seemed a hard struggle that she did not fully understand by the end. But she got it…kind of and we continued.

The last problem was about a plot of land. 1/6 was used in 2001 and 4/5 was used in 2002. If 1/6 is 6 hectares find how much was used in 2002 and how much has not been used. It was a great question (once I understood it). Auriane said that she did not know how to solve it. She is so silly for thinking that I would tell her! I just said “oh.” She talked me through what she though she should so and with no real guidance she figured out the answer. She did a lot of work and it was scattered and messy; she said that she would rewrite it; I hope she can figure out what she did!

It was time for lunch, we had breaded and fried turkey strips. It was a bit over cooked and Auriane let everyone know; she did the typical coughing and opening the window gasping for air from the smoke in the kitchen. There was salad, bread, and mashed potatoes. Apparently this is the first hot meal of the season. I suppose you could say, summer is coming to an end.

During lunch we spoke of the weather and I found out that the winds this morning were due to The Mistral. Everyone was wearing jackets and saying how sold it was. I did not get a clear understanding of how cold it will be in the winter. I mean they say it is very cold due to the winds but they said it almost never reaches freezing. I need to do a little research as I cannot imagine it being THAT cold with winds, e horrible winds if it is not that cold outside. Auriane said that she would like to go to school in New York or Boston and I told her that she needs to get ready for real cold.

Auriane wanted to do some baking and she made a very simple yogurt cake (loaf). It was put into the microwave, which doubles as an oven and we all left for Avignon.