Leap Day

Ever tried to explain leap year to third graders?

I showed them a Mystery Science video about it on Monday that did a pretty good job of explaining.  I had a few students say, "I still don't get it."

I will try again today.

But if they don't get it?  Not the end of the world.  In four years maybe their teacher can try again.

One year I was in London on leap day and the next leap day I was in Palm Desert and I decided I should go somewhere wonderful every leap day.  

Today I'm going to school.  

It is no London or Palm Desert (Palm Desert in February is my love language), but it is pretty wonderful.

Yesterday we went to library.  

Before going, a student asked me to write Bible on a piece of paper.  He said, "I want to see if they have it in the library."

I wrote it down.  He couldn't find it.  I asked the librarian if she had the Bible in her library.  She said no but directed me to books on religion (the 200s in the Dewey Decimal system).

He picked a book on world religions.

He came up to me after a few minutes, "What's this word, Teacher?"

"Israelite."

"What's that?"

I asked him if he'd ever heard of Joseph and his coat of many colors.  He hadn't.

I gave him a very brief description.  Jacob had 12 sons.  His name was changed to Israel, so then all his family, all those sons and their families, were called Israelites.

He said, "Wow," and went back to reading.

I had SO MUCH else I wanted to tell him, but I could not.  Hopefully he will keep on his religious search until he finds truth.

After I finished talking to him, a girl came up to me, "Teacher!  I have a would you rather question for you!"

She had a mischievous look on her face and read from her book:  would you rather ride the world's fastest roller coaster or one with lots of loops.

I said, "Neither!" and she laughed because they all know I'm afraid of roller coasters.  She said I had to pick one so I picked the fast one.  She looked so satisfied with herself and her ability to know her teacher that it delighted me.

While I sat in the library, I graded informational essays they had recently written.  They were supposed to write about a hobby or sport they love.  A boy wrote about digging a hole.  It was perfect with a topic sentence, facts and transitions and a concluding sentence.  About digging a hole.

“Secondly, holes can be very useful.  You could turn it into a place to store water balloons.”

After lunch, I read aloud to them and it is my favorite part of the day.  I am reading Beezus and Ramona and I'm going to keep reading Ramona books until I run out of time for the school year.

I love those books.  Part of the reason I love them so much is because my students love them so much.

My boy who had a come apart the previous day and who daily tells me how much he hates math, me, the school, our class, everything, said, "This book is awesome!"

It is.  Beverly Cleary is magic.

These are the days

These are the days of wild temperature swings.  It was in the low 60s for a few days and then yesterday was freezing.  I had recess duty and I told them to bring their coats (it was 90 minutes since they came to school and complained about how cold they were, long enough that they needed to be reminded it was cold).  One boy insisted he wouldn't be cold and I insisted he would and he finally grumbled, "Fine, I'll take a sweater."

He grabbed his hoodie.

Once outside, the kids all told me it was SO cold.  It was.  They told me 2nd grade had gone inside.  I checked my phone.  14 degrees with the wind chill.

I blew my whistle.  Inside recess.

These are the days of wild mood swings.  I was telling Jamie during art how great one of my students had been--very willing to work.  Then a girl came and told me the substitute in art needed me.

This same student was having a complete come apart.  Banging things and yelling.  He swung at me, but I dodged it.  (Am I an athlete? No.) I got him to leave the room with me. We went to my room and he threw a chair then he went to a corner and kind of settled himself down and I talked to him in soothing tones.  

Sometimes that is all I've got.

These are the days of heartbreaking news.  One of Miriam's students is a pawn in a custody battle.  She came to my room and asked if there was anything she could do.  I said, "We want to drive over there and take the student ourselves, but we can't.  There's nothing we can do."

It is so sad.

Speaking of futility....These are the days of trying to figure out how to help ease Adam's burden.  I think work is the biggest thing right now and I've got nothing.  I can make sure the kitchen is clean when he gets home?

These are the days of trying to communicate.  My new student is struggling.  I'm struggling.  Google translate is inadequate.  We were doing grammar and one of my ML students was arguing with another one over whether or not the past tense of go was goed or went.  I said it was went and the native English speaker laughed a little and the ML got tears in his big brown eyes and I told him to say the sentence in Spanish.  I said, "There's no way I can do that.  You're amazing!"

Another ML was writing about her favorite sport.  She is so whip smart and great at English because she is constantly asking clarifying questions.  She said, "What is that thing when you are playing soccer and you try to get it in there to score.  What is that called?"

I said, "Goal?"

She said, "Really?  In English?"

Hurray for words that mean the same thing in both languages!

These are the days of poetry.  We are reading poetry for literacy this week and I love it.  Judith Viorst!  Shel Silverstein!  Robert Louise Stevenson! Christina Rossetti!  (None of those were in the curriculum, I just brought a bunch of stuff to add.  Also some of my favorite picture books are poems, so I had a happy read aloud bonanza.)

These are the days.

Tiny joys

At the end of Adam's (seriously) packed day Sunday, the sister missionaries came over to talk to him/us.  The Orem mission is very unique!  They serve 17 wards and scramble to get to know the bishops and meet whatever needs they can.  We had a nice visit with them; they seem like really good missionaries.  They shook Adam's hand at the end and gave an earnest, "Thank you, Bishop!" which still sounds strange to our ears.  They looked at me and said, "We can hug."

I said, "Sure!" and they each gave me a big hug and I'd like to think that I was proxy for their moms who I am sure would like to hug them.  It made me happy.

Speaking of hugs, one of my little students who is a poster child for jovial charisma walks behind me when I'm sitting at my desk sometimes and says, "Sneak attack!" and throws his arms around me.

Other times he will walk up to me and say, "Hug!" and put his arms around my waist.  He is a hugger.

***

Mark was sick on Sunday, but he came over for dinner last night and we were glad to have him.

***

It is light when I drive to work and light when I drive home and I love changing seasons.  

***

Adam read a book to me and it was so bad it was good.  It reminded me of the cheesy Christmas movies Emma and I love to hate.  It wasn't a romance, it was a murder mystery, but it was just so bad.  We'd stop and talk about how dumb it was and then keep going.  

We couldn't look away.

I like Adam.

***

I had physical therapy and he is lengthening the time between visits.  I can't sing the praises of physical therapy enough.

***

Yesterday we had the 3rd grade spelling bee.  The top three from each class competed.  There were tears.  It is really good for those kids though, the high achieving kids, to be challenged.  It's good for them to lose and realize the world won't stop spinning.

***

Also, we met with our reading specialist after school and our students are improving!  It is so exciting! 

Now, if we could just master fractions....

***

Our neighbors, Kim and Rod stopped by last night with a plate of cookies for us.  I invited them in.  They said, "We don't have time."

Adam came to the door and said to Kim, who is the primary president, "Come in.  I need to talk to you."

So they came in and sat in the living room and Adam and Kim chatted and then when they got up to leave, I said, "Before you can leave, we have to set up a time to go to dinner together."

We finally let them escape.

Be cautious when you take the Davises cookies is the takeaway.  

We do have good neighbors.

Making me feel loved

Yesterday in Relief Society, the teacher asked us what our parents or children or spouses do to make us feel loved.

I didn't answer, but I thought about it for the rest of the day.

There are the universal ways that families show love that I think most grateful people can acknowledge:  service and affection and trust and loyalty.

I love the very unique ways my people show me love too though.

My mom knows by the tone of my hello on the phone if I'm OK or not.

My dad is an ever ready man of solutions and he also calls me Patty Punkety.

Braeden understands me like very few people do.  Sometimes when I am talking about some situation that maybe isn't even about me, he can tell I feel stressed and asks, "But how are you feeling about it?"

Emma bought me a book the other day because she had read it and it had "caught her by the throat" so she wanted me to read it too.  I love when Emma gives me advice and when she shares her creativity with me.

Mark tightens the kitchen chairs whenever he notices the slightest wobble.  When he is home and hears the garage door, he comes outside to see if I need help carrying anything.  

All our children know exactly how to make me laugh.

Whenever I want to go somewhere, Adam wants to go with me.  Even if he just got home.  He knows being with him makes me happy.

The next question was how do you show love to them.  

I've been thinking about that too.  I could do more.

Grateful Friday

Hello from the fraction trenches.  We are in deep.  After a lesson that didn't go well, I plopped myself down in a chair across from Jamie's desk and we talked it out.  She gave me an idea to have the students compare different representations of fractions on number lines and see which was correct.  The comparing makes them think more critically.

I devised an assignment with 5 questions and had random answers correct.  I randomly assigned which of my kids answered which way.

My students were SUPER engaged.  They were delighted to report back to me which of my kids are good at fractions.

One of them said, "I think Braeden needs to go to summer school."

Since Braeden just officially became a PhD candidate and he's preparing to teach a college course next quarter, I think he's a bit busy for summer school, but maybe he can squeeze it in....

I was grateful for the idea.  I need all the help I can get in so many ways to mix it up and add interest and opportunities for them to discuss.  

The opportunity to create the lesson plan, the angle, the how can I get through to them is so exciting to me.

Yesterday I read them the book, The Magical Power of Yet.

I'm grateful that just like them, I get to keep trying.  

Sigh

Oh, we've got mean girls.  

Yesterday a ring of them were giving away trinkets to certain girls and making other girls buy them.

There were hurt feelings.  Some girls respond by being sad and some girls respond by being really nasty back.

It's a lot of fun.

I sat them down and told them a story of my very own mean girl cousin experiences from my childhood.  They gasped.  (Do you recognize yourself?!?  Because I do.)

I am going to keep beating the drum of don't let the mean girls have your power.  The best thing to do for a mean girl is walk away.

Why would you want to be friends with them anyway?  I ask that question.  A lot.

Because you can't control anyone else, just yourself.

We have the Wellness Room.  Students can request to go if they need a ten minute reset/ they are feeling upset for whatever reason.  The idea is that they can't really learn when they are amped up emotionally, so letting them reset gets them back to learning.  I usually have a pretty high bar to going to the Wellness Room.  If someone asks to go, I ask why.  I try to see if they can do something to feel better and still stay in class.  When they can't, I let them go to the Wellness Room.

Yesterday I had a record three girls go to the Wellness Room for the following reasons:  fractions, an upcoming dentist appointment and a broken hair tie.

None of these problems were things that could be resolved or cajoled or dealt with in any other way.

The handful of boys in my classroom mostly stay to themselves and rejoice that they are not girls.

I don't blame them.

Monday/Tuesday

It was a Monday/Tuesday back at school after a long weekend.

One of my students came in mad.  He threw a chair and tried to hit a kid and was so impossible to console that the special ed. aide who I had called, called the office.

Matt came in smiling and said, "Don't you think he feels the way we all feel this morning?"

He talked the student into coming out from under his desk and joining the group.

Later, my student reverted to the same behavior.  This time Matt took him away for a little while.

Welcome back to school.

During math, my students were sitting on the rug and I noticed one girl sobbing, her shoulders heaving up and down.

"What is wrong?!?"

"My tooth is bleeding!"

I had her show me.  She had a loose tooth and one small drop of blood on her finger.  I instructed her to  go get a Kleenex and said her tooth would probably come out soon.  She got a Kleenex but kept crying so loudly that everyone kept looking at her and when I am at the whiteboard pontificating about fractions, I want to be the center of attention. 

I sent her to her desk.

I hope she gets it together before she embarks on childbirth someday.

Later in the morning we were sitting and reading about the Wright brothers and heard a loud crack and one of the wall panels separating my room from Miriam's fell towards my room about 3/4 of an inch.  It was...alarming.

There is a fairly heavy shelf on my side that houses their cubbies and hopefully that will help keep the wall up.

I saw Riley later.  He saw me coming and I must have had a look on my face.  "Did someone throw up?"

I said, "No, but my wall is falling down."

He said, "That's a new one."

And considering where he works "a new one" is a pretty rare occurrence.

So my day was a little crazy, but also, not that unusual.  It was good to be back.

After school, Adam and Braeden and Geri and QE stopped by so I could show her off to all my friends.  They were kind and long suffering just like they are every time I show them her latest picture.  Jamie was in my room and when QE pulled the book Madeline off the shelf and said, "Madeline!" Jamie was impressed.  

When QE grabbed another book and said, "Madeline and the Bad Hat," Jamie was even more impressed.  The girl loves books!

We went to UVU and met up with Mark and he gave us a tour.  Sweet QE hadn't had her nap and she was a good little soldier.  We were all exhausted so Adam picked up Thai food and we had it at our house.  (Except Adam.  He went to the church for meetings.)

Emma came for dinner.  They convinced me to play a round of Qwixx after dinner even though I was tired and ready for bed.  I won so it was worth staying up for.

Emma had come on Saturday, Sunday and Monday also.  When she left she said, "As much as I love seeing you, I will be glad not to drive here from Salt Lake tomorrow."

All good things must come to an end.

And I'm off to school to see if I have a wall.