According to my super duper little weather gizmo thingie-bob that Daddy Bird gave me for Christmas a few years ago, it is 102 degrees Fahrenheit on my front porch. This, by the way, is in the shade.
Can you guess what the forecast is for the first day of school? Yup, 98 degrees. Isn't that lovely?
But it could be worse....at least this year we have air conditioning. For those of you who've been reading for a while, you may remember that last year the new air conditioning system didn't work until the first day of school. Of course, there's always the chance it will break by the 9th, isn't there?
Sigh.
The building was open this morning (we have a lot of new teachers who are going through the major "oh my gosh I need more time to get my room put together" drama) so Mrs. Eagle and I got in early and went through our file cabinets and managed to fill, between us, four big trash bags. We kept copies of a lot of stuff, but basically tossed a lot of old tests and things we don't use or that aren't on our standards anymore. It was pretty easy work, it was air conditioned, and we got a lot done.
And then we left at noon, walked outside, and about fainted.
I went home, and aside from a quick foray with Mr. Bluebird to our local Amish veggie stand (that's only open on Saturdays) where I got a great little watermelon for $2 and hubby bought his favorite chocolate chip cookies, we've hunkered down and are staying inside.
To make it even worse, it's still dry. Very dry. So dry that even crabgrass, which can survive anything, is dying. My yard is crunchy. The entire state has been declared an agricultural emergency due to the drought. We had a slight shower a few days ago, but that's about it.
The corn is haggard and brown, the soybeans are looking puny, and my flowers and veggies are only alive because we'll go out after dark and water.
I'm ready for a cold front. In the meantime, it's time for cold adult beverages.
Saturday, August 04, 2007
Friday, August 03, 2007
The dangers of too much HGTV
I adore watching HGTV. I just love it. I'm not particularly dedicated to a certain show, although I really like House Hunters, Generation Renovation, and Landscapers' Challenge. I can simply flip to that channel and pretty much find something interesting the watch.
The problem is they make it look so darn easy.
My husband and I found this out about four years ago when we went to Daddy Bird's for Christmas. Daddy Bird was coming down with a cold and went to bed early; there wasn't a whole lot to watch on television outside of a marathon of some sort on HGTV, so we watched that. And went home and painted the stairwell and parts of the "bunker" (our word for the finished basement which houses most of our book collection as well as main computer).
So you would think we'd know better.
However, Daddy Bird was up visiting and when Daddy Bird visits we like to get home improvement and repair projects finished. It's either that or he spends too much time watching NASCAR and baseball, and he gets restless and bored. He's good at home repair, and I learn a lot from him which is why I'm really good at fixing toilets and sinks and stuff like that. It was so freaking hot and humid that we decided that anything that needed doing was going to be done inside where there was air conditioning.
I had this idea this past winter that I wanted to redecorate the guest bathroom. I had a red and white vision with blue accents and accessories. I wanted red walls, with white beadboard on one wall. I'd seen pictures of similar styles in Southern Living (the guidebook for all things decorating down here in My Beloved South), and I figured it would look okay. So I bought the paint when it was on sale in January.
That's right. Seven months ago.
We figured this would be a good project that would take, at most, a day.
Again, you would think we'd know better.
It took three hours just to get the bathroom ready to be painted. We had to caulk in places, then sand, and then apply painter's tape. And then we had to put two good coats of paint on. Then we had to cut the beadboard and chair rail. And then we had to glue it on, but ended up nailing it because our wall curves just enough to make the ends refuse to stick well. And then we had to caulk some more. And then we removed the tape, and had to fix places where it took off the paint (ARGH). And then we had to put the cupboard back in and hang up the new medicine cabinet.
But it looks great. It's not finished...I'm going to have to apply a special primer and then paint the vanity cabinet since I'm on a budget and really can't afford a new one right now, plus eventually I'm going to replace the faucets and the floor.
Any guesses on how long it's going to take me to tile that floor???
*snicker*
The problem is they make it look so darn easy.
My husband and I found this out about four years ago when we went to Daddy Bird's for Christmas. Daddy Bird was coming down with a cold and went to bed early; there wasn't a whole lot to watch on television outside of a marathon of some sort on HGTV, so we watched that. And went home and painted the stairwell and parts of the "bunker" (our word for the finished basement which houses most of our book collection as well as main computer).
So you would think we'd know better.
However, Daddy Bird was up visiting and when Daddy Bird visits we like to get home improvement and repair projects finished. It's either that or he spends too much time watching NASCAR and baseball, and he gets restless and bored. He's good at home repair, and I learn a lot from him which is why I'm really good at fixing toilets and sinks and stuff like that. It was so freaking hot and humid that we decided that anything that needed doing was going to be done inside where there was air conditioning.
I had this idea this past winter that I wanted to redecorate the guest bathroom. I had a red and white vision with blue accents and accessories. I wanted red walls, with white beadboard on one wall. I'd seen pictures of similar styles in Southern Living (the guidebook for all things decorating down here in My Beloved South), and I figured it would look okay. So I bought the paint when it was on sale in January.
That's right. Seven months ago.
We figured this would be a good project that would take, at most, a day.
Again, you would think we'd know better.
It took three hours just to get the bathroom ready to be painted. We had to caulk in places, then sand, and then apply painter's tape. And then we had to put two good coats of paint on. Then we had to cut the beadboard and chair rail. And then we had to glue it on, but ended up nailing it because our wall curves just enough to make the ends refuse to stick well. And then we had to caulk some more. And then we removed the tape, and had to fix places where it took off the paint (ARGH). And then we had to put the cupboard back in and hang up the new medicine cabinet.
But it looks great. It's not finished...I'm going to have to apply a special primer and then paint the vanity cabinet since I'm on a budget and really can't afford a new one right now, plus eventually I'm going to replace the faucets and the floor.
Any guesses on how long it's going to take me to tile that floor???
*snicker*
Monday, July 30, 2007
Vocaulary Hell
This year we're getting in-service credit for collaboration time with other teachers.
Mrs. Eagle and I find this to be extremely amusing because we collaborate all the time anyway and now we're getting credit for it. It's like getting paid to eat chocolate.
Which isn't a bad idea, come to think of it.
Anyhow. A few years ago we made laminated vocabulary cards, with one card with the word and another card with the definition. The idea is the kids would get a plastic baggie with these cards in them, lay them out on their desks, and sort and match them. We called this activity word splash, but I'm others out there have a different name for it. In any case, it took forever to make these cards; we copied them onto colored paper, laminated them, cut them out, and sorted them into the baggies.
And our students promptly made a huge mess of them.
Our idea was to spend some time on these cards this summer and get them put back into some semblance of organization. However, what with Mr. Eagle's accident, and Mrs. Eagle spending most of her summer with him at the hospital, this was the first chance we'd really had to work on them.
So today we took my plastic shoeboxes for of baggies and cards, Mrs. Eagle's plastic bags and baggies with cards, and the latest, greatest copy of our Scope and Sequence for the year and attempted to get these all organized.
Oh good gracious.
It would help if our scope and sequence unit numbers didn't change every year. It would also help if it didn't skip and hop around the book like a deranged hamster. For example, we have a unit that includes material from "chapter 3, section 1, chapter 3, section 3, and chapter 11, section 1". ARGH. Some units include information from 4 different chapters. It's maddening.
We did finally get them somewhat organized. Sort of. At least the boxes I keep them in are labeled, and we put aside in a "not tested" box all the words we aren't going to use this year because they aren't necessary. Every year we learn a bit more what's expected and every year we change and tweak. Of course rumors are abounding that they're going to be "reviewing" our standards at the state level so things will probably change yet again.
In the meantime, we're trying to come up with ways to help our kids on vocabulary, keeping in mind that we're losing ten minutes a period with our new schedule this year. A lot of the vocabulary techniques that many teachers in language arts and reading use with great success are a bit unwieldy and not as effective with science vocabulary which tends to be a bit technical. Try doing a Frayer model for "endoplasmic reticulum". So, we're leaning towards more vocab crosswords, word searches and word splashes. We'll just have to find the time.
In the meantime, if any of you fellow science teachers have any great ideas, let me know!
Mrs. Eagle and I find this to be extremely amusing because we collaborate all the time anyway and now we're getting credit for it. It's like getting paid to eat chocolate.
Which isn't a bad idea, come to think of it.
Anyhow. A few years ago we made laminated vocabulary cards, with one card with the word and another card with the definition. The idea is the kids would get a plastic baggie with these cards in them, lay them out on their desks, and sort and match them. We called this activity word splash, but I'm others out there have a different name for it. In any case, it took forever to make these cards; we copied them onto colored paper, laminated them, cut them out, and sorted them into the baggies.
And our students promptly made a huge mess of them.
Our idea was to spend some time on these cards this summer and get them put back into some semblance of organization. However, what with Mr. Eagle's accident, and Mrs. Eagle spending most of her summer with him at the hospital, this was the first chance we'd really had to work on them.
So today we took my plastic shoeboxes for of baggies and cards, Mrs. Eagle's plastic bags and baggies with cards, and the latest, greatest copy of our Scope and Sequence for the year and attempted to get these all organized.
Oh good gracious.
It would help if our scope and sequence unit numbers didn't change every year. It would also help if it didn't skip and hop around the book like a deranged hamster. For example, we have a unit that includes material from "chapter 3, section 1, chapter 3, section 3, and chapter 11, section 1". ARGH. Some units include information from 4 different chapters. It's maddening.
We did finally get them somewhat organized. Sort of. At least the boxes I keep them in are labeled, and we put aside in a "not tested" box all the words we aren't going to use this year because they aren't necessary. Every year we learn a bit more what's expected and every year we change and tweak. Of course rumors are abounding that they're going to be "reviewing" our standards at the state level so things will probably change yet again.
In the meantime, we're trying to come up with ways to help our kids on vocabulary, keeping in mind that we're losing ten minutes a period with our new schedule this year. A lot of the vocabulary techniques that many teachers in language arts and reading use with great success are a bit unwieldy and not as effective with science vocabulary which tends to be a bit technical. Try doing a Frayer model for "endoplasmic reticulum". So, we're leaning towards more vocab crosswords, word searches and word splashes. We'll just have to find the time.
In the meantime, if any of you fellow science teachers have any great ideas, let me know!
Saturday, July 28, 2007
Prayers Needed for Daniel
Since ya'll are so good at this prayers thing - I honestly think all your prayers helped Mr. Eagle through his recovery. He is, after all, going to be able to get his first day pass and leave the rehab facility this weekend!
Anyhow, one of my dearest friends' son, Daniel, was hit in the head with a softball during a game and developed a blood clot and bleeding on the brain. He's in a drug-induced coma right now and they're trying to relieve the pressure on his brain. He could use your prayers. This is a wonderful young man, who was supposed to be starting at Purdue this fall. Use your power of prayer to help pull him and his family through this.
Many thanks, as always, from the bottom of my heart. Bloggers and readers are some of the greatest people on Earth.
Anyhow, one of my dearest friends' son, Daniel, was hit in the head with a softball during a game and developed a blood clot and bleeding on the brain. He's in a drug-induced coma right now and they're trying to relieve the pressure on his brain. He could use your prayers. This is a wonderful young man, who was supposed to be starting at Purdue this fall. Use your power of prayer to help pull him and his family through this.
Many thanks, as always, from the bottom of my heart. Bloggers and readers are some of the greatest people on Earth.
Friday, July 27, 2007
Gearing up, or, "where the hell did I pack that?"
I went in to The Building and worked on my classroom today.
It amazes me how much time it takes every year for me to get my room together. I'm sure this is one of those things that non-teachers never think about - the time we spend just getting ready for school to open. It doesn't seem like it should take that long, but it does. At least this year I didn't have to change rooms, which is a complete pain in the rear. During my first 3 years at The School, I had 4 different classrooms.
However, I still had to pack and box stuff up because they finally tore out the ratty, older than dirt and not much cleaner carpeting that was in the original rooms and replaced it with bright white (with specks of aqua and orange) tile. (My room is in the original part of the 42-year-old building.) The carpeting in our rooms was so bad that some of us were going through rolls of duct tape just trying to hold the seams together, and the local paper featured photos of it on the front page accompanying an article about school maintenance and upgrades. No one could remember how old it was. It could be original to the building for all we knew.
Now I have a floor that's so bright I think I'll need sunglasses. We're talking seriously bright. The last time I saw something this bright I was on a mountain covered with snow with skis on my feet. It certainly makes the room seem cleaner and bigger.
So, I tackled most of the boxes, put all the books back on the bookshelves, moved some furniture around, (I'm messing with my table arrangement), and took Comet and water to my tables so they'll be clean at least at the beginning of the year. Amazing the ick that you can get off a school table.
I still need to go through all my cabinets and my desk and get them organized, but after that I should be good to go. Mrs. Eagle and I are going to meet on Monday and work on some curriculum stuff so we'll get that out of the way.
I did meet four of our new teachers (I think we have 12 or more starting this year) and helped another teacher give them a tour. This always freaks people out because our building is sort of on a hub and spoke design, with 4 different additions added on throughout the years. It is very easy to get lost. The four newbies seem to be fired up and ready to go. Interestingly enough, our entire 8th grade science department is all male, which think is a wonderful thing. We need more male teachers in middle school.
Looks like summer is pretty much over for me.
It amazes me how much time it takes every year for me to get my room together. I'm sure this is one of those things that non-teachers never think about - the time we spend just getting ready for school to open. It doesn't seem like it should take that long, but it does. At least this year I didn't have to change rooms, which is a complete pain in the rear. During my first 3 years at The School, I had 4 different classrooms.
However, I still had to pack and box stuff up because they finally tore out the ratty, older than dirt and not much cleaner carpeting that was in the original rooms and replaced it with bright white (with specks of aqua and orange) tile. (My room is in the original part of the 42-year-old building.) The carpeting in our rooms was so bad that some of us were going through rolls of duct tape just trying to hold the seams together, and the local paper featured photos of it on the front page accompanying an article about school maintenance and upgrades. No one could remember how old it was. It could be original to the building for all we knew.
Now I have a floor that's so bright I think I'll need sunglasses. We're talking seriously bright. The last time I saw something this bright I was on a mountain covered with snow with skis on my feet. It certainly makes the room seem cleaner and bigger.
So, I tackled most of the boxes, put all the books back on the bookshelves, moved some furniture around, (I'm messing with my table arrangement), and took Comet and water to my tables so they'll be clean at least at the beginning of the year. Amazing the ick that you can get off a school table.
I still need to go through all my cabinets and my desk and get them organized, but after that I should be good to go. Mrs. Eagle and I are going to meet on Monday and work on some curriculum stuff so we'll get that out of the way.
I did meet four of our new teachers (I think we have 12 or more starting this year) and helped another teacher give them a tour. This always freaks people out because our building is sort of on a hub and spoke design, with 4 different additions added on throughout the years. It is very easy to get lost. The four newbies seem to be fired up and ready to go. Interestingly enough, our entire 8th grade science department is all male, which think is a wonderful thing. We need more male teachers in middle school.
Looks like summer is pretty much over for me.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
The Final Harry Potter Read Until You Drop-A-Thon
I finished my copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows last night at 11:06. Loved it, hated it, loved it. There's things I was definitely unhappy with (don't worry, I'm not going to spoil it for you) and things I loved about it. Overall, definitely worth ignoring housework for a few days while I plowed through it.
However, I hate the fact that it's over with. The anticipation of the next chapter in the saga of Harry and his friends was almost as good as finally getting the book in your hands and reading it. Now it's over and I'm kind of left a bit deflated. I honestly loved the world that J. K. Rowling created and truly will miss visiting there every book. Now what do we look forward to?
Sigh.
However, I hate the fact that it's over with. The anticipation of the next chapter in the saga of Harry and his friends was almost as good as finally getting the book in your hands and reading it. Now it's over and I'm kind of left a bit deflated. I honestly loved the world that J. K. Rowling created and truly will miss visiting there every book. Now what do we look forward to?
Sigh.
Sunday, July 22, 2007
I'm Baaaaack!
I made it back from summer camp around 1:00 in the morning yesterday. So now I'm back, doing laundry, cleaning house, and generally getting back to normal before I have to worry about going back to school in a few weeks.
Camp was fun. The first week's group of kids seemed to be a bit more mature and seemed to "get it" a bit more, but overall they were a good group of kids. I did have one little guy who had already made a name for himself within the first two hours - this is rare in a camp for gifted kids. He was a terror. He did pretty good in my class until the last two days when he decided he wanted to play in the bathrooms (not a good thing to do at a University) and run in the halls. The last day he didn't want to go outside to fly the kites they'd made that week because he wanted his parents to bring a purchased kite from home. When they didn't, he got MAD. So, after I told him that he was coming with us regardless, he sat and screamed and threw rocks and generally pitched a fit because his "dad ruins everything" and "I don't want to fly a stupid homemade kite." The other kids gave him "what the hell is wrong with you" looks and proceeded to have a blast running around flying their kites and ignoring him. His folks showed up to pick him up and apologized up and down for his behavior, went on about how he has attitude problems, doesn't deal with disappointments well (really, you think?) and so forth and so on. Truth be told, after seeing how his dad got mad and lost patience with him I can see where the anger management issues come from. He was the first kid in eight years of camp that ever pitched a fit in my room, so that's saying something.
My favorite comment from him during the crying and rock throwing episode was, "I don't want to come stand by you because the other kids will think I'm a baby!". Well, hon, they already think that.
Mrs. Cardinal, who I stayed with, and I had a blast. We took her oldest daughter to Dayton, along with one of her teen friends, to see the Harry Potter movie and just loved it. Really dark, but a good film. I'm ready to see it again so perhaps Mrs. Eagle and I will do that before school starts. We did lots of walks with the baby Cardinal (going on 2) and just had a fun time. The baby is adorable, although she's getting into the terrible two's and can have her moments. One thing that staying with the Cardinals and the four kids does is make me appreciate how quiet my own home is. Let's just say the two oldest kids, 15 1/2 and 13, are masters at driving each other crazy and do it at every opportunity.
I did get to see a lot of my old college friends, and despite our 2001 graduations, at least three of them still can't find teaching jobs in Ohio. They just aren't there. People aren't retiring and when they do, they aren't replaced. This community is very family oriented, with large families, and many of these gals just can't bring themselves to leave and move somewhere to get a teaching job (like I did), especially if they have husbands who have decent jobs in the area. I can understand that, and am thankful that we didn't have the family ties and were able to leave like we did. My one friend's daughter ended up getting hired in Dodge City, Kansas, along with her fiance, so many of the best and brightest are leaving the state. It's sad, really.
So now I'm home, sleeping in my own bed, snuggling with my cats and just enjoying being home. Mr. Bluebird is out of town on business so he'll be home late tomorrow - can't wait as I miss him tons when we're apart. My new Harry Potter book arrived yesterday so I'm going to sit and try to get it read as soon as I can although part of me doesn't want the saga to end and I certainly don't want a favorite character to die.
On the down side, I have, for the first time in at least 20 years, had a reaction to some food or something. Woke up in the middle of the night and my upper lip felt swollen and this morning it's huge...so something I ate (perhaps the new flavored decaf coffee I tried for the first time last night?) caused an allergic reaction and I look like I've been in a fight, but without the bruising. It's not painful, just hideous and uncomfortable, so I'm laying low today. Hopefully it will be down by tomorrow as I have a two-day in-service to attend and I'd rather not go looking like this.
Sigh.
Camp was fun. The first week's group of kids seemed to be a bit more mature and seemed to "get it" a bit more, but overall they were a good group of kids. I did have one little guy who had already made a name for himself within the first two hours - this is rare in a camp for gifted kids. He was a terror. He did pretty good in my class until the last two days when he decided he wanted to play in the bathrooms (not a good thing to do at a University) and run in the halls. The last day he didn't want to go outside to fly the kites they'd made that week because he wanted his parents to bring a purchased kite from home. When they didn't, he got MAD. So, after I told him that he was coming with us regardless, he sat and screamed and threw rocks and generally pitched a fit because his "dad ruins everything" and "I don't want to fly a stupid homemade kite." The other kids gave him "what the hell is wrong with you" looks and proceeded to have a blast running around flying their kites and ignoring him. His folks showed up to pick him up and apologized up and down for his behavior, went on about how he has attitude problems, doesn't deal with disappointments well (really, you think?) and so forth and so on. Truth be told, after seeing how his dad got mad and lost patience with him I can see where the anger management issues come from. He was the first kid in eight years of camp that ever pitched a fit in my room, so that's saying something.
My favorite comment from him during the crying and rock throwing episode was, "I don't want to come stand by you because the other kids will think I'm a baby!". Well, hon, they already think that.
Mrs. Cardinal, who I stayed with, and I had a blast. We took her oldest daughter to Dayton, along with one of her teen friends, to see the Harry Potter movie and just loved it. Really dark, but a good film. I'm ready to see it again so perhaps Mrs. Eagle and I will do that before school starts. We did lots of walks with the baby Cardinal (going on 2) and just had a fun time. The baby is adorable, although she's getting into the terrible two's and can have her moments. One thing that staying with the Cardinals and the four kids does is make me appreciate how quiet my own home is. Let's just say the two oldest kids, 15 1/2 and 13, are masters at driving each other crazy and do it at every opportunity.
I did get to see a lot of my old college friends, and despite our 2001 graduations, at least three of them still can't find teaching jobs in Ohio. They just aren't there. People aren't retiring and when they do, they aren't replaced. This community is very family oriented, with large families, and many of these gals just can't bring themselves to leave and move somewhere to get a teaching job (like I did), especially if they have husbands who have decent jobs in the area. I can understand that, and am thankful that we didn't have the family ties and were able to leave like we did. My one friend's daughter ended up getting hired in Dodge City, Kansas, along with her fiance, so many of the best and brightest are leaving the state. It's sad, really.
So now I'm home, sleeping in my own bed, snuggling with my cats and just enjoying being home. Mr. Bluebird is out of town on business so he'll be home late tomorrow - can't wait as I miss him tons when we're apart. My new Harry Potter book arrived yesterday so I'm going to sit and try to get it read as soon as I can although part of me doesn't want the saga to end and I certainly don't want a favorite character to die.
On the down side, I have, for the first time in at least 20 years, had a reaction to some food or something. Woke up in the middle of the night and my upper lip felt swollen and this morning it's huge...so something I ate (perhaps the new flavored decaf coffee I tried for the first time last night?) caused an allergic reaction and I look like I've been in a fight, but without the bruising. It's not painful, just hideous and uncomfortable, so I'm laying low today. Hopefully it will be down by tomorrow as I have a two-day in-service to attend and I'd rather not go looking like this.
Sigh.
Saturday, July 07, 2007
Heading to Camp
Tomorrow I head up north to Ohio for summer camp.
This is what I call my "paid vacation"....I get to go back up to where I used to live, hang out with my friends, teach a bit, and get paid. How cool is that?
The camp itself is a ton of fun (I've taught there 8 years now) as it is a day camp for gifted children. The classes are small, and you get time to actually do all that fun, hand's on stuff that I enjoy and the kids love. This year I'm teaching math art, kites, and a new one on pioneers. I always ask to teach the last two weeks because, one, it's the younger kids (going into 3rd and 4th grade) and two, the camp directors often have a lot of leftover school supplies they don't have the space to store every year and I gladly take them off their hands. Believe me, I'm the one teacher at The School who has a nearly unending supply of markers, colored pencils, crayons and glue. I enjoy teaching the younger kids for a few weeks because it's a nice change from what I'm used to, and it also, believe it or not, makes me appreciate my seventh graders a lot more!
I'll be staying, as usual, with one of my very best friends in the World, Mrs. Cardinal, along with her husband and her four kids. We went to school together and got our teaching licenses at the same time and she was one of the few who actually got a teaching job up in Ohio. Believe it or not, we still have classmates who graduated with us in 2001 who are still not in full-time teaching positions. I had to move South to get a job and every day I'm glad I did. Still, I miss my friends, especially Mrs. Cardinal, so it's always nice to get up there to visit.
Mrs. Cardinal has already set up our annual reunion dinner with the group of us that hung out and studied together during college, plus we'll be going to see the new Harry Potter movie when it comes out. That was always one of our traditions when I still lived up there. I'm looking forward to it all, except for the homesickness I always get when I'm away from Mr. Bluebird and The Four Kitties for any length of time.
So, I'm running around making sure the bills are paid, everything I need is packed (don't forget the electric pencil sharpener!) and getting ready to go. I have a zillion things to do but hopefully it will all get done before I have to head out to Mrs. Eagle's daughter's wedding this evening. I plan to leave early tomorrow morning as it's quite a long drive.
Don't know if I'll be blogging much, but I'll try...no guarantees however!
This is what I call my "paid vacation"....I get to go back up to where I used to live, hang out with my friends, teach a bit, and get paid. How cool is that?
The camp itself is a ton of fun (I've taught there 8 years now) as it is a day camp for gifted children. The classes are small, and you get time to actually do all that fun, hand's on stuff that I enjoy and the kids love. This year I'm teaching math art, kites, and a new one on pioneers. I always ask to teach the last two weeks because, one, it's the younger kids (going into 3rd and 4th grade) and two, the camp directors often have a lot of leftover school supplies they don't have the space to store every year and I gladly take them off their hands. Believe me, I'm the one teacher at The School who has a nearly unending supply of markers, colored pencils, crayons and glue. I enjoy teaching the younger kids for a few weeks because it's a nice change from what I'm used to, and it also, believe it or not, makes me appreciate my seventh graders a lot more!
I'll be staying, as usual, with one of my very best friends in the World, Mrs. Cardinal, along with her husband and her four kids. We went to school together and got our teaching licenses at the same time and she was one of the few who actually got a teaching job up in Ohio. Believe it or not, we still have classmates who graduated with us in 2001 who are still not in full-time teaching positions. I had to move South to get a job and every day I'm glad I did. Still, I miss my friends, especially Mrs. Cardinal, so it's always nice to get up there to visit.
Mrs. Cardinal has already set up our annual reunion dinner with the group of us that hung out and studied together during college, plus we'll be going to see the new Harry Potter movie when it comes out. That was always one of our traditions when I still lived up there. I'm looking forward to it all, except for the homesickness I always get when I'm away from Mr. Bluebird and The Four Kitties for any length of time.
So, I'm running around making sure the bills are paid, everything I need is packed (don't forget the electric pencil sharpener!) and getting ready to go. I have a zillion things to do but hopefully it will all get done before I have to head out to Mrs. Eagle's daughter's wedding this evening. I plan to leave early tomorrow morning as it's quite a long drive.
Don't know if I'll be blogging much, but I'll try...no guarantees however!
Thursday, July 05, 2007
Carnival Time!
It's time for the Carnival of Education, hosted over at NYC Educator's place. And you know what that means? No transfats at this carnival so you can enjoy it all without harming your health!!!
Wednesday, July 04, 2007
Happy Birthday America!
Today is Independence Day, truly one of my favorite holidays, not because of the food and the fireworks, but because of what it means. As a history junkie, the American Revolution has always been one of my favorite eras to study and reflect upon and it astounds me, still, at the incredible talent we had in Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Abigail Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and many, many more. There are times when I wonder when we'll ever see such people with such character again.
And then Hubby and I ran into Solid Boy and his mother last night at Borders and I realize that the youth of today aren't all shallow, self-centered, videogame junkies.
I had Solid Boy in my second year of teaching, before I started this blog. He was in my homeroom, and this kid had, from the start, character. He was, and still is, extremely popular with his classmates (the girls adore him), and while he could have turned into a raving egomaniac with all the attention he received, he never has. I remember how considerate he was of everyone, even the decidedly unpopular students. If someone had a jammed locker, he was there to help. If someone was getting picked on, he was there to stop it. He was a friend to everyone and that is so rare to see in a seventh grader.
He wasn't the best of students, although he was certainly capable. That, thankfully, has changed, as he informed me last night. He's now a solid A student, is in the AVID program, is playing football, in ROTC, and looking at either West Point, VMI or the Citadel for college. Like his father, he wants to make the military his career, because, as he says, "this country has done so much for me and my family and I feel the need to serve."
Solid Boy is, as he puts it, "Half Korean and Half Hillbilly". His father was a special forces soldier, killed in Afghanistan, and his mother, now an American citizen, was a girl he met in Korea. I got to know his mom really well during football (we always sat together) and I was always impressed at what a great job she did with her two kids and how she held it all together after her husband was killed. The special forces community saw that she had whatever she needed. She had an internal strength that helped.
So last night, when I saw these two again, it made me realize how much I'm glad that we have Americans like them in our world.
Happy Birthday America!
And you go, Solid Boy!
And then Hubby and I ran into Solid Boy and his mother last night at Borders and I realize that the youth of today aren't all shallow, self-centered, videogame junkies.
I had Solid Boy in my second year of teaching, before I started this blog. He was in my homeroom, and this kid had, from the start, character. He was, and still is, extremely popular with his classmates (the girls adore him), and while he could have turned into a raving egomaniac with all the attention he received, he never has. I remember how considerate he was of everyone, even the decidedly unpopular students. If someone had a jammed locker, he was there to help. If someone was getting picked on, he was there to stop it. He was a friend to everyone and that is so rare to see in a seventh grader.
He wasn't the best of students, although he was certainly capable. That, thankfully, has changed, as he informed me last night. He's now a solid A student, is in the AVID program, is playing football, in ROTC, and looking at either West Point, VMI or the Citadel for college. Like his father, he wants to make the military his career, because, as he says, "this country has done so much for me and my family and I feel the need to serve."
Solid Boy is, as he puts it, "Half Korean and Half Hillbilly". His father was a special forces soldier, killed in Afghanistan, and his mother, now an American citizen, was a girl he met in Korea. I got to know his mom really well during football (we always sat together) and I was always impressed at what a great job she did with her two kids and how she held it all together after her husband was killed. The special forces community saw that she had whatever she needed. She had an internal strength that helped.
So last night, when I saw these two again, it made me realize how much I'm glad that we have Americans like them in our world.
Happy Birthday America!
And you go, Solid Boy!
Monday, July 02, 2007
Just some weird random things
Just some random musings and thoughts as I try to get a lot done before I leave for summer camp...
- I've added some new links based on blogs I've recently discovered. Please take a moment and check them out. Some blogs of note include Crazy Aunt Purl, Ms. M's Apples, Bump on the Blog, Ms Teacher, and Teaching in the Inner City. Wonderful writing and wonderful reading for us.
- Why is it that all the appliances in my house are starting to show their age all at the same time? Is there some kind of law that says things can only last 15 years and then they die? Our house is 15 years old (we bought it 4 years ago) and with original appliances. The hot water heater is on its last legs (we're planning on replacing it in the fall) and we had to put a new heating element in it. We both dream of a tankless water heater but there's no way on earth we can afford one. The refrigerator is also leaking and the ice maker quit. We were considering taking advantage of the 20% off Kenmore products sale this week to get a new one, but guess what? Both my Saturn and hubby's van need work. Sigh. Can't budget it all in on one month.
- My husband, bless his brilliant mind and warm heart, is not a handy man. I am the handy one in our household. This is skill I picked up from my father who is never too far from a tool or gadget. This is why I was discovered yesterday under the bathroom sink, working at unclogging a really icky clog. Hubby looks at me and says, "Beauty, brains and she can fix a sink." I'm pretty good at toilets too.
- I have had it up to here with petunias this summer. I usually love the goofy things because they're so easy to grow. However, out of the four plants I've purchased this year, three are succumbing to what I suspect (from my research on line) is a virus. Of course, can I find the receipts from Home Depot so I can get my money back? No. I can't tell you how it annoys me that I'm being defeated by a couple of petunias.
Sunday, July 01, 2007
And Update on Mr. Eagle
Since so many of you have been keeping Mr. Eagle in your thoughts and prayers since his accident, I thought I'd give you an update - and it's a good one!
After spending the rest of May and most of June in the severe burn unit, undergoing 5 skin graft surgeries, a bout of pneumonia, and a broken nose (we suspect from trying to remove his glasses which ended up melting in the fire), he is now in a rehabilitation facility. He spent about three weeks pretty much in a drug-induced coma, but is now awake, walking, sitting up, and talking, and starting in on some extensive therapy. It's a very, very slow process - for example, just to be able to get out and walk, both of his legs have to be wrapped from the ankles to the thighs with ace bandages (to reduce swelling), which then have to be removed when he's finished. He is eating solid food, although it's a slow process as even the fingers on his mainly uninjured hand are stiff from inactivity.
He and Mrs. Eagle's daughter is getting married next week and they are hoping that he can get a day pass so he can attend the wedding, although they know it might not happen. There was some talk of postponing the wedding, but Mrs. Eagle and her daughter made the decision not to. For one thing, no one knew when he'd be able to get out and attend, and secondly, he'd probably be pretty irate if they put it off because of him. He's like that. So the wedding will happen, and hopefully he'll be there.
Mrs. Eagle, who basically has lived in the hospital for the past six weeks, is now at home most of the time as the rehab facility does not let family members stay overnight. So she goes down to visit in the afternoons, after his therapy, and comes back in the evenings. With the wedding happening next week, she's got alot on her plate, but her children (there's four, and they're all grown) are a huge help. The Eagles have some great kids.
Thanks to all of you who've kept Mr. Eagle in your thoughts and prayers. He's a fantastic person who's always put other people first, especially kids. We couldn't have come this far in his recovery without your support and prayers.
After spending the rest of May and most of June in the severe burn unit, undergoing 5 skin graft surgeries, a bout of pneumonia, and a broken nose (we suspect from trying to remove his glasses which ended up melting in the fire), he is now in a rehabilitation facility. He spent about three weeks pretty much in a drug-induced coma, but is now awake, walking, sitting up, and talking, and starting in on some extensive therapy. It's a very, very slow process - for example, just to be able to get out and walk, both of his legs have to be wrapped from the ankles to the thighs with ace bandages (to reduce swelling), which then have to be removed when he's finished. He is eating solid food, although it's a slow process as even the fingers on his mainly uninjured hand are stiff from inactivity.
He and Mrs. Eagle's daughter is getting married next week and they are hoping that he can get a day pass so he can attend the wedding, although they know it might not happen. There was some talk of postponing the wedding, but Mrs. Eagle and her daughter made the decision not to. For one thing, no one knew when he'd be able to get out and attend, and secondly, he'd probably be pretty irate if they put it off because of him. He's like that. So the wedding will happen, and hopefully he'll be there.
Mrs. Eagle, who basically has lived in the hospital for the past six weeks, is now at home most of the time as the rehab facility does not let family members stay overnight. So she goes down to visit in the afternoons, after his therapy, and comes back in the evenings. With the wedding happening next week, she's got alot on her plate, but her children (there's four, and they're all grown) are a huge help. The Eagles have some great kids.
Thanks to all of you who've kept Mr. Eagle in your thoughts and prayers. He's a fantastic person who's always put other people first, especially kids. We couldn't have come this far in his recovery without your support and prayers.
Saturday, June 30, 2007
Friday, June 29, 2007
Be careful what you wish for.
I woke up this morning and it was raining.
It rained, hard, on and off all day. Thunder, lightning, downpours, you name it. Three cats hid in closets part of the day while the fourth, who doesn't seem to care about thunder one way or another, snored in his bed most of the afternoon.
We had over three inches of rain today.
Amazing.
It's been a long time since it's been this wet.
Unfortunately, I talked with Daddy Bird, who lives where the drought is even worse, and all he got were a few sprinkles, "not enough to even make the driveway wet."
Sigh.
It rained, hard, on and off all day. Thunder, lightning, downpours, you name it. Three cats hid in closets part of the day while the fourth, who doesn't seem to care about thunder one way or another, snored in his bed most of the afternoon.
We had over three inches of rain today.
Amazing.
It's been a long time since it's been this wet.
Unfortunately, I talked with Daddy Bird, who lives where the drought is even worse, and all he got were a few sprinkles, "not enough to even make the driveway wet."
Sigh.
Rain at Last!
It's finally, finally, finally starting to rain here. According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, we're still in an extreme drought, but it's getting better. We're getting afternoon thunderstorms most days, and this morning it's already booming and pouring. Our area is still ten inches short, in terms of rainfall, but we'll take what we can get. Hopefully it will keep raining so that the morons and their fireworks don't burn down entire neighborhoods beginning July 1st, when you can legally set off fireworks here in town.
Granted, some of these thunderstorms are more of a tease than anything. The sky gets black, the thunder rumbles and then.....nothing. It blows right through.
I actually mowed the lawn yesterday, for the first time in three or four weeks. It's been so long since we mowed, we can't even remember when we last did it. The weeds, not the grass, were getting really tall so I decided it had to be done. It annoys me that the grass barely grows but every variety of pasture weed (most of which I am apparently allergic to according to my recent scratch test) will grow like no body's business.
I actually enjoy mowing to a certain extent, although with my allergies I usually pay for it later that night and the next day. However, I wore a mask, took a supplemental allergy pill, used my new nose spray and I'm actually allergy free this morning - amazing. Wearing that dorky mask probably did more good than anything.
Granted, some of these thunderstorms are more of a tease than anything. The sky gets black, the thunder rumbles and then.....nothing. It blows right through.
I actually mowed the lawn yesterday, for the first time in three or four weeks. It's been so long since we mowed, we can't even remember when we last did it. The weeds, not the grass, were getting really tall so I decided it had to be done. It annoys me that the grass barely grows but every variety of pasture weed (most of which I am apparently allergic to according to my recent scratch test) will grow like no body's business.
I actually enjoy mowing to a certain extent, although with my allergies I usually pay for it later that night and the next day. However, I wore a mask, took a supplemental allergy pill, used my new nose spray and I'm actually allergy free this morning - amazing. Wearing that dorky mask probably did more good than anything.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Carnival Time!!!
Toss that diet out the door, get some cotton candy, and check out this week's Education Carnival, brought to us by Education in Texas!
Monday, June 25, 2007
What I'd give for a thunderstorm or two.
Hubby and I decided to cook out on Saturday evening.
We got rained out.
We were ecstatic.
We are, according to those that keep the records, currently in the driest spring/summer in the 134 years they've kept records. Latest news is we are over 10 inches behind in rainfall.
I grew up in Southern California (AKA Land of Perpetual Drought) and I didn't like it then and I don't like it now. And of course there's fireworks stands all over the place in preparation for Independence Day. Some counties have banned fireworks all together, but ours hasn't. You can almost hear the fire sirens getting ready to blast, can't you?
And interestingly enough, the only thing that really grows during this kind of weather are the ugliest weeds on earth.
And crabgrass.
We got rained out.
We were ecstatic.
We are, according to those that keep the records, currently in the driest spring/summer in the 134 years they've kept records. Latest news is we are over 10 inches behind in rainfall.
I grew up in Southern California (AKA Land of Perpetual Drought) and I didn't like it then and I don't like it now. And of course there's fireworks stands all over the place in preparation for Independence Day. Some counties have banned fireworks all together, but ours hasn't. You can almost hear the fire sirens getting ready to blast, can't you?
And interestingly enough, the only thing that really grows during this kind of weather are the ugliest weeds on earth.
And crabgrass.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Carnival at the Beach!
The Science Goddess is treating us all to a Carnival at the Beach! Be sure to check it out!
Where are all the kids?
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away - when I was young, in other words - summer vacation meant being outside. Actually just about every day of the year meant being outside seeing as I grew up in the Los Angeles area. No snow, no ice, no sub-zero temps - all the kids on the block spent most of our free time outside.
We played a lot of basketball, a lot of catch and baseball (in the street, no less), and I was blessed with my very own thetherball for a birthday one year and I spent many an hour whomping that ball back and forth. We all had skates or skateboards (or sometimes both) and would ride them all over the neighborhood, to the drugstore to buy comics, to the beach, and just anywhere we wanted to go. Even I, the dedicated bookworm, would do a lot of my reading outside, under a tree, or sitting on the back patio. My hubby, Mr. Bluebird, grew up in the Chicago suburbs and had a similar childhood where he spent hours playing outside with his friends, climbing trees, building forts, throwing balls, and riding bikes. And we were city kids growing up in urban areas.
So the other day Mr. Bluebird and I are out in the front yard, watering, pulling weeds, and all that fun stuff when he looks over at me and says, "Did you ever notice that we never see kids playing outside?"
He's right. We rarely see the neighborhood kids playing outside. And I know we have neighborhood kids because there's a school bus stop right by the foot of my driveway, and I've actually seen a number of kids outside once in a blue moon mowing lawns, or getting out of vehicles when mom and dad pull up in the driveway. The schools in this area are so overcrowded that they're opening a new middle school this fall and a new high school and elementary the following year, so there must be kids living nearby. Every once in a while we'll see a kid or two on a bike, or a few on skateboards, but there's no water balloon fights, no games of catch, no games of basketball (despite the fact that nearly every house has a basketball hoop), no hide and go seek, no tag. It's like some weird Ray Bradbury story where all the children are hidden away somewhere.
I'm hoping that they're all away at camp, and some of the little ones are at day care, but I suspect that's not the case. I'm guessing that our world is so crazy that a lot of these kids are, essentially, under house arrest until mom and dad get home from work. Or perhaps they don't want to be outside and are content to just sit at home, playing video games, cruising My Space, or texting their friends.
Every year I get a new crop of seventh graders and every year I am astounded at how physically unfit they are, how uncoordinated they are, and how pudgy they are. They have little familiarity with nature, with the outdoors, and with anything outside of a video game. It was so bad that this year, at the end of the school year, Mrs. Language and I played a pick-up basketball game with some of our students and just kicked their butts. We were astounded that two ladies in their 40's were more coordinated and in better shape than a bunch of 13-year olds.
That's sad. And makes me worry more and more about the kind of future these kids are going to have.
We played a lot of basketball, a lot of catch and baseball (in the street, no less), and I was blessed with my very own thetherball for a birthday one year and I spent many an hour whomping that ball back and forth. We all had skates or skateboards (or sometimes both) and would ride them all over the neighborhood, to the drugstore to buy comics, to the beach, and just anywhere we wanted to go. Even I, the dedicated bookworm, would do a lot of my reading outside, under a tree, or sitting on the back patio. My hubby, Mr. Bluebird, grew up in the Chicago suburbs and had a similar childhood where he spent hours playing outside with his friends, climbing trees, building forts, throwing balls, and riding bikes. And we were city kids growing up in urban areas.
So the other day Mr. Bluebird and I are out in the front yard, watering, pulling weeds, and all that fun stuff when he looks over at me and says, "Did you ever notice that we never see kids playing outside?"
He's right. We rarely see the neighborhood kids playing outside. And I know we have neighborhood kids because there's a school bus stop right by the foot of my driveway, and I've actually seen a number of kids outside once in a blue moon mowing lawns, or getting out of vehicles when mom and dad pull up in the driveway. The schools in this area are so overcrowded that they're opening a new middle school this fall and a new high school and elementary the following year, so there must be kids living nearby. Every once in a while we'll see a kid or two on a bike, or a few on skateboards, but there's no water balloon fights, no games of catch, no games of basketball (despite the fact that nearly every house has a basketball hoop), no hide and go seek, no tag. It's like some weird Ray Bradbury story where all the children are hidden away somewhere.
I'm hoping that they're all away at camp, and some of the little ones are at day care, but I suspect that's not the case. I'm guessing that our world is so crazy that a lot of these kids are, essentially, under house arrest until mom and dad get home from work. Or perhaps they don't want to be outside and are content to just sit at home, playing video games, cruising My Space, or texting their friends.
Every year I get a new crop of seventh graders and every year I am astounded at how physically unfit they are, how uncoordinated they are, and how pudgy they are. They have little familiarity with nature, with the outdoors, and with anything outside of a video game. It was so bad that this year, at the end of the school year, Mrs. Language and I played a pick-up basketball game with some of our students and just kicked their butts. We were astounded that two ladies in their 40's were more coordinated and in better shape than a bunch of 13-year olds.
That's sad. And makes me worry more and more about the kind of future these kids are going to have.
Friday, June 15, 2007
Adults Behaving Badly
I am an airline brat. My mother, years ago, worked for Frontier Airlines. My father spent 40 years in the industry, retiring from Delta a few years ago. Two of my uncles worked at Continental and American. And, my cousin works at United. So, to say that I've traveled via air a lot is an understatement.
Although I can get a discounted standby ticket from my father, the hassle involved in flying standby just isn't worth the few dollars I'd save by going that way. Even my cousin rarely flies anywhere on her employee passes because the flights are just too full...a far cry from years ago when we'd both hop on a flight to Hawaii on a whim, and never had to worry about if there was space available.
I got a great, great price on my round trip ticket to San Diego. The only drawback to it was that the times weren't all that great. I ended up flying on the "red eye" the other evening/morning on my return trip. Silly me was actually looking sort of forward to it because, in the past, most of these flights were fairly empty and relatively quiet so taking a nap wasn't a problem
Not this time.
Not only was this flight to Atlanta full (and they say you can't go anywhere in the South without going to Atlanta), but the people in my section of the plane were subjected to the antics of one drunken Tricia Lopez. Tricia and five of her co-workers (we gathered this as she kept referring to one of them as her boss) were scattered throughout our section of the aircraft. They apparently had hit an airport drinking establishment fairly heavily before boarding, although Tricia was, by far the most inebriated. Before the doors were even closed on the plane, she was yelling across the seats to her friends that she wanted to change seats (none of them wanted to sit with her, apparently, so she was stuck with another girl from her group who, thankfully, wasn't nearly as drunk). The flight attendants had to tell her, forcefully and multiple times, to sit down so we could leave. She would then yell to one of the guys in her party, "David, is Tricia Lopez beautiful?" and the guy David would yell back, "Yes, Tricia, you're beautiful." She repeated this stunt with every guy in her party. She'd then yell that she wanted to talk to one of them, and they'd have to remind her that the fasten seatbelt sign was on so they couldn't. All of their conversations were done at a yell, so everyone could hear everything. I was beginning to wonder just how drunk and annoying someone had to be before they were escorted off the flight.
It got better. A few minutes after we took off she mentions, loudly, to her seat partner that she thinks she's wearing a swimsuit under her clothing, and the proceeds to disrobe to show her friend her swimsuit.
A half hour after we leave she asks her friend, "Am I on an airplane?"
She and her friends did not shut up until the flight was over half over. Her screaming for shots of tequila during the beverage service was another highlight. Needless to say, a lot of us didn't get a lot of sleep due to these morons' antics. Tricia, thankfully, fell asleep towards the end of the flight. The last I saw of her, her mouth was wide open, her head was lolling to the side, and her friends were trying to get her up and moving.
I hope she felt like hell.
Although I can get a discounted standby ticket from my father, the hassle involved in flying standby just isn't worth the few dollars I'd save by going that way. Even my cousin rarely flies anywhere on her employee passes because the flights are just too full...a far cry from years ago when we'd both hop on a flight to Hawaii on a whim, and never had to worry about if there was space available.
I got a great, great price on my round trip ticket to San Diego. The only drawback to it was that the times weren't all that great. I ended up flying on the "red eye" the other evening/morning on my return trip. Silly me was actually looking sort of forward to it because, in the past, most of these flights were fairly empty and relatively quiet so taking a nap wasn't a problem
Not this time.
Not only was this flight to Atlanta full (and they say you can't go anywhere in the South without going to Atlanta), but the people in my section of the plane were subjected to the antics of one drunken Tricia Lopez. Tricia and five of her co-workers (we gathered this as she kept referring to one of them as her boss) were scattered throughout our section of the aircraft. They apparently had hit an airport drinking establishment fairly heavily before boarding, although Tricia was, by far the most inebriated. Before the doors were even closed on the plane, she was yelling across the seats to her friends that she wanted to change seats (none of them wanted to sit with her, apparently, so she was stuck with another girl from her group who, thankfully, wasn't nearly as drunk). The flight attendants had to tell her, forcefully and multiple times, to sit down so we could leave. She would then yell to one of the guys in her party, "David, is Tricia Lopez beautiful?" and the guy David would yell back, "Yes, Tricia, you're beautiful." She repeated this stunt with every guy in her party. She'd then yell that she wanted to talk to one of them, and they'd have to remind her that the fasten seatbelt sign was on so they couldn't. All of their conversations were done at a yell, so everyone could hear everything. I was beginning to wonder just how drunk and annoying someone had to be before they were escorted off the flight.
It got better. A few minutes after we took off she mentions, loudly, to her seat partner that she thinks she's wearing a swimsuit under her clothing, and the proceeds to disrobe to show her friend her swimsuit.
A half hour after we leave she asks her friend, "Am I on an airplane?"
She and her friends did not shut up until the flight was over half over. Her screaming for shots of tequila during the beverage service was another highlight. Needless to say, a lot of us didn't get a lot of sleep due to these morons' antics. Tricia, thankfully, fell asleep towards the end of the flight. The last I saw of her, her mouth was wide open, her head was lolling to the side, and her friends were trying to get her up and moving.
I hope she felt like hell.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
What to do with Elephant Poo
Momma Bird and I went to the San Diego Wild Animal Park the other day, which is one of my favorite places to go. Momma Bird goes there so often that she's invested in a membership so she gets in for free. It's well worth it. Every time we go there's something new or they've changed something so it never gets boring.
The shopping there is a lot of fun as well (another reasons Momma got the membership). We were actually on our way out and had stopped by a little ship when I noticed a table with some note cards, bookmarks, and other paper goods on it. On closer inspection I realizes that these paper products were made from Elephant Poo.
That's right, Elephant Poo.
Of course I had to buy two of them, one for me and one for Mrs. Eagle.
They are made by The Great Elephant Poo Poo Paper Company, and they truly are made from Elephant poo. Take a moment to check out their site, if for no other reason than to get a good chuckle. Gotta love a company that states, "We take the "oo" out of "poo".
And yes, the paper really is odorless. And it's actually kind of attractive in its own way.
The shopping there is a lot of fun as well (another reasons Momma got the membership). We were actually on our way out and had stopped by a little ship when I noticed a table with some note cards, bookmarks, and other paper goods on it. On closer inspection I realizes that these paper products were made from Elephant Poo.
That's right, Elephant Poo.
Of course I had to buy two of them, one for me and one for Mrs. Eagle.
They are made by The Great Elephant Poo Poo Paper Company, and they truly are made from Elephant poo. Take a moment to check out their site, if for no other reason than to get a good chuckle. Gotta love a company that states, "We take the "oo" out of "poo".
And yes, the paper really is odorless. And it's actually kind of attractive in its own way.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Here Kitty, Kitty...Not
Momma Bird, who will be 70 in September, is very good at taking care of herself. She eats right (a lot of organics), she's active, and she walks a lot. She doesn't look, or act her age.
She has three walks around her neighborhood that she takes. There's the flat walk, the in the middle (one big hill) walk, and the hilly walk. Today we decide to talk the hilly walk which meanders out of her subdivision and into the chapparall that circles it. It looks like the set of a western and you half expect John Wayne to come riding out from behind a big boulder. It's lined with yucca trees, manzanita trees, shurbs, and a lot of very neat desert native type of plants. It is gorgeous in its own unique way.
As we start off on our walk Momma casually mentions that "there's just a few things to be concerned about on this walk, like snakes. And somtimes a mountain lion."
Okay, we had a snake in her roses a day or so ago, no big deal. But a mountain lion?
Good gracious. That's a far cry from worrying that the deer are eating your shrubs.
She has three walks around her neighborhood that she takes. There's the flat walk, the in the middle (one big hill) walk, and the hilly walk. Today we decide to talk the hilly walk which meanders out of her subdivision and into the chapparall that circles it. It looks like the set of a western and you half expect John Wayne to come riding out from behind a big boulder. It's lined with yucca trees, manzanita trees, shurbs, and a lot of very neat desert native type of plants. It is gorgeous in its own unique way.
As we start off on our walk Momma casually mentions that "there's just a few things to be concerned about on this walk, like snakes. And somtimes a mountain lion."
Okay, we had a snake in her roses a day or so ago, no big deal. But a mountain lion?
Good gracious. That's a far cry from worrying that the deer are eating your shrubs.
Excuse me while I howl
Momma Bird has a delightful cat named, of all things, Kitty. I know it's not the most original of names but it works for the two of them, so that's good enough for me.
Kitty is a lovely gray medium haired cat that Momma Bird rescued a few years ago. Kitty has repaid her by being a delightful companion. She spends most of her days sleeping on a pink afgahn on the bed in Momma's guest room/office. In the evening when Momma Bird gets out her knitting, Kitty will hop onto her lap and stay there, while Momma Bird knits. Amazingly enough, she never messes with the knitting, which makes her a truly special cat. The fact that she's the easiest cat to get a pill into makes her even more special. I've wrestled with many cats and pills and I've never seen one so easy to medicate. She's a dream.
Momma Bird neglected to inform me, however, that Kitty likes to play with her knitted stuffed mice in the middle of the night. This wouldn't be a problem except that she howls a lot when she's doing this.
The first time it happened I woke up and couldn't figure out what was going on. In fact, I thought Kitty was upset about something. Was there a brush fire? Was the house on fire? Did someone break in? Was there an earthquake?
I got up to find Kitty and Momma Bird heard me and woke up.
"What's the matter?" she asked me.
"I heard Kitty howling and thought something was wrong," I responded.
"Oh, she's just playing with her mice," Momma Bird tells me. "She does that sometimes at night."
The next morning when I got up there were about four knitted mice toys strewn throughout the house which weren't there the night before. Kitty was obviously very good at "hunting" these mice down.
Lucky Momma Bird. I thought I had it bad because my feline alarm clark, Morgan wakes me up every morning at 5:00 am, regardless of the day of the week or season. This explains why, although I'm on summer break, I'm still waking up at 5:00 am.
But at least mine aren't howling during the night!
Kitty is a lovely gray medium haired cat that Momma Bird rescued a few years ago. Kitty has repaid her by being a delightful companion. She spends most of her days sleeping on a pink afgahn on the bed in Momma's guest room/office. In the evening when Momma Bird gets out her knitting, Kitty will hop onto her lap and stay there, while Momma Bird knits. Amazingly enough, she never messes with the knitting, which makes her a truly special cat. The fact that she's the easiest cat to get a pill into makes her even more special. I've wrestled with many cats and pills and I've never seen one so easy to medicate. She's a dream.
Momma Bird neglected to inform me, however, that Kitty likes to play with her knitted stuffed mice in the middle of the night. This wouldn't be a problem except that she howls a lot when she's doing this.
The first time it happened I woke up and couldn't figure out what was going on. In fact, I thought Kitty was upset about something. Was there a brush fire? Was the house on fire? Did someone break in? Was there an earthquake?
I got up to find Kitty and Momma Bird heard me and woke up.
"What's the matter?" she asked me.
"I heard Kitty howling and thought something was wrong," I responded.
"Oh, she's just playing with her mice," Momma Bird tells me. "She does that sometimes at night."
The next morning when I got up there were about four knitted mice toys strewn throughout the house which weren't there the night before. Kitty was obviously very good at "hunting" these mice down.
Lucky Momma Bird. I thought I had it bad because my feline alarm clark, Morgan wakes me up every morning at 5:00 am, regardless of the day of the week or season. This explains why, although I'm on summer break, I'm still waking up at 5:00 am.
But at least mine aren't howling during the night!
Monday, June 11, 2007
If you fry it, they will come.
Yesterday Momma Bird, along with some close family friends, and I went to the San Diego County Fair, also known as the Del Mar fair as it happens to be at the Del Mar Race Track.
Honestly, if you live anywhere near here, this is worth going to. Talk about fun, fun, fun! Then again, I'm the kind of dork that loves state and county fairs.
And this county fair is bigger than any state fair I've been to. Honest.
We probably only saw, maybe, a third of what was there. We went through a few of the vendor buildings (I'm not much of a shopper so this isn't something I'd do much of), spent a lot of time going through the garden exhibits and the plant and flower building, went and petted cute farm animals in the agriculture building, checked out the entries in the knitting categories in the Home and Hobby Building, and watched a great show by a hypnotist.
And of course we ate.
I'm always amazed at the food you find at fairs. It's also the kind of day where you just toss the diet out the window because goodness knows, you won't see some of this again until the next year's fair. Which could be a good thing.
We started off with BBQ beef sandwiches on huge, monstrous sourdough rolls. Then ice cream. And mom and I split a cinnamon roll (her's are still better), and then fried zucchini which is one of my favorite foods. Others in our party indulged in chocolate malts, artichokes, and ice cream bars. I was tempted by the roasted corn, but I'd just made some the night before so I passed. I also decided not to take a leap and try the rattlenake chili. Maybe if they'd had small samples, but I wasn't in the mood to shell out the cash for something I wasn't too sure I'd like.
One thing we noticed is that there seems to be a competition between the food vendors for who can deep fry the strangest things. There were deep fried oreos, snickers bars, every veggie known to man (asparagus sounded interesting), and the usual corn dogs, fries, onions, and more. One of the new ones this year was deep friend avacados and tomatoes, which a gentleman we shared a table with informed me were actually quite good, although a tad gooey. Another one that struck me as beyond strange was the deep friend cola. Apparently they deep fry strands of batter, which are then placed in cups (and they look like worms) and then they pour the cola syrup on top and cap it off with whipped cream. Ick. To top it off you could have a fried chicken sandwich, but instead of bread or a bun, it is placed in between two Krispy Kreme donuts and, you guessed it, fried.
Amazing.
Honestly, if you live anywhere near here, this is worth going to. Talk about fun, fun, fun! Then again, I'm the kind of dork that loves state and county fairs.
And this county fair is bigger than any state fair I've been to. Honest.
We probably only saw, maybe, a third of what was there. We went through a few of the vendor buildings (I'm not much of a shopper so this isn't something I'd do much of), spent a lot of time going through the garden exhibits and the plant and flower building, went and petted cute farm animals in the agriculture building, checked out the entries in the knitting categories in the Home and Hobby Building, and watched a great show by a hypnotist.
And of course we ate.
I'm always amazed at the food you find at fairs. It's also the kind of day where you just toss the diet out the window because goodness knows, you won't see some of this again until the next year's fair. Which could be a good thing.
We started off with BBQ beef sandwiches on huge, monstrous sourdough rolls. Then ice cream. And mom and I split a cinnamon roll (her's are still better), and then fried zucchini which is one of my favorite foods. Others in our party indulged in chocolate malts, artichokes, and ice cream bars. I was tempted by the roasted corn, but I'd just made some the night before so I passed. I also decided not to take a leap and try the rattlenake chili. Maybe if they'd had small samples, but I wasn't in the mood to shell out the cash for something I wasn't too sure I'd like.
One thing we noticed is that there seems to be a competition between the food vendors for who can deep fry the strangest things. There were deep fried oreos, snickers bars, every veggie known to man (asparagus sounded interesting), and the usual corn dogs, fries, onions, and more. One of the new ones this year was deep friend avacados and tomatoes, which a gentleman we shared a table with informed me were actually quite good, although a tad gooey. Another one that struck me as beyond strange was the deep friend cola. Apparently they deep fry strands of batter, which are then placed in cups (and they look like worms) and then they pour the cola syrup on top and cap it off with whipped cream. Ick. To top it off you could have a fried chicken sandwich, but instead of bread or a bun, it is placed in between two Krispy Kreme donuts and, you guessed it, fried.
Amazing.
Saturday, June 09, 2007
Retro Tosies and Hangin' at the Beach
In case you haven't noticed, I've been out of town a bit, visiting Momma Bird out here in Southern California.
For the record, I hate her keyboard as the space bar likes to stick..she, however, feels it isn't a problem as "I don't type as fast as you do."
It's been nice. The weather, amazingly, has been absolutely perfect. It's not too hot, and down by the beaches, it wasn't overcast. I grew up along the beach here, and trust me, June can be darn chilly and gray. They have a marine layer that hangs along the coast for hours, making tourists wonder just what in the hell made them think a vacation to California in June was going to be warm and sunny. They don't call it the "June Gloom" for nothing. Lucky me, the June Gloom wasn't in evidence today.
So a few days ago I mention that I didn't have time to get a hair cut before I flew out here, and mom mentions that she needs a pedicure, so hey, why not do a girls day at the beauty shop??! Great idea, so she makes an appointment for me to get my hair done and both of us to get pedicures.
This beauty shop rocks.
For one thing, it's owned by these incredibly tall red-headed sisters, and it's in an older building down on the main drag of the town mom lives in. These gals are funny and have a certain sense of retro style that's evident as soon as you walk into their shop. For one thing, when they're giving people manicures, they both wear what we used to call "cat's eye" glasses, all glitzed out with beads and jewels and things. The shop itself is all pink and aqua with 45 rpm records lining the walls, old radios on shelves, and display cases with 1950's beauty supplies in them. You get the feeling these gals are running a beauty shop combined with an antique store or a museum. It's a hoot! Everyone in there apparently knows everyone and they're all chatting and laughing and having a great time getting their nails done, their hair colored, and their tosies polished.
If I could find a fun, retro beauty shop like this near me, I'd be there in a heartbeat.
My toes, by the way, look fabulous in my sandals. Considering that I wear sandles most of the year, I may have to get in the habit of getting pedicures.
Today Momma Bird and I head out to the beach to meet two of my college friends for lunch on the pier. Alas, we are getting older, with more silver hair than there should be. However, we had a great time, ate some great food, and enjoyed the waves and the sun and a generally lovely day. Amazing how you can not see each other for nearly 12 years but pick up like nothing has happened.
Tomorrow we're going to the Del Mar Fair...I am leaving my diet at the door.
For the record, I hate her keyboard as the space bar likes to stick..she, however, feels it isn't a problem as "I don't type as fast as you do."
It's been nice. The weather, amazingly, has been absolutely perfect. It's not too hot, and down by the beaches, it wasn't overcast. I grew up along the beach here, and trust me, June can be darn chilly and gray. They have a marine layer that hangs along the coast for hours, making tourists wonder just what in the hell made them think a vacation to California in June was going to be warm and sunny. They don't call it the "June Gloom" for nothing. Lucky me, the June Gloom wasn't in evidence today.
So a few days ago I mention that I didn't have time to get a hair cut before I flew out here, and mom mentions that she needs a pedicure, so hey, why not do a girls day at the beauty shop??! Great idea, so she makes an appointment for me to get my hair done and both of us to get pedicures.
This beauty shop rocks.
For one thing, it's owned by these incredibly tall red-headed sisters, and it's in an older building down on the main drag of the town mom lives in. These gals are funny and have a certain sense of retro style that's evident as soon as you walk into their shop. For one thing, when they're giving people manicures, they both wear what we used to call "cat's eye" glasses, all glitzed out with beads and jewels and things. The shop itself is all pink and aqua with 45 rpm records lining the walls, old radios on shelves, and display cases with 1950's beauty supplies in them. You get the feeling these gals are running a beauty shop combined with an antique store or a museum. It's a hoot! Everyone in there apparently knows everyone and they're all chatting and laughing and having a great time getting their nails done, their hair colored, and their tosies polished.
If I could find a fun, retro beauty shop like this near me, I'd be there in a heartbeat.
My toes, by the way, look fabulous in my sandals. Considering that I wear sandles most of the year, I may have to get in the habit of getting pedicures.
Today Momma Bird and I head out to the beach to meet two of my college friends for lunch on the pier. Alas, we are getting older, with more silver hair than there should be. However, we had a great time, ate some great food, and enjoyed the waves and the sun and a generally lovely day. Amazing how you can not see each other for nearly 12 years but pick up like nothing has happened.
Tomorrow we're going to the Del Mar Fair...I am leaving my diet at the door.
Monday, June 04, 2007
Uffda!
Hubby and I have just returned from a quick trip up North to Minnesota and Wisconsin. Hubby had to go up there on business and I tagged along. I don't normally tag along on these trips with him, but I'm out of school and since I leave tomorrow for a week to visit Momma Bluebird in California, I figured it was good quality time with Hubby.
We had a lot of fun, actually.
The drive through Wisconsin to Minneapolis was absolutely gorgeous. It was green, lush, and a tad bit rainy, but even so, it was delightful. It was nice seeing rain, since we're suffering through a drought at the moment here at home. I almost forgot what wet looked like.
While we were there I had a chance to go to the Minnesota History Center in St. Paul and do some historical research. What a wonderful place that is! The building is new, and beautiful, the staff is helpful, and it was a great way to spend the day while Hubby worked. Above you'll see a picture I took from the History Center looking towards the St. Paul Cathedral which was celebrating its centennial this past weekend.
Hubby did decide that traveling with me can be like traveling with, well, a 7th grader. (He thinks I've spent so much time with them that I've become one.) I am fine as long as it's daylight and I can either look at the scenery (lots to do on this trip), read, do sudoko, or knit. However, once it's dark and there's nothing to keep me busy, I become a squirmy, wiggly mess. I get bored. BORED. I can't just drive and listen to the radio for hours on end. I did turn on my reading light for a bit to do some puzzles, but truth be told, those lights aren't that bright and that got old after a while. I told Hubby that before I travel with him again, we're getting some audiobooks to listen to.
Now it's back to laundry, watering what's left of my yard, and getting ready to leave tomorrow for California.
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Carnival Time!
The Education Wonks have done it again...cruise on over for another excellent compendium of education articles. Don't miss it!
*Sniff* *Wheeze* *Cough*
Allergies suck.
There's just no other way to describe it. They're just absolutely freaking awful.
I've had allergies my whole life. As a kid growing up in California I even went through nearly ten years of allergy shots. I moved to Ohio and noticed that - thankfully - my allergies pretty much lasted from the time they harvested winter wheat until the first hard frost. They were still pretty nasty, however during the summer and I suffered through it.
Now I'm in Tennessee, which, if you believe what people tell you, Is The Absolute Worst Place To Live If You Have Allergies.
I tend to believe it, although I've been to Georgia a time or two when the pine pollen bathed everything with a green-yellow haze. You know the pollen count is high when you can write your name on the hood of your car.
In any case, hubby and I have gobs of yardwork to do and I actually enjoy doing it. The problem is that I suffer for it even with allergy pills and nose sprays and taking a shower after being outside and all that. The yard work isn't going away and neither are my allergies. So I suffer through it.
And I'm cranky. My nose is stuffed up. I sneeze so bad the cats run and hide. And I have a headache.
I've made the decision to start in on allergy shots again, mainly because nothing is helping and I'm sick and tired of snorting around like this. However, I can't get in to see the allergist until the 21st of June. Which figures.
*Sneeze*
There's just no other way to describe it. They're just absolutely freaking awful.
I've had allergies my whole life. As a kid growing up in California I even went through nearly ten years of allergy shots. I moved to Ohio and noticed that - thankfully - my allergies pretty much lasted from the time they harvested winter wheat until the first hard frost. They were still pretty nasty, however during the summer and I suffered through it.
Now I'm in Tennessee, which, if you believe what people tell you, Is The Absolute Worst Place To Live If You Have Allergies.
I tend to believe it, although I've been to Georgia a time or two when the pine pollen bathed everything with a green-yellow haze. You know the pollen count is high when you can write your name on the hood of your car.
In any case, hubby and I have gobs of yardwork to do and I actually enjoy doing it. The problem is that I suffer for it even with allergy pills and nose sprays and taking a shower after being outside and all that. The yard work isn't going away and neither are my allergies. So I suffer through it.
And I'm cranky. My nose is stuffed up. I sneeze so bad the cats run and hide. And I have a headache.
I've made the decision to start in on allergy shots again, mainly because nothing is helping and I'm sick and tired of snorting around like this. However, I can't get in to see the allergist until the 21st of June. Which figures.
*Sneeze*
Monday, May 28, 2007
Memorial Day - Remembering and Thanking
I didn't grow up in a military family, but I grew up in a family that respected the military. I had ancestors who served during the Civil War, some relatives in WWII - including my mother's cousin, Glenn Perkins, who was killed in Germany in March, 1945 - and my father credits the U.S. Army for "getting me the hell out of Dakota". Which is a good thing if you don't like milking cows when it's -40 outside. So in our family, Memorial Day is a day of remembering and thanking and not a day of simply guzzling beer and eating until we're about to burst.
So yesterday Hubby and I went out to Fort Donelson National Battlefield and spent some time out there. Fort Donelson is the first large Civil War Battle of the western theater, and one, as my husband likes to say, that serves as the minor leagues for some of the guys who became "big league" generals later on.
Guys like, say, Ulysses S. Grant.
In any case, last night at the Fort Donelson National Cemetery, the Girl Scouts had placed flags and luminaries by every marker. Hubby and I had volunteered to help light them. So, armed with lighters (the long kind that can reach into a bag of sand), we, along with quite a few other volunteers, went to work. I know I lit at least 130 of them before I lost count. But after each lighting, I lightly touched the marker and said "thank you". It was, after all, the least I could do to honor the military veterans, both men and women, buried in that lovely location.
And after they were all lit, it was magical as you can see, hopefully, from the picture above.
And hubby and I both agreed we're going back next year and will make this a new family tradition. There was just something special about having the honor of lighting those candles for those men and women. I was glad we were able to do it.
Friday, May 25, 2007
Carnival time!
Just when you thought school was out....it isn't! Check out this week's Carnival of Education at I Thought I Think...a great blog worth bookmarking!
Send Some Prayers Mr. Eagle's Way
As most of my regular readers know, Mrs. Eagle is not only a teacher I collaborate with a lot, but she's also my very best friend. She makes my job so much easier, but she's also always there when I need her, she's fun to hang out with, and we have so much in common many people call us The Twins.
Without going into all the details, her husband (also a school district employee and an Army veteran) was seriously injured in an accident at his friend's auto body shop where he likes to work on restoring his antique cars. He was life-flighted to Vanderbilt University Hospital in Nashville with burns on 50% of his body. Fortunately they have the best severe burn trauma unit in the southeast there, so he's in good hands. One of their sons, who helped put out the fire, suffered burns on his hands and is also being treated by the burn unit folks, but fortunately on an out-patient basis.
Mr. Eagle is currently more or less in a drug induced coma. He has had one surgery already for skin grafts, and has months and months of recovery and rehabilitation ahead of him. Mrs. Eagle is spending most of her time down at Vanderbilt so she can visit with him the four times a day they let someone come in and sit with him.
She is already bored out of her mind.
Mrs. Eagle is one of the most determined and positive people I know. She's staying as upbeat as possible (considering the circumstances I wonder how well I'd be handling it) and she's doing her best to keep busy. I went down to visit with her today at the hospital and brought her a dozen books, a book on knitting, needles and yarn. As she said, it's a good time for me to get her knitting as she as all this time on her hands. She's trying to keep as busy as possible with something other than worrying about what hell her husband is going through.
I think those of us in the blogosphere are a powerful group of people when we put our minds to it. Which is why I'd appreciate some prayers sent up for Mr. and Mrs. Eagle. These are both people who have dedicated their lives to service to our country through their Army careers, and now service to our children through their work in education and scouting. If anyone deserved some prayers, it's these two.
Without going into all the details, her husband (also a school district employee and an Army veteran) was seriously injured in an accident at his friend's auto body shop where he likes to work on restoring his antique cars. He was life-flighted to Vanderbilt University Hospital in Nashville with burns on 50% of his body. Fortunately they have the best severe burn trauma unit in the southeast there, so he's in good hands. One of their sons, who helped put out the fire, suffered burns on his hands and is also being treated by the burn unit folks, but fortunately on an out-patient basis.
Mr. Eagle is currently more or less in a drug induced coma. He has had one surgery already for skin grafts, and has months and months of recovery and rehabilitation ahead of him. Mrs. Eagle is spending most of her time down at Vanderbilt so she can visit with him the four times a day they let someone come in and sit with him.
She is already bored out of her mind.
Mrs. Eagle is one of the most determined and positive people I know. She's staying as upbeat as possible (considering the circumstances I wonder how well I'd be handling it) and she's doing her best to keep busy. I went down to visit with her today at the hospital and brought her a dozen books, a book on knitting, needles and yarn. As she said, it's a good time for me to get her knitting as she as all this time on her hands. She's trying to keep as busy as possible with something other than worrying about what hell her husband is going through.
I think those of us in the blogosphere are a powerful group of people when we put our minds to it. Which is why I'd appreciate some prayers sent up for Mr. and Mrs. Eagle. These are both people who have dedicated their lives to service to our country through their Army careers, and now service to our children through their work in education and scouting. If anyone deserved some prayers, it's these two.
Remembering Philipp and the others
It's hard to believe, but it's been a year since one of my first students, and certainly one of my favorites, lost his life in a drowning accident. Philipp was a fantastic kid, and there are a lot of us who miss him terribly. This past week I've been thinking a lot about Philipp, as the anniversary of his death was coming up, and many of my memories of him are so silly and fun to reflect on.
Like I said last year, as teachers, we borrow other people's children for a while and often times can't keep from falling in love with them.
It has been a difficult year for the students in our middle school and the high school it feeds into - we have lost nine students this year. Philipp and Vince were the first, then Michael, a 6th grader, died of a previously undiagnosed heart ailment. Richard, an 8th grader, was hit by a car and killed the week before school started. Tomas, who graduated from High School with Mrs. Eagle's daughter, was murdered. Another high school student, Daniel, was killed in a street-racing accident, and several weeks later, three other high school students were killed in a car accident after a baseball game.
It's been tough. Many of our students have learned some life lessons at an age where they should be enjoying being young. I'm proud of how well many of them have handled their grief and sorrow and how they channeled it into doing good.
My roses are blooming, finally, and I think I'll get some gathered together and pay a visit to Philipp this weekend...I'm sure he knows how much he made my first year at The School one to remember, and how much I enjoyed having him in my life.
Like I said last year, as teachers, we borrow other people's children for a while and often times can't keep from falling in love with them.
It has been a difficult year for the students in our middle school and the high school it feeds into - we have lost nine students this year. Philipp and Vince were the first, then Michael, a 6th grader, died of a previously undiagnosed heart ailment. Richard, an 8th grader, was hit by a car and killed the week before school started. Tomas, who graduated from High School with Mrs. Eagle's daughter, was murdered. Another high school student, Daniel, was killed in a street-racing accident, and several weeks later, three other high school students were killed in a car accident after a baseball game.
It's been tough. Many of our students have learned some life lessons at an age where they should be enjoying being young. I'm proud of how well many of them have handled their grief and sorrow and how they channeled it into doing good.
My roses are blooming, finally, and I think I'll get some gathered together and pay a visit to Philipp this weekend...I'm sure he knows how much he made my first year at The School one to remember, and how much I enjoyed having him in my life.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Waving the Buses Goodbye
The last half day of school.
Is the longest day of school.
Keeping the kids busy and out of trouble and somewhat calm is a challenge. My team decided that taking them to the gym to run and scream and throw basketballs around would be a good idea. It worked out pretty well (Mrs. Language and I even shot a few baskets - I made two, amazingly enough). No one got into a fight, we only had one jammed finger, and it kept them busy.
I took my class back around 9:30 to make s'mores (science teachers have cool things like electric burners in their rooms), which the kids loved. We also watched a Jimmy Neutron (I love him) DVD, signed yearbooks, and chatted about what the summer would involve.
And then the highlight of our day....bus riders were dismissed.
There is a tradition in our district that the teachers, staff, and the walkers all go out of the building and wave the buses goodbye. The bus drivers make it even more fun by laying on the horns and making a total racket. Kids wave from the bus windows, kids and teachers and secretaries and janitors and everyone else jump and wave and scream as the buses roll out. Considering we probably have somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 buses, it's quite a sight. Bringing up the rear of the bus parade is our SRO in his patrol car with lights flashing.
I don't know why, but I just love this tradition. There's something about the pure joy of it, and everyone involved in educating our children involved - from the support staff to the teachers to the bus drivers to the kids - that makes it a wonderful culminating event of the year.
And it's freaking loud!
Is the longest day of school.
Keeping the kids busy and out of trouble and somewhat calm is a challenge. My team decided that taking them to the gym to run and scream and throw basketballs around would be a good idea. It worked out pretty well (Mrs. Language and I even shot a few baskets - I made two, amazingly enough). No one got into a fight, we only had one jammed finger, and it kept them busy.
I took my class back around 9:30 to make s'mores (science teachers have cool things like electric burners in their rooms), which the kids loved. We also watched a Jimmy Neutron (I love him) DVD, signed yearbooks, and chatted about what the summer would involve.
And then the highlight of our day....bus riders were dismissed.
There is a tradition in our district that the teachers, staff, and the walkers all go out of the building and wave the buses goodbye. The bus drivers make it even more fun by laying on the horns and making a total racket. Kids wave from the bus windows, kids and teachers and secretaries and janitors and everyone else jump and wave and scream as the buses roll out. Considering we probably have somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 buses, it's quite a sight. Bringing up the rear of the bus parade is our SRO in his patrol car with lights flashing.
I don't know why, but I just love this tradition. There's something about the pure joy of it, and everyone involved in educating our children involved - from the support staff to the teachers to the bus drivers to the kids - that makes it a wonderful culminating event of the year.
And it's freaking loud!
Saturday, May 19, 2007
All Sunshiney Carnival Time!
I love the Education Wonks, and they've put together yet another great Carnival of Education. Check it out!
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Of Dances, Broken Chairs, Victory for the Non-Losers, and a Walk In the Sunshine
Daddy is visiting and that means I've been busy helping him with house and garden projects. We've painted the deck, deck swings, the shutters, planted tomatoes and marigolds, washed the house, and stuff I can't even remember. At least we're getting stuff done and I'm not cooking. He loves to eat out!
As you can tell from my ticker, there's not many days left so it's a crazy time at school. However, I'm so tired by the time the day is over, I haven't had much of a chance to blog, so here are some tidbits, here and there...or, as it says in the title, this, that and the other thing.
1. As usual, I chaperoned the 8th grade dance. I never heard of such a thing until I moved down here, but it's like a younger version of the prom. Well, sort of. We try to discourage the big elaborate spending of money for dresses, and all that and basically said, "wear your Sunday go to meeting clothes", and most of them did. I'm not sure if the clothing manufacturers are not pushing the Britney Spears Slutwear or what, but the girls looked a lot less trashy this year than in previous years. They looked, quite honestly, like cute 8th grade girls should look. Then again, the girls who'd be dressing slutty were the ones who couldn't come to the dance anyway because of the number of discipline points they'd earned this year.
2. Stoopid Boy made it to the dance (with a little help from Mrs. Partridge who decided that 35 points was a HUGE improvement and he'd earned the right to go). I'm glad he was there. We had our picture taken together and you can bet that one will be a keeper. I'll miss that kid.
3. Remember how Rude Boy and Cast Boy had a run in earlier in the year? Well, Rude Boy was in ISS most of last week when the kids were doing their Severe Weather PowerPoint Project. He lied to me (what a shock) and said he wasn't allowed to do his work up there, and then when I said that I'd talked with the ISS teachers, and yes he was, he informed me that the computer broke every time he got on it. Amazing. In any case, he turned in a project last week. Turned out it was Cast Boy's project which he copied and did nothing more than change his name. I about died laughing when I saw that because I'd actually helped Cast Boy with some of the graphics so I knew his project pretty well. (This is what happens at the end of the year when the server folders are a mess and the best I could do is have the kids store their projects on the desktop and hope they didn't mess with each other's work and or do something stupid - like copy). I sent Rude Boy's dad an email, along with the assignment attached which specifically spells out that any student who passed off someone's work as his or her own would earn a zero and a behavior note. Which is what he got. So he earned a whopping 48% for the year in my class. His Dad signed the note and was very apologetic in the email. He'd be better off putting his kid in therapy.
4. I mentioned to The Enforcer about Rude Boy's cheating incident in my room. His response? "Whatever you do, don't write a referral. I'm running out of furniture." Apparently the last time Rude Boy was called to the Enforcer's office for his latest incident, he flopped all of his 400 pounds down into one of Mr. Enforcer's chairs and it went crashing to the floor, along with Rude Boy. It's amazing that Rude Boy was actually able to get up off the floor after that one.
5. We cleaned out lockers which, in itself, is a scary thing. I don't ever want to see these kids bedrooms. One kids had eight - yes eight! - jackets in his locker. One wonders if his mother noticed that he was missing that many articles of clothing.
6. Due to the lockers being cleaned out, they've shortened the time between classes from five minutes to three. Hey, the kids don't need to go to the lockers, so why do they need five minuted? It gives them two fewer minutes to cause drama in the hallways and get into fights and trouble. Of course Brick Boy, who's never moved faster than a very slow stroll, is incensed as it is impossible for him to get to the bathroom and to class on time. Considering that he claims he needs to go to the bathroom during every class and between every class (his ploy to get out of the room and wander aimlessly), this was no shock. What will surprise him is that next year the kids will only have four minutes, not five.
7. We raised over $2,000 for the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life. Someone got the brilliant idea that we could charge the kids a dollar for the chance to wear a hat, flip flops, and sunglasses and they could go outside and walk around a makeshift track for a designated hour. I know middle schoolers will pay a dollar to do almost anything, but we were amazed at the turn out for Relay. Of course, they got to walk with their friends, buy snow cones and water, and wear hats and sunglasses - anything beats being in class. The weather was perfect, and Mrs. Math and I walked the route several times and enjoyed the break.
8. Cast Boy is in ISS for the rest of the year - and it was for something he did in another team area that got him written up. Of course, he found a cell phone and called mom/grandmother (Biological mom apparently has a drug problem so Grandma adopted him a birth and is raising him) who came down and pitched a fit because it's obvious that everyone in the whole school is picking on him. She demanded that every piece of paper in his discipline file be copied for her, which the Guidance Goddess did. Of course, considering the amount of paper in that folder, it took some time. Hope she has fun at the school board - she's lucky he didn't earn a ticket to alternative school.
9. The Non-Losers in the Third Period Class From the Very Depths of Hell Itself noticed the other day that all the Losers were - gasp! - pretty much gone from the class. They had managed to earn themselves stints in ISS or were suspended (one moved, we celebrated). I told them that their wish had come true but now they had to prove it was just the Losers causing all the problems in their class. They were a delight. We're making kites and they accomplished more than any other class. I think they've learned a pretty valuable lesson this year.
As you can tell from my ticker, there's not many days left so it's a crazy time at school. However, I'm so tired by the time the day is over, I haven't had much of a chance to blog, so here are some tidbits, here and there...or, as it says in the title, this, that and the other thing.
1. As usual, I chaperoned the 8th grade dance. I never heard of such a thing until I moved down here, but it's like a younger version of the prom. Well, sort of. We try to discourage the big elaborate spending of money for dresses, and all that and basically said, "wear your Sunday go to meeting clothes", and most of them did. I'm not sure if the clothing manufacturers are not pushing the Britney Spears Slutwear or what, but the girls looked a lot less trashy this year than in previous years. They looked, quite honestly, like cute 8th grade girls should look. Then again, the girls who'd be dressing slutty were the ones who couldn't come to the dance anyway because of the number of discipline points they'd earned this year.
2. Stoopid Boy made it to the dance (with a little help from Mrs. Partridge who decided that 35 points was a HUGE improvement and he'd earned the right to go). I'm glad he was there. We had our picture taken together and you can bet that one will be a keeper. I'll miss that kid.
3. Remember how Rude Boy and Cast Boy had a run in earlier in the year? Well, Rude Boy was in ISS most of last week when the kids were doing their Severe Weather PowerPoint Project. He lied to me (what a shock) and said he wasn't allowed to do his work up there, and then when I said that I'd talked with the ISS teachers, and yes he was, he informed me that the computer broke every time he got on it. Amazing. In any case, he turned in a project last week. Turned out it was Cast Boy's project which he copied and did nothing more than change his name. I about died laughing when I saw that because I'd actually helped Cast Boy with some of the graphics so I knew his project pretty well. (This is what happens at the end of the year when the server folders are a mess and the best I could do is have the kids store their projects on the desktop and hope they didn't mess with each other's work and or do something stupid - like copy). I sent Rude Boy's dad an email, along with the assignment attached which specifically spells out that any student who passed off someone's work as his or her own would earn a zero and a behavior note. Which is what he got. So he earned a whopping 48% for the year in my class. His Dad signed the note and was very apologetic in the email. He'd be better off putting his kid in therapy.
4. I mentioned to The Enforcer about Rude Boy's cheating incident in my room. His response? "Whatever you do, don't write a referral. I'm running out of furniture." Apparently the last time Rude Boy was called to the Enforcer's office for his latest incident, he flopped all of his 400 pounds down into one of Mr. Enforcer's chairs and it went crashing to the floor, along with Rude Boy. It's amazing that Rude Boy was actually able to get up off the floor after that one.
5. We cleaned out lockers which, in itself, is a scary thing. I don't ever want to see these kids bedrooms. One kids had eight - yes eight! - jackets in his locker. One wonders if his mother noticed that he was missing that many articles of clothing.
6. Due to the lockers being cleaned out, they've shortened the time between classes from five minutes to three. Hey, the kids don't need to go to the lockers, so why do they need five minuted? It gives them two fewer minutes to cause drama in the hallways and get into fights and trouble. Of course Brick Boy, who's never moved faster than a very slow stroll, is incensed as it is impossible for him to get to the bathroom and to class on time. Considering that he claims he needs to go to the bathroom during every class and between every class (his ploy to get out of the room and wander aimlessly), this was no shock. What will surprise him is that next year the kids will only have four minutes, not five.
7. We raised over $2,000 for the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life. Someone got the brilliant idea that we could charge the kids a dollar for the chance to wear a hat, flip flops, and sunglasses and they could go outside and walk around a makeshift track for a designated hour. I know middle schoolers will pay a dollar to do almost anything, but we were amazed at the turn out for Relay. Of course, they got to walk with their friends, buy snow cones and water, and wear hats and sunglasses - anything beats being in class. The weather was perfect, and Mrs. Math and I walked the route several times and enjoyed the break.
8. Cast Boy is in ISS for the rest of the year - and it was for something he did in another team area that got him written up. Of course, he found a cell phone and called mom/grandmother (Biological mom apparently has a drug problem so Grandma adopted him a birth and is raising him) who came down and pitched a fit because it's obvious that everyone in the whole school is picking on him. She demanded that every piece of paper in his discipline file be copied for her, which the Guidance Goddess did. Of course, considering the amount of paper in that folder, it took some time. Hope she has fun at the school board - she's lucky he didn't earn a ticket to alternative school.
9. The Non-Losers in the Third Period Class From the Very Depths of Hell Itself noticed the other day that all the Losers were - gasp! - pretty much gone from the class. They had managed to earn themselves stints in ISS or were suspended (one moved, we celebrated). I told them that their wish had come true but now they had to prove it was just the Losers causing all the problems in their class. They were a delight. We're making kites and they accomplished more than any other class. I think they've learned a pretty valuable lesson this year.
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Get Off Our Island!
It's that time of year...six and a half days to go...when the kids start losing their minds.
We teachers already have.
In any case, between the warm weather, hormones, eagerness for freedom, or just the way the stars have aligned, the behavior issues abound. This is the time of year when even the good kids get a little nuts and do the most incredibly stupid things.
It's also the time of year where Mr. Enforcer votes kids off our island...that's his way of suspending someone for the rest of the year. We have a list of kids we'd love to see voted off our island, and quite honestly, given time most of them will manage to get caught doing something incredibly stupid and solve the problem.
My Third Period Class From the Very Depths of Hell Itself is rapidly losing numbers as kids are voted off the island. If the Non-Losers have their way, most of the Losers will be gone by the end of the week and they'll be able to enjoy their kite-building project and get to go outside. If nothing else, they have learned that kids who can't control themselves (and whom I can't trust to behave outside of the classroom) ruin it for them quite a lot of the time. Considering I'd like to take my classes outside for some kite flying and general running around to blow off steam next week, I'm hoping a few of them get voted off rather early in the week.
We lost one of the Losers during our testing week when he decided to bring a water bottle filled with vodka to school. Another one, Foul Mouthed Girl got voted off last week due to - you guessed it - her foul mouth. It probably wouldn't have been such a big deal if she hadn't screamed and shouted "Eff You! You Effing B..." at the top of her lungs, outside of Mr. Enforcer's office, when her math teacher asked her to hand over her MP3 player.
Not a good move on her part.
In any case, tomorrow is Monday, a new day and the last full week. We'll have to wait and see who, if anyone, gets voted off the island tomorrow!
We teachers already have.
In any case, between the warm weather, hormones, eagerness for freedom, or just the way the stars have aligned, the behavior issues abound. This is the time of year when even the good kids get a little nuts and do the most incredibly stupid things.
It's also the time of year where Mr. Enforcer votes kids off our island...that's his way of suspending someone for the rest of the year. We have a list of kids we'd love to see voted off our island, and quite honestly, given time most of them will manage to get caught doing something incredibly stupid and solve the problem.
My Third Period Class From the Very Depths of Hell Itself is rapidly losing numbers as kids are voted off the island. If the Non-Losers have their way, most of the Losers will be gone by the end of the week and they'll be able to enjoy their kite-building project and get to go outside. If nothing else, they have learned that kids who can't control themselves (and whom I can't trust to behave outside of the classroom) ruin it for them quite a lot of the time. Considering I'd like to take my classes outside for some kite flying and general running around to blow off steam next week, I'm hoping a few of them get voted off rather early in the week.
We lost one of the Losers during our testing week when he decided to bring a water bottle filled with vodka to school. Another one, Foul Mouthed Girl got voted off last week due to - you guessed it - her foul mouth. It probably wouldn't have been such a big deal if she hadn't screamed and shouted "Eff You! You Effing B..." at the top of her lungs, outside of Mr. Enforcer's office, when her math teacher asked her to hand over her MP3 player.
Not a good move on her part.
In any case, tomorrow is Monday, a new day and the last full week. We'll have to wait and see who, if anyone, gets voted off the island tomorrow!
Go Ahead, Make My Day
Stoopid Boy dropped by for a visit Friday morning during homeroom. This isn't all that surprising as this time of year I tend to see quite a few of the kids I taught last year. They're 8th graders now, and rapidly nearing the end of their time here in Middle School. It's a scary time of year for them. On one hand, they're excited about leaving and going on to High School, but at the same time, it's kind of scary leaving the school they've called home for the past three years.
Stoopid Boy and I chatted a bit about this and that, what he was going to do this summer, what he thought about going on to high school, marveling at the fact that this same time last year found him in alternative school and this year he only has 35 discipline points. This, by the way, is fantastic. Last year I think he had well over 200. I asked him what the difference was this year.
"Oh, I dunno," he said. "I think I'm just thinking about stuff before I do it. And I'm not hanging around with people that can get me in trouble, like Fabio Boy, he's messing with drugs and doing stupid shit." Sad to say, this wasn't the first time I'd heard this news about Fabio Boy, but it was refreshing to know that Stoopid Boy realized that he didn't need to be hanging around with this character anymore.
"Well, I'm really, really proud of you. I always knew you could do it," I tell him.
Stoopid Boy smiles, looks at me and asks, "When did you get short?"
"When you got tall!" I tell him, and we both laugh. He gives me a hug and as he turns to leave, yells over his shoulder, "You're getting a surprise today."
This could mean anything, knowing Stoopid Boy.
However, just like he did last year, he remembered (via mom who works at a florist) that it was Teacher Appreciation Day, and four of us, including Ms. Reading, Mrs. Language, and Mrs. Partridge (his 8th grade social studies teacher) got flowers.
Nothing like having a kid you taught last year thank you for being the "best teacher ever!"
Stoopid Boy and I chatted a bit about this and that, what he was going to do this summer, what he thought about going on to high school, marveling at the fact that this same time last year found him in alternative school and this year he only has 35 discipline points. This, by the way, is fantastic. Last year I think he had well over 200. I asked him what the difference was this year.
"Oh, I dunno," he said. "I think I'm just thinking about stuff before I do it. And I'm not hanging around with people that can get me in trouble, like Fabio Boy, he's messing with drugs and doing stupid shit." Sad to say, this wasn't the first time I'd heard this news about Fabio Boy, but it was refreshing to know that Stoopid Boy realized that he didn't need to be hanging around with this character anymore.
"Well, I'm really, really proud of you. I always knew you could do it," I tell him.
Stoopid Boy smiles, looks at me and asks, "When did you get short?"
"When you got tall!" I tell him, and we both laugh. He gives me a hug and as he turns to leave, yells over his shoulder, "You're getting a surprise today."
This could mean anything, knowing Stoopid Boy.
However, just like he did last year, he remembered (via mom who works at a florist) that it was Teacher Appreciation Day, and four of us, including Ms. Reading, Mrs. Language, and Mrs. Partridge (his 8th grade social studies teacher) got flowers.
Nothing like having a kid you taught last year thank you for being the "best teacher ever!"
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
Stressed? Go Visit the Carnival!
Are you feeling just a tad stressed lately? Counting the days (and minutes) until school is over? Sick of those retention meetings? Getting fed up with kids who've checked out? Well, NYC Educator has the answer for you! Spend some time at this Week's Carnival of Education and chill for a bit! After all, you're not alone...we're all counting....counting....counting....
More Stupid Parent Tricks - Or When Booze is More Important than a Yearbook
Our school yearbook came out this week. And, as usual, Mrs. Art did the most fantastic job on it. It's lovely with full color pictures, quotations from the students "walk' across the pages, the dedication pages to two of the students who passed away this past year were heartwarming- it was just a delightful presentation.
For those kids who did not pre-purchase a yearbook, they went on sale this week as well. Eighth graders got to buy their's yesterday, seventh graders today, and sixth graders tomorrow. If there are any left by Friday, they'll go on sale to everyone.
They are not, however, cheap. At $28, it's a big chunk of change for some of our kids to shell out, but many of them do. It's important to them. We even schedule a period where we take the whole team down to the cafeteria and let them run around and sign each other's yearbooks.
So today a few of my homeroom kids were in line, cash in hand, and they bought their yearbooks. The excitement was intense as they opened them up, looked at the pictures, giggled over how silly they looked, and had their friends sign.
However, one of my girls, Twiggy Girl, didn't get a yearbook.
"I wanted a yearbook," she said to me as she came back from her locker. "But my mom said we couldn't afford one."
"I can understand that," I answered. I really could. I have property taxes due this month.
"Yeah, but she went out last night and bought beer and cigarettes," she replied bitterly. Then she turned and went to her seat.
Folks, kids aren't stupid. You may think they don't notice what you do, but they do. So when you tell them that you can't afford something, don't turn around and go buy something for yourself, especially something that isn't a vital necessity. What you're telling that kid is that your habits and addictions are more important than he or she is.
And unfortunately, for a lot of kids, that's more than true.
For those kids who did not pre-purchase a yearbook, they went on sale this week as well. Eighth graders got to buy their's yesterday, seventh graders today, and sixth graders tomorrow. If there are any left by Friday, they'll go on sale to everyone.
They are not, however, cheap. At $28, it's a big chunk of change for some of our kids to shell out, but many of them do. It's important to them. We even schedule a period where we take the whole team down to the cafeteria and let them run around and sign each other's yearbooks.
So today a few of my homeroom kids were in line, cash in hand, and they bought their yearbooks. The excitement was intense as they opened them up, looked at the pictures, giggled over how silly they looked, and had their friends sign.
However, one of my girls, Twiggy Girl, didn't get a yearbook.
"I wanted a yearbook," she said to me as she came back from her locker. "But my mom said we couldn't afford one."
"I can understand that," I answered. I really could. I have property taxes due this month.
"Yeah, but she went out last night and bought beer and cigarettes," she replied bitterly. Then she turned and went to her seat.
Folks, kids aren't stupid. You may think they don't notice what you do, but they do. So when you tell them that you can't afford something, don't turn around and go buy something for yourself, especially something that isn't a vital necessity. What you're telling that kid is that your habits and addictions are more important than he or she is.
And unfortunately, for a lot of kids, that's more than true.
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
Why Field Day Was the Pits.
I usually enjoy Field Day. I like getting outside. I like watching the kids play kickball and volleyball and do tug-of-war and all that. It's fun. It's somewhat relaxing. And the kids have a ball.
This year it was awful.
That morning as I drove to school I stopped to get some sunblock since I'd lost mine on the camping trip. It was a beautiful morning, with a few clouds in the sky, a lovely sun rising in the east - a perfect day for Field Day.
Except, of course, by the time we took the kids outside a brisk wind was blowing, dark clouds covered the sky and it looked like the heavens were going to open up on us. They didn't, thank goodness, but that was the only positive point of the whole day.
Due to the cold weather the kids, who are usually baking in the sun and whining about the heat and slowing down somewhat (due to the sun and heat), were wild. Absolutely wild. My mom once said that her horses played more and ran faster in cold weather, and the kids were no exception. Instead of spending field day enjoying the sports and the kids, we spent it on discipline issues and crises management.
We started off with about eight of our special ed kids who were passing around condoms, which had apparently been shoplifted earlier that week. Mrs. Language, Mr. Social Studies and I spent thirty minutes trying to sort that one out. Especially since we weren't really all that sure they even knew what the condoms were supposed to be used for. Let's just say these were the last kids we would have suspected in a condom-passing incident. Amusing moment was watching Mrs. Language interrogate the boy who finally admitted bringing them to school and asking him, "Do you know what these are used for?" and having him hem and haw and stammer and finally squeak out a "Yes, ma'am." Her response? "You certainly weren't planning to do that here at school were you?" I thought he was going to faint from embarrassment.
Then we had some of boys huffing and puffing and talking trash and trying to get involved in a fight.
Then Faraway Girl complained that a boy from Mrs. Eagle's team was touching her inappropriately. Mr. Social Studies got a hold of him and not only did he admit to the touching, but he admitted that he was touching two other girls as well. (He got seven days suspension.)
Then one of our kids got smacked by a kickball in the jaw so I had to walk her up to the nurse, and discovered three other kids trailing us so they could get in the building and get their coats.
Then the workers at the city pool, which sits next to the school, decided to work on the pool which caused the field between the kickball field and the school to FLOOD with up to 4" of quickly moving water. One minute there's a dry field...the next minute we're trying to figure how to move 450 kids through it without getting them soaked.
Then we realized that we had no way to get Scooter Girl through the field as the path she motored down on was flooded and her scooter can't get wet. Thank goodness two PTO moms were there (selling concessions) and were able to take her back to the building in a van, with her scooter (which is amazingly heavy) in a trailer behind another car. We got her in for lunch, but due to the flood and the cold, she decided (unhappily) that it would be better if she stayed in the building for the rest of the day. I felt awful for her, but she's a computer nut and was able to go play to her heart's content on a computer in the library.
And we lost, for the first time that I can remember, Field Day. Out of 30 possible points, we scored...are you ready....three.
That's three.
For coming in third place in Volleyball.
Out of three teams.
It was awful.
This year it was awful.
That morning as I drove to school I stopped to get some sunblock since I'd lost mine on the camping trip. It was a beautiful morning, with a few clouds in the sky, a lovely sun rising in the east - a perfect day for Field Day.
Except, of course, by the time we took the kids outside a brisk wind was blowing, dark clouds covered the sky and it looked like the heavens were going to open up on us. They didn't, thank goodness, but that was the only positive point of the whole day.
Due to the cold weather the kids, who are usually baking in the sun and whining about the heat and slowing down somewhat (due to the sun and heat), were wild. Absolutely wild. My mom once said that her horses played more and ran faster in cold weather, and the kids were no exception. Instead of spending field day enjoying the sports and the kids, we spent it on discipline issues and crises management.
We started off with about eight of our special ed kids who were passing around condoms, which had apparently been shoplifted earlier that week. Mrs. Language, Mr. Social Studies and I spent thirty minutes trying to sort that one out. Especially since we weren't really all that sure they even knew what the condoms were supposed to be used for. Let's just say these were the last kids we would have suspected in a condom-passing incident. Amusing moment was watching Mrs. Language interrogate the boy who finally admitted bringing them to school and asking him, "Do you know what these are used for?" and having him hem and haw and stammer and finally squeak out a "Yes, ma'am." Her response? "You certainly weren't planning to do that here at school were you?" I thought he was going to faint from embarrassment.
Then we had some of boys huffing and puffing and talking trash and trying to get involved in a fight.
Then Faraway Girl complained that a boy from Mrs. Eagle's team was touching her inappropriately. Mr. Social Studies got a hold of him and not only did he admit to the touching, but he admitted that he was touching two other girls as well. (He got seven days suspension.)
Then one of our kids got smacked by a kickball in the jaw so I had to walk her up to the nurse, and discovered three other kids trailing us so they could get in the building and get their coats.
Then the workers at the city pool, which sits next to the school, decided to work on the pool which caused the field between the kickball field and the school to FLOOD with up to 4" of quickly moving water. One minute there's a dry field...the next minute we're trying to figure how to move 450 kids through it without getting them soaked.
Then we realized that we had no way to get Scooter Girl through the field as the path she motored down on was flooded and her scooter can't get wet. Thank goodness two PTO moms were there (selling concessions) and were able to take her back to the building in a van, with her scooter (which is amazingly heavy) in a trailer behind another car. We got her in for lunch, but due to the flood and the cold, she decided (unhappily) that it would be better if she stayed in the building for the rest of the day. I felt awful for her, but she's a computer nut and was able to go play to her heart's content on a computer in the library.
And we lost, for the first time that I can remember, Field Day. Out of 30 possible points, we scored...are you ready....three.
That's three.
For coming in third place in Volleyball.
Out of three teams.
It was awful.
It's Carnival Time!
Dr. Homeslice is hosting the midway this week, so be sure to stop by his place and check out what's being discussed in the crazy world of education!
Saturday, April 28, 2007
Of Algae, S'Mores, Sunburns and Screaming 7th Graders - a Wrap up
So what did I learn from our field trip?
Quite a lot actually.
I learned that this generation of kids is not as familiar with the great outdoors as we are. I grew up in a city but I still had chances through scouting and visits to grandma's farm, to experience things like campfires and shooting stars and fishing. Many kids these days don't even get to go outside and play because there's no safe place to do so. I find this to be horribly sad.
I learned that many things we take for granted are new and different for these kids. It never occurred to me that there were kids who never had a s'more, who never sat by a campfire, who never rode a boat, or walked in the woods, or looked at a wildflower, or just sat looking at the sky at night.
I learned that I made the right decision to leave the corporate world and go into teaching because I never once got the type of satisfaction in business that I got from the look on a kid's face when he caught a crawdad in a net.
Moments that stuck in my mind:
Having a kid tell me that she's never had a s'more before and thanking us for giving her the chance to have one. (She loved it by the way).
Seventh grade girls like to play beauty shop just like we did. When I showed up in the dorm with my hair wet from having just washed it, they all wanted to comb it out and mess with it. I let them.
I had one girl tell me she couldn't remember the last time she actually ate three meals in one day. She was astonished at the amount of food she was given to eat. How sad that there are so many kids out there who consider three squares a day a rarity.
Looking out at the kids when I was telling ghost stories and watching the looks on their faces. I had them in the palm of my hand. Now if I could only do that every day in the classroom.
The look on the kid's faces when they put on their life vests and got on the boat nearly brought a tear to my eyes...their smiles were HUGE.
Watching the kids play with algae and realize that nature is fun, science is cool, and there's nothing so green as algae!
Watching one of my homeroom kids take off on the orienteering course like a gazelle let loose at the zoo. That was, by far, his favorite activity. I could give him a compass tomorrow and tell him to go find something and he'd be out the door.
So did it change the kids we took?
Yup. It did.
They seem a little more mature, a little more calm. They seemed to have found an inner strength in some respects. They take a little more pride in what they're doing.
I handed out progress reports this week and one of my homeroom kids that went on the trip needs to pull his grade up. I handed him his progress report and before I could say anything he said, "I can do a lot better than that." I agreed. "I know you can," I said. "Yeah, I know I can too," he said, and he smiled at me. He's never been that self-assured before.
Not one of them bragged about being able to go on the trip. They seemed to realize that what they received was something special but not something to use to lord it over their classmates who didn't go.
The most interesting thing is how they're relating to us, their teachers.
They don't swing by us and enter the room and then go chat with their friends. They're stopping. They're talking with us, asking us what's going on, how's the day going, what's new? They smile a lot more. I'll be doing a lesson and look up and find one of the kids from the trip looking at me, we'll lock eyes, and they'll smile. They won't look away. When class is over, kids who never once said a word are now saying "goodbye, see you tomorrow" before they leave. They're telling us about their day, about what they did at home, about a problem they're having with another kid or a class or just life in general.
One of the most amazing changes is in how some of the kids view Mr. Social Studies. He's not the warm, cuddly type of teacher - 26 years in law enforcement sort of erased any cuddliness he may have had at one time. He's a disciplinarian with high expectations and he's the teacher the kids love to hate. Later, after they've moved on to 8th grade and beyond they will sometimes come back and thank him for working them so hard and making them think, but during seventh grade most of the kids just can't stand him.
Except now the kids on the trip are bragging about how awesome he is. In my Third Period Class From the Very Depths of Hell Itself, one of the Losers made the mistake of making some sort of crack about Mr. Social Studies, which riled up some of the boys who were on our trip. They proceeded to inform everyone that Mr. Social Studies is truly awesome, that his class is cool, and if you would only pay attention you'd figure out how cool he is.
Amazing.
They're connecting.
The Principal has announced that her focus next year, and therefore the focus of our school, is going to be on building relationships. We did that this past weekend.
And it's created a little bit of magic for 32 kids and six grown ups.
And I'm glad we did it. So very, very glad.
Quite a lot actually.
I learned that this generation of kids is not as familiar with the great outdoors as we are. I grew up in a city but I still had chances through scouting and visits to grandma's farm, to experience things like campfires and shooting stars and fishing. Many kids these days don't even get to go outside and play because there's no safe place to do so. I find this to be horribly sad.
I learned that many things we take for granted are new and different for these kids. It never occurred to me that there were kids who never had a s'more, who never sat by a campfire, who never rode a boat, or walked in the woods, or looked at a wildflower, or just sat looking at the sky at night.
I learned that I made the right decision to leave the corporate world and go into teaching because I never once got the type of satisfaction in business that I got from the look on a kid's face when he caught a crawdad in a net.
Moments that stuck in my mind:
Having a kid tell me that she's never had a s'more before and thanking us for giving her the chance to have one. (She loved it by the way).
Seventh grade girls like to play beauty shop just like we did. When I showed up in the dorm with my hair wet from having just washed it, they all wanted to comb it out and mess with it. I let them.
I had one girl tell me she couldn't remember the last time she actually ate three meals in one day. She was astonished at the amount of food she was given to eat. How sad that there are so many kids out there who consider three squares a day a rarity.
Looking out at the kids when I was telling ghost stories and watching the looks on their faces. I had them in the palm of my hand. Now if I could only do that every day in the classroom.
The look on the kid's faces when they put on their life vests and got on the boat nearly brought a tear to my eyes...their smiles were HUGE.
Watching the kids play with algae and realize that nature is fun, science is cool, and there's nothing so green as algae!
Watching one of my homeroom kids take off on the orienteering course like a gazelle let loose at the zoo. That was, by far, his favorite activity. I could give him a compass tomorrow and tell him to go find something and he'd be out the door.
So did it change the kids we took?
Yup. It did.
They seem a little more mature, a little more calm. They seemed to have found an inner strength in some respects. They take a little more pride in what they're doing.
I handed out progress reports this week and one of my homeroom kids that went on the trip needs to pull his grade up. I handed him his progress report and before I could say anything he said, "I can do a lot better than that." I agreed. "I know you can," I said. "Yeah, I know I can too," he said, and he smiled at me. He's never been that self-assured before.
Not one of them bragged about being able to go on the trip. They seemed to realize that what they received was something special but not something to use to lord it over their classmates who didn't go.
The most interesting thing is how they're relating to us, their teachers.
They don't swing by us and enter the room and then go chat with their friends. They're stopping. They're talking with us, asking us what's going on, how's the day going, what's new? They smile a lot more. I'll be doing a lesson and look up and find one of the kids from the trip looking at me, we'll lock eyes, and they'll smile. They won't look away. When class is over, kids who never once said a word are now saying "goodbye, see you tomorrow" before they leave. They're telling us about their day, about what they did at home, about a problem they're having with another kid or a class or just life in general.
One of the most amazing changes is in how some of the kids view Mr. Social Studies. He's not the warm, cuddly type of teacher - 26 years in law enforcement sort of erased any cuddliness he may have had at one time. He's a disciplinarian with high expectations and he's the teacher the kids love to hate. Later, after they've moved on to 8th grade and beyond they will sometimes come back and thank him for working them so hard and making them think, but during seventh grade most of the kids just can't stand him.
Except now the kids on the trip are bragging about how awesome he is. In my Third Period Class From the Very Depths of Hell Itself, one of the Losers made the mistake of making some sort of crack about Mr. Social Studies, which riled up some of the boys who were on our trip. They proceeded to inform everyone that Mr. Social Studies is truly awesome, that his class is cool, and if you would only pay attention you'd figure out how cool he is.
Amazing.
They're connecting.
The Principal has announced that her focus next year, and therefore the focus of our school, is going to be on building relationships. We did that this past weekend.
And it's created a little bit of magic for 32 kids and six grown ups.
And I'm glad we did it. So very, very glad.
Of Algae, S'Mores, Sunburns and Screaming 7th Graders, Part V
On our last morning of camp, Coach decided to forgo the early morning exercise session for the boys and instead gave them another life lesson - on how to vacuum.
One of the rules at camp was that everyone had to help clean up and that included vacuuming the dining area after each meal. The kids weren't wild about this, but most of them figured out that the quicker they got it done the quicker they could go outside and mess around. Some of the boys, however, were overhead saying that they couldn't help because they didn't know how to vacuum.
Coach took care of that. He marched the boys to the dining hall, gave them each a section of floor, did a brief run through on how to operate a vacuum, and then they each had to complete their section before they could go outside. Another life lesson learned.
Each of our three groups had one more session to do before we packed up, cleaned the dorms, and left to go home. Our group finished the second part of the Challenge Course.
Challenge Courses go by different names, and different organizations operate them, but the basic idea is to have a group of people think outside the box to solve problems as a group. One of the goals of this trip was to develop some leadership skills in our students and this course was one of the tools we used to do this.
And it worked.
The group that I was with had a variety of different kids - boys and girls of different races, different backgrounds, different academic ability, and different economic levels. The only thing they really have in common is the fact that they have the same five teachers for seventh grade. Watching this team of twelve kids work together to solve a problem was fascinating. We saw a different side of these kids and they saw a different side of each other and of themselves.
I won't go into detail on what the course activities were (it would give away some of the solutions to the problems if I did), but suffice it to say that they were fun and challenging. The best part for Mrs. Language and I was listening to them talk with each other to solve the problems. They listened, made suggestions, tossed out ideas, tried things, regrouped when needed. It was amazing. What was almost as amazing is what didn't happen.
They didn't argue. They didn't criticize. They didn't disregard anyone's idea as "stupid". They didn't give up. They didn't call names. They didn't tease.
They were wonderful.
Mrs. Language looked at me at one point and whispered, "this is what it's all about." I couldn't agree more.
The rest of the morning was spent packing, cleaning, and loading up the bus. The kids were tuckered out, and so were the adults. The ride home was significantly quieter than the ride up. In fact, from our position in the front of the bus, we could look back and see 32 heads slumped against the seats, mouths open, eyes closed.
One of our girls roused herself and saw me looking back. "Mrs. Bluebird," she yelled over the noise, "can you tell us another ghost story?"
"Maybe some other time when it isn't so loud," I hollered back. She smiled, closed her eyes, and went to sleep.
We got back to school to find several parents already waiting for us. A few thanked us for giving them a weekend off, others thanked us for giving their kids the chance to do something new. Many of the kids gave us big hugs (and a handshake to Mr. Social Studies) and told us thank you.
It was an awesome experience for all of us. And we were somewhat sad to see it end.
I
One of the rules at camp was that everyone had to help clean up and that included vacuuming the dining area after each meal. The kids weren't wild about this, but most of them figured out that the quicker they got it done the quicker they could go outside and mess around. Some of the boys, however, were overhead saying that they couldn't help because they didn't know how to vacuum.
Coach took care of that. He marched the boys to the dining hall, gave them each a section of floor, did a brief run through on how to operate a vacuum, and then they each had to complete their section before they could go outside. Another life lesson learned.
Each of our three groups had one more session to do before we packed up, cleaned the dorms, and left to go home. Our group finished the second part of the Challenge Course.
Challenge Courses go by different names, and different organizations operate them, but the basic idea is to have a group of people think outside the box to solve problems as a group. One of the goals of this trip was to develop some leadership skills in our students and this course was one of the tools we used to do this.
And it worked.
The group that I was with had a variety of different kids - boys and girls of different races, different backgrounds, different academic ability, and different economic levels. The only thing they really have in common is the fact that they have the same five teachers for seventh grade. Watching this team of twelve kids work together to solve a problem was fascinating. We saw a different side of these kids and they saw a different side of each other and of themselves.
I won't go into detail on what the course activities were (it would give away some of the solutions to the problems if I did), but suffice it to say that they were fun and challenging. The best part for Mrs. Language and I was listening to them talk with each other to solve the problems. They listened, made suggestions, tossed out ideas, tried things, regrouped when needed. It was amazing. What was almost as amazing is what didn't happen.
They didn't argue. They didn't criticize. They didn't disregard anyone's idea as "stupid". They didn't give up. They didn't call names. They didn't tease.
They were wonderful.
Mrs. Language looked at me at one point and whispered, "this is what it's all about." I couldn't agree more.
The rest of the morning was spent packing, cleaning, and loading up the bus. The kids were tuckered out, and so were the adults. The ride home was significantly quieter than the ride up. In fact, from our position in the front of the bus, we could look back and see 32 heads slumped against the seats, mouths open, eyes closed.
One of our girls roused herself and saw me looking back. "Mrs. Bluebird," she yelled over the noise, "can you tell us another ghost story?"
"Maybe some other time when it isn't so loud," I hollered back. She smiled, closed her eyes, and went to sleep.
We got back to school to find several parents already waiting for us. A few thanked us for giving them a weekend off, others thanked us for giving their kids the chance to do something new. Many of the kids gave us big hugs (and a handshake to Mr. Social Studies) and told us thank you.
It was an awesome experience for all of us. And we were somewhat sad to see it end.
I
Friday, April 27, 2007
Where's the Common Sense When You Need it The Most?
It was Field Day today and during the volleyball tournament, Mrs. Language and I took a quick trip to the bathroom and mailboxes which are just behind guidance. We figured we'd better take the opportunity before we all headed outside and wouldn't get a chance. We'd be too busy trying to keep 425 seventh graders from losing their minds.
While we were there we noticed two of our troublemakers from last year sitting there, along with a boy that Mrs. Eagle had last year. They didn't look happy. In fact, they seemed to be squirming quite a bit in their seats. On of ours had his hands clasped tightly in his lap and seemed to be biting his lip. Fabio Boy was there and his feet were bouncing up and down.
I swung by to give the Guidance Goddess a greeting and to ask how her day was going. "Oh it's going great!" she exclaimed. "Come here and see all these referrals!" she says as she hands me one from the top and sort of backs me up around the corner into the teachers lounge. It's obvious she's trying to tell me something without the kids in the office figuring it out.
Mrs. Language comes up and we both look at the referral on the top stack. It's for one of our goofballs from last year. I look down at the incident description. "X disrupted the class due to putting Icy Hot on his genitals."
My eyes must have popped out of my head. I look over at Mrs. Language and her mouth is hanging open with one of those "What the hell?" looks on her face.
Guidance Goddess can barely contain herself. "Yup, they decided to go into the bathroom and put on some Icy Hot and by the time they got to class they were, ahem, feeling the pain."
Mrs. Language and I literally doubled up with silent laughter - the boys, after all, were right outside in the lobby. We both ended up wiping tears from our eyes. What on earth possessed them to do something so incredibly stupid???
So there they sat...
Squirming in their seats.
Tapping their feet.
And biting their lips.
Because that had to really, really, really hurt!
While we were there we noticed two of our troublemakers from last year sitting there, along with a boy that Mrs. Eagle had last year. They didn't look happy. In fact, they seemed to be squirming quite a bit in their seats. On of ours had his hands clasped tightly in his lap and seemed to be biting his lip. Fabio Boy was there and his feet were bouncing up and down.
I swung by to give the Guidance Goddess a greeting and to ask how her day was going. "Oh it's going great!" she exclaimed. "Come here and see all these referrals!" she says as she hands me one from the top and sort of backs me up around the corner into the teachers lounge. It's obvious she's trying to tell me something without the kids in the office figuring it out.
Mrs. Language comes up and we both look at the referral on the top stack. It's for one of our goofballs from last year. I look down at the incident description. "X disrupted the class due to putting Icy Hot on his genitals."
My eyes must have popped out of my head. I look over at Mrs. Language and her mouth is hanging open with one of those "What the hell?" looks on her face.
Guidance Goddess can barely contain herself. "Yup, they decided to go into the bathroom and put on some Icy Hot and by the time they got to class they were, ahem, feeling the pain."
Mrs. Language and I literally doubled up with silent laughter - the boys, after all, were right outside in the lobby. We both ended up wiping tears from our eyes. What on earth possessed them to do something so incredibly stupid???
So there they sat...
Squirming in their seats.
Tapping their feet.
And biting their lips.
Because that had to really, really, really hurt!
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Of Algae, S'mores, Sunburns and Screaming 7th Graders, Part IV
I love Mrs. Language. Mrs. Language brought along her own coffee pot so we could have coffee in our room. This is a girl who knows how to do mornings.
It's six in the morning, the girls are beginning to stir and Mrs. Language and I are in our jammies imbibing in the first cuppa of the day. The fact that we both tend to look like something chewed on our hair all night, had no make-up and were in our jammies was a fact not lost on our little darlings. They were just astounded and somewhat amazed that they saw their teachers - yes! - in jammies, with no make-up, with hair sticking out everywhere.
Whatever. They looked pretty goofy too.
Mrs. Language peers out the glass doors to see what the weather is looking like outside.
"Oh my gosh," she hisses. "You have got to see this!"
I go to the door and look out to see Mr. Social Studies, hands clasped behind him like a drill sergeant, watching our sixteen boys as Coach was leading them through calisthenics. They looked like sleepy little puppets as they flopped and jumped and staggered around in the early morning mist.
You had to love it. Apparently they woke the boys up at 5:30 that morning, rousted them out of their bunks, and put them through their paces.
And all that before breakfast!
After breakfast we broke into our three groups and sent each group off to work on their day's activities. I tagged along with Mrs. Language and the group that had the highest number of our loudest kids - including three kids from My Third Period Class From The Very Depths of Hell Itself (but definitely members of the Non-Loser Minority). Our first assignment that morning was the class on wilderness survival. They learned how to put together an emergency survival kit, what to do when if they get lost, and how to build a shelter. They then got to go outside to an area in the woods and actually build a shelter using branches and limbs. The girls got organized and working together built a very nice, study, and large shelter with very few openings for rain. They even pulled in a log or two to sit on as furniture, and put sunglasses on the roof to act as reflectors for search and rescue teams flying overhead.
The boys put together a circular shelter around a large tree that featured openings so they could shoot at serial killers and bears, but would also allow rain and snow to enter the shelter.
I think the boys play too many video games and watch way too many weird movies.
Our next assignment was the Lake Study (which was my second time around and even better this time). After lunch we did an orienteering course which was an eye opener for all of us. For some reason, maybe because these are only 7th graders, I had the impression that the orienteering course was going to be fairly easy.
I was wrong.
We all got instructions on how to use a compass, how to target your heading, find a point, and walk to it. We were then divided into teams of three kids per adult, and were each given a different colored map. The goal was to find six locations (painted coffee cans) in one hour and to punch our map with the puncher at each can.
And not get lost.
We went to the starting point, the ranger checked our headings and off we went. Up hills. Down hills. Up ridges. Down ravines. Over logs. Through thickets. Into bushes with stickers. Up more hills. Up even more hills.
I had to give my girls credit. They were troopers. We found our first two cans with little difficulty, but the third one was not being cooperative. By this time we had nearly emptied our water bottles, my bad knee (which I twisted slightly on the first day by nearly tripping over a backpack) was acting up, and my girls were starting to slow down a bit. We looked at our watches and decided we didn't have time to continue looking for the rest of the cans, so we found one of the hiking trails that would take us back to the rendezvous point and headed back.
And found the elusive third can off to our left a few paces down the trail. We must have walked by that stupid can a dozen times looking for it!
By this time it was mid-afternoon, hot, and the kids were whining about how they wanted to go swimming. However, we had the Stream Study to do, so we loaded them up in the van, and drove to a nearby stream where our guide handed us all nets and we began to look at the species of organisms that lived in this stream.
This meant taking off our shoes and socks, rolling up those pant legs, and wading into the stream. Some of the kids (and teachers, thank goodness) actually remembered to pack extra shoes that could get wet for this very reason. I'm glad I brought my shoes because the streambed was really rocky and I'm not exactly good at walking across sharp rocks.
The stream area itself was lovely with trees bending overhead with new growth on them, although many suffered horribly in our late hard frost of a few weeks ago. There were ferns and moss along the banks, and wildflowers scattered around. Pretty soon the kids were busy splashing in the water, finding crawdads and fish in their nets. It didn't take them long to get soaking wet, and they all looked like bedraggled refugees from a disaster film. They had an absolute blast, however, and were such great little scientists. We spent well over an hour working our way up and down the stream, and we had a fantastic time. Kids who hadn't really been friends before the trip were now bent over a net checking out the crawdads, rocks and plant life they'd caught.
I was certain that they'd be beat by the time we returned to camp, but they weren't. In the hour to kill before supper they went out and played basketball, picked up rocks by the lake, and tossed a football around.
After supper, as soon as it got dark, we had a campfire for them and made s'mores. They decided to cap off the evening by a game of night tag where they ran around in the semi-dark (there were parking lot lights nearby) and chased each other silly.
But they weren't worn out yet.
Some of the girls wanted me to tell them ghost stories, and we ended up (I don't remember how) in a seating area in the conference center. I've collected ghost books and ghost stories for years and even do a ghost talk on Civil War ghosts for Civil War roundtables, so I was able to pull out a lot of these stories from my memory. I started with four girls, and pretty soon I looked up and nearly all the kids were there.
Listening.
Quietly.
Intently.
I'd stop a story and they'd yell, "tell another one!" and I'd remember another one to tell them. Of course, seeing as how most of them were Civil War ghost stories I had to throw in a history lesson as well, so they may have actually learned something. I finally ran out of stories, it was late, and we all wandered back to the dorms to go to bed.
The boys were dragging their feet and were asleep within minutes.
The girls, darn them, had hit a second wind and we didn't get them settled down until nearly midnight.
One more day to go...Boo!
It's six in the morning, the girls are beginning to stir and Mrs. Language and I are in our jammies imbibing in the first cuppa of the day. The fact that we both tend to look like something chewed on our hair all night, had no make-up and were in our jammies was a fact not lost on our little darlings. They were just astounded and somewhat amazed that they saw their teachers - yes! - in jammies, with no make-up, with hair sticking out everywhere.
Whatever. They looked pretty goofy too.
Mrs. Language peers out the glass doors to see what the weather is looking like outside.
"Oh my gosh," she hisses. "You have got to see this!"
I go to the door and look out to see Mr. Social Studies, hands clasped behind him like a drill sergeant, watching our sixteen boys as Coach was leading them through calisthenics. They looked like sleepy little puppets as they flopped and jumped and staggered around in the early morning mist.
You had to love it. Apparently they woke the boys up at 5:30 that morning, rousted them out of their bunks, and put them through their paces.
And all that before breakfast!
After breakfast we broke into our three groups and sent each group off to work on their day's activities. I tagged along with Mrs. Language and the group that had the highest number of our loudest kids - including three kids from My Third Period Class From The Very Depths of Hell Itself (but definitely members of the Non-Loser Minority). Our first assignment that morning was the class on wilderness survival. They learned how to put together an emergency survival kit, what to do when if they get lost, and how to build a shelter. They then got to go outside to an area in the woods and actually build a shelter using branches and limbs. The girls got organized and working together built a very nice, study, and large shelter with very few openings for rain. They even pulled in a log or two to sit on as furniture, and put sunglasses on the roof to act as reflectors for search and rescue teams flying overhead.
The boys put together a circular shelter around a large tree that featured openings so they could shoot at serial killers and bears, but would also allow rain and snow to enter the shelter.
I think the boys play too many video games and watch way too many weird movies.
Our next assignment was the Lake Study (which was my second time around and even better this time). After lunch we did an orienteering course which was an eye opener for all of us. For some reason, maybe because these are only 7th graders, I had the impression that the orienteering course was going to be fairly easy.
I was wrong.
We all got instructions on how to use a compass, how to target your heading, find a point, and walk to it. We were then divided into teams of three kids per adult, and were each given a different colored map. The goal was to find six locations (painted coffee cans) in one hour and to punch our map with the puncher at each can.
And not get lost.
We went to the starting point, the ranger checked our headings and off we went. Up hills. Down hills. Up ridges. Down ravines. Over logs. Through thickets. Into bushes with stickers. Up more hills. Up even more hills.
I had to give my girls credit. They were troopers. We found our first two cans with little difficulty, but the third one was not being cooperative. By this time we had nearly emptied our water bottles, my bad knee (which I twisted slightly on the first day by nearly tripping over a backpack) was acting up, and my girls were starting to slow down a bit. We looked at our watches and decided we didn't have time to continue looking for the rest of the cans, so we found one of the hiking trails that would take us back to the rendezvous point and headed back.
And found the elusive third can off to our left a few paces down the trail. We must have walked by that stupid can a dozen times looking for it!
By this time it was mid-afternoon, hot, and the kids were whining about how they wanted to go swimming. However, we had the Stream Study to do, so we loaded them up in the van, and drove to a nearby stream where our guide handed us all nets and we began to look at the species of organisms that lived in this stream.
This meant taking off our shoes and socks, rolling up those pant legs, and wading into the stream. Some of the kids (and teachers, thank goodness) actually remembered to pack extra shoes that could get wet for this very reason. I'm glad I brought my shoes because the streambed was really rocky and I'm not exactly good at walking across sharp rocks.
The stream area itself was lovely with trees bending overhead with new growth on them, although many suffered horribly in our late hard frost of a few weeks ago. There were ferns and moss along the banks, and wildflowers scattered around. Pretty soon the kids were busy splashing in the water, finding crawdads and fish in their nets. It didn't take them long to get soaking wet, and they all looked like bedraggled refugees from a disaster film. They had an absolute blast, however, and were such great little scientists. We spent well over an hour working our way up and down the stream, and we had a fantastic time. Kids who hadn't really been friends before the trip were now bent over a net checking out the crawdads, rocks and plant life they'd caught.
I was certain that they'd be beat by the time we returned to camp, but they weren't. In the hour to kill before supper they went out and played basketball, picked up rocks by the lake, and tossed a football around.
After supper, as soon as it got dark, we had a campfire for them and made s'mores. They decided to cap off the evening by a game of night tag where they ran around in the semi-dark (there were parking lot lights nearby) and chased each other silly.
But they weren't worn out yet.
Some of the girls wanted me to tell them ghost stories, and we ended up (I don't remember how) in a seating area in the conference center. I've collected ghost books and ghost stories for years and even do a ghost talk on Civil War ghosts for Civil War roundtables, so I was able to pull out a lot of these stories from my memory. I started with four girls, and pretty soon I looked up and nearly all the kids were there.
Listening.
Quietly.
Intently.
I'd stop a story and they'd yell, "tell another one!" and I'd remember another one to tell them. Of course, seeing as how most of them were Civil War ghost stories I had to throw in a history lesson as well, so they may have actually learned something. I finally ran out of stories, it was late, and we all wandered back to the dorms to go to bed.
The boys were dragging their feet and were asleep within minutes.
The girls, darn them, had hit a second wind and we didn't get them settled down until nearly midnight.
One more day to go...Boo!
Carnival Time!
The weather's fine and it's time for the Education Carnival! Some great stuff here this week so be sure to check it out!
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Of Algae, S'mores, Sunburns, and Screaming 7th Graders Part III
One of the things we had scheduled for the first night was a night hike, guided by two of the rangers. Some of the kids, those who were pretty much city-bred, were not wild about the idea of taking a hike, in the dark, without flashlights.
They also were having a heard time being really, really quiet.
The idea was to help them learn about how animals survive in the night. We didn't use flashlights so that they could let their eyes adjust and acquire their night vision. We whispered and listened quietly to the sounds of the forest in the night. We had them use their sense of smell to see if they could identify objects the ranger handed them.
We split the groups into boys and girls and Mrs. Language and I went with the boys who were a bit wound up. We found out later that they'd located a soda machine and were sneaking pops and energy drinks until we put a fake "out of order" sign on it.
Pretty soon, however, they were surprised at how much they could see and at how bright the moon was and how many stars there were. Our guide took us to a clearing and we played a tag game, in the dark, with one kid as the owl and the others as mice. The owl was blindfolded and the mice had to be as quiet as possible and sneak by the owl. This worked pretty well until some of the mice decided that throwing a water bottle at the owl would distract him and they could sneak by. The owl, fortunately, was fairly good natured even when the water bottle bonked him in the head.
The high point of the hike for them was getting to chew Wintergreen Lifesavers in the dark and watching them spark in each other's mouths. Talk about cool!
After we returned to the camp, we gave them a snack and tried to get them quieted down for bed. It was past ten, they'd been up, most of them, since six, and we were hoping to get them settled down and to sleep. After all, the grown ups were pretty tired as well.
The girls settled down fairly quickly (amazing) but the boys were another story.
They paid for it the following day however. Unbeknown to them, Coach had brought his megaphone. Morning was going to come very early for them.
They also were having a heard time being really, really quiet.
The idea was to help them learn about how animals survive in the night. We didn't use flashlights so that they could let their eyes adjust and acquire their night vision. We whispered and listened quietly to the sounds of the forest in the night. We had them use their sense of smell to see if they could identify objects the ranger handed them.
We split the groups into boys and girls and Mrs. Language and I went with the boys who were a bit wound up. We found out later that they'd located a soda machine and were sneaking pops and energy drinks until we put a fake "out of order" sign on it.
Pretty soon, however, they were surprised at how much they could see and at how bright the moon was and how many stars there were. Our guide took us to a clearing and we played a tag game, in the dark, with one kid as the owl and the others as mice. The owl was blindfolded and the mice had to be as quiet as possible and sneak by the owl. This worked pretty well until some of the mice decided that throwing a water bottle at the owl would distract him and they could sneak by. The owl, fortunately, was fairly good natured even when the water bottle bonked him in the head.
The high point of the hike for them was getting to chew Wintergreen Lifesavers in the dark and watching them spark in each other's mouths. Talk about cool!
After we returned to the camp, we gave them a snack and tried to get them quieted down for bed. It was past ten, they'd been up, most of them, since six, and we were hoping to get them settled down and to sleep. After all, the grown ups were pretty tired as well.
The girls settled down fairly quickly (amazing) but the boys were another story.
They paid for it the following day however. Unbeknown to them, Coach had brought his megaphone. Morning was going to come very early for them.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
