Day in a Haiku

Kevin at Kevin's Meandering Mind challenges us to write a haiku about a day/week. After our rainy week/spring, here is my haiku.

Rain lashes, trees bend,
Lightning flashes through the air
Summer thunderstorm

Morning Hugs

Is there a better way to start the morning than with morning hugs? This morning I drove to my friend’s house to begin the summer morning walk ritual. I meet M and K and their 4 children and we walk, talk, plan and retrieve dropped items for an hour 3 or 4 days a week. This morning I pulled up and slid out of my car. I heard, “It’s Amy. Go give her hugs.” I am soon surrounded by a 2 year old, a 3 year old and 4 year old while my knees are encircled by six small arms. The 1 year old is securely strapped into the stroller but he still waves and beams at me with his ever present smile. What a welcome!

For more Slices check out TwoWritingTeachers.wordpress.com.

Signs of Summer

Inspired by Ali Edwards I took my first 5 pictures of summer. Check them out!

No alarms

Packing up

Bare toes

Mowing and more mowing

Beginning Blooms

Thinking about Worksheets

Franki from A Year of Reading has been posting about 21st Century literacies and today I found her link to Wesley Fryer's post about worksheets. After reading this and Wesley's article about Back to School Night, I began to wonder yet again about how I teach and learn with my students. Later I found this link from Katie at Creative Literacy.

I have already spent some time (but not nearly enough) thinking about how to encourage my students to "think more deeply". The plethora of worksheets and the impending death of overworked copy machines seems to correlate well with these thoughts. I guess that I really need to spend time planning how to integrate more collaborative problem-solving activities into our daily learning time.

My most recent try: integrating Daily Slice of Life writing. Pros: more writing, more child engagement, more sharing Cons: not enough teacher feedback, no home connection

Next idea: Poem in your Pocket Day. Pros: fluency practice, student engagement, sharing, possible integration of technology with DVD of students reading poems

It Couldn't Be.... Could it?

Check out Two Writing Teachers for the Slice of Life Story Challenge.

Driving through the sprinkling rain that was threatening to become a real storm, I wondered why I was going. I had plenty of work to do. There would probably be lots of people there. I didn’t want to stand in a crowd of people. A friend at school had not given a rousing review. But, we are reading Thundercake tomorrow. I really should go.

I pulled into the parking lot at the IEA building and wondered where all the cars were. My reading teacher friend was backing her van into a space so I parked and waited for her. We went into the building and glanced into the first room. A lone woman with a twisted bun sat at the back table writing in a book. “Is that her?” I wondered but quickly dismissed the idea. I walked down to the information desk and was directed back to the same room.

It was Patricia Polacco sitting in a large room all by herself. Of course, I hadn’t brought any books to be signed. I had hurried out and forgot the camera that I truly meant to bring. But I got to talk with Patricia Polacco!

We sat in the front row and were mesmerized by the back stories from her books. I saw the real Keeping Quilt. I was so close that I could have touched it. Her message for the room - but it may have truly been just for me - was to keep teaching. I do make a difference and I may never know the difference that I have made in the lives of the children that I spend so much time agonizing over. I really needed this message and she may never know how important it was to me. I am going to let it sit in my heart for awhile and simmer.

Just when I thought the raspy breathing was the worst sound ever...the breathing stopped and the silence was worse.

Oreos

Oreos... Actually, Double-Stuff Oreos. Alias: Temptation calling my name across the store. I usually avoid the cookie aisle at the store and then am dismayed to find a stack of these chocolatey cookies at the end of a grocery store aisle. And, the worst is when they are even on sale. Who can pass up a bargain? Last week, I successfully avoided cutting out the Penny Pinching coupon for Oreos. When I went to visit my parents, my dad had cut it out and wasn’t going to use it. He will eat them but I certainly did not inherit the love of Oreos from him. Well, I didn’t want to let a good coupon go to waste so I took it. When I cruised down the cookie aisle at County Market and discovered that the Double-Stuff Oreos were included with the coupon I had no will power left. I bought the cookies and I am enjoying them immensely. Yum!

Worms!

As I popped out the door to the garage this morning, I hit the garage door opener. The door began to rise slowly like usual. I continued through the garage toward the car to stow my bags for the trip to school. As I went around the car, I noticed a definite wiggling on the floor right where the door normally hits. Big worms, little worms, thick worms, thin worms - all kinds of worms were wriggling around on the floor trying to escape the rain soaked ground outside. I must admit that my immediate reaction was “Yuck, worms!” But then as I got in the car, I thought a little more about the poor creatures trying to escape into my garage probably to dry out and be swept away in a round of spring cleaning. Now, I was feeling sorry for the poor worms, but I must admit not sorry enough to round them up and put them back outside.

A Slice of Fear

I just hung up from calling my dad. I called twice and got the answering machine. Mom is very sick at this point, so getting the answering machine causes a twinge of fear to run through me. I am almost afraid to call the cell phone and yet feel that I must. Fear of the unknown is greater than reality for me.

Hmmm...I wrote this earlier but forgot to link it.

Blowing Through...

Today I made it to church. The car battery is holding its own so far. As the minister was delivering his sermon, the wind began to pick up. The building was shaking with gusts of wind. Suddenly the back door blew open. Everyone turned around as if expecting something BIG to happen. One of the ladies came in and shut the door. We turned back to the minister and he continued with a half-hearted joke about the Holy Spirit blowing through. Soon the electricity went out. It seemed as if Someone had a message for us. During the final prayer a beautiful, bright, warm ray of light beamed through the front stained glass window as if to demonstrate Who really was in charge. The storm was over.

P.S. Tonight on the news I learned that straight line winds destroyed much of a little town near my parents’ house and part of a trailer park in my city. Ever since a tornado destroyed part of our city, I find spring storms quite scary!

Crockpot Cooking

Do you use a Crockpot? I found http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/ at the end of Stephanie’s resolution to use the Crockpot everyday last year. I have tried the Taco Soup and it was really good. I am getting ready to try the Brown Sugar Chicken. Earlier, I went to the store and picked up some Balsamic vinegar which was recommended in the comment section, frozen chicken breasts and lemon-lime soda. I have discovered that if I put the meat in the Crockpot as I go to bed it is done by morning. I am hoping for a delicious lunch tomorrow. The only drawback is that the aroma sometimes wakes me up!

Teachable Moment

(students’ names changed - I don't think I have ever taught a Billy or a Susie!)

The whole class was gathered on the carpet reading Jack Prelutsky’s poem, I Did Not Eat Your Ice Cream. We were practicing turning and talking to our neighbor. The poem was about a child that blamed everything on his/her sister. The students were generally confused and thought that the sister really did these things. This group has some difficulty “thinking deeply”. So... we were in the midst of this discussion and I was trying to pull thoughts out of them without just telling them what I thought the poem meant. I turned to write something on the chart paper and one of my boys bounced up on his knees to get the attention of the other students and to be silly. I told him to knock it off and he immediately responded, “It wasn’t me. It was Susie!” Tired of this constant denial of misbehavior, I began to scold this child when it dawned on me that this was exactly like the poem we were reading. I’m sure the children thought I had lost my mind when I said, “ And this is just like our poem!” I was on a roll by then waving my arms and talking loudly. Boy, I had everyone’s attention. I reread the lines of the poem and said, “Billy said, “ I didn’t do it and I saw him do it. I know he did it. Who do you think did all those things in the poem? “ Almost every hand is waving. “The poet did it.” “Yeesss!,” I said. “And why did Billy say that he didn’t do it when he really did it?” More waving hands. “Because Billy didn’t want to get in trouble!” “Right again,” I said. “So... why did the poet say that his sister did it?” “He didn’t want to get in trouble!” It was a breakthrough. Amazing. The student that was driving me crazy was what I desperately needed to help the class make the connections they needed to understand the poem. Never underestimate the power of a teachable moment!

Smoke Alarm

The smoke alarm is chirping at me. I’m guessing that I need to replace the battery. What is it about me and batteries lately? The difficult thing is that I am not sure which smoke alarm is making the noise. Hopefully, I can find the right one before bedtime which is rapidly approaching. I certainly don’t live in a mansion so it should not be too difficult. I wish it were an easier process. I suppose that they need to be attached to the ceiling because smoke rises. This poses a particular problem for short people. I will need to drag a chair over under the alarm, climb up and take down the alarm housing. Replacing the batteries is usually not too difficult as long as there are some in the drawer. Otherwise, it will require a trip to the store tomorrow. I am not going back out tonight. The toughest part is reattaching the alarm to the ceiling. It never seems to go back up as easily as it comes down. I guess I better go deal with it.

Tech Stuff

This afternoon I attended a School District Technology meeting. We have these every other month. It is the job of the building facilitators to take the information back to the building staff. I usually distribute the information through email. The hardest part is weeding through the information and trying to provide the information that is the most pertinent to our staff. Not too much. Not too little. And try to make the use of technology look appealing.

District Tech Notes - March 2009

* iSummer classes: information will be distributed soon. Plans are for the week of June 8th and 15th (4 day sessions).

*  Tech Help:  Add problems to the online tech notebook and email techhelp@springfield.k12.il.us Sam, our new technician, will be in the building on March 18.

*  Backup: 250 GB Hard drives ($65) are available from Linda.

* SmartBoard: We saw a presentation on SmartBoards. A projector is needed.

* Video:  Congratulations Becky and Julie T.! We watched part of a 3rd grade book talk and looked at a 1st grade poetry fluency page. Both are on the web. It is possible to place multiple videos on a project page, but be conscious of the amount of space required. Is a CD/DVD a better option? Think about a tripod and how to get the best sound when making videos.

* Learn 360: This site has educational video clips. You can try it out free for 30 days.  http://www.learn360.com

* Funding:  Check out the Instructional Tech web page for suggestions for funding.

* Thinkfinity/World Book/netTrekker: These sites are linked from our library page. They are great resources.

* iPod Touch: This page has many classroom resources/ideas for the iPod touch.

* Google Forms: Think about surveys, quizzes, etc... More information is available here.

Happy Computing!
Amy

Dinosaur Poster Rubric

My Slice of Life for March 3. See the Two Writing Teachers Blog for more information.









I just finished writing a rubric for the dinosaur project that most of the students completed last week. Yes - I know that I should complete the rubric first and share it with the students. I certainly shared all the elements with the students, but they did not have the requirements on a piece of paper. I decided that I needed a piece of paper to help share my thoughts with their parents. This is actually the first year that the students each made a poster. Previously, it was a project developed to focus on research, cooperative skills, speaking skills and multiple intelligences. Each group worked together to make a poster. As requirements changed, the project evolved. Now research skills are a different assessment whereas they used to be included with the writing assessments. A teacher must always be flexible.

Moving Mom

My Slice of Life for March 2. See the Two Writing Teachers Blog for more information.

Today, I took lunch to my parents since I was unable to get there yesterday. Soup for mom since that is about all she can swallow at this point and chicken fingers and potato wedges for dad and me. Later in the afternoon, they decided to try getting mom up and into the wheelchair. (A little background: My mom has multiple sclerosis. She has spent time in and out of the hospital since August when she went in a couple of days before school started. This round has been particularly aggressive leaving her mostly bedridden without the use of any limbs.) Moving from the bed to the wheelchair requires the use of a lift and sling. The lift makes the move easier on the patient and caregiver even though it looks like some kind of torture device. We got the sling under mom and the sling attached to the lift. The lift is then pumped up to raise the patient from the bed. Then the lift is pulled away from the bed and positioned over the wheelchair. The patient is lowered into the chair. This went pretty well except for the problem of mom’s inability to hold up her head. It is a much easier process with two people. Once we had her up and in the wheelchair, she decided that she was ready to go back to bed! So we reversed the process and did it all over again. It is certainly difficult to lose the ability to do things for yourself and also difficult to become a full time caregiver. I am extremely thankful that my dad is able to do this for mom and I try to help out and make things easier as often as possible.

Here is a video of a Hoyer Lift in operation. Mom's lift is a little different. She only has two places to attach on each side instead of 3.

Jose Picardo's I Teach Video

I found the following video from Jose Picardo's Box of Tricks at Free Tech for Teachers. It makes me think about how I teach and why I teach the way that I do.


I teach, therefore you learn... or do you? from José Picardo on Vimeo.

Car Blues...

Here is my first Slice of Life Story Challenge post.

Dressed, packed and ready, I tippy-tapped out the door in my church shoes, threw my bags in the car, climbed in and stuck in the key. I turned the key, but instead of the expected hum of the engine, all I heard was a click - click - click noise. “This is not good”, I thought. I tried again. Blinking lights and click - click - click. I just replaced the battery about a week ago and this seems strangely similar. So I climbed out of the car, went inside and called my dad for two reasons. First, to let him know that I won’t be out for church, dinner and to get the paper and second, to ask advice. Usually, my dad is the one to come to my rescue, but as my mom is now too sick to leave alone, I have to rely on other resources. So, here I am stuck at home probably until tomorrow.

On the bright side, I don’t have any jobs at church this morning. I don’t have to work tomorrow due to the Casimir Pulaski holiday. This gave me some material for my first Slice of Life post, but I hope all the days of March aren’t like this!

Day in a Sentence

On this three day weekend celebrating Casimir Pulaski, I am appreciating an extra day for catching up.

Check out this week's Day in a Sentence challenge at Kevin's Meandering Mind .

Slice of Life Story Challenge 2009

Stacey and Ruth at Two Writing Teachers are hosting the 2nd Slice of Life Story Challenge. The challenge is to write about a slice of each day in March. I would like to give it a try. I will see if I can squeeze a few more writing moments into 31 days. Maybe it will help daily writing to become a habit.