Humming along

 I dreamt all night about teaching math.  As good as my class is this year at reading, it is not the same story with math!  I had tried several versions of a three digit with regrouping addition quiz with lots of reteaching and practice in between and I could not get to mastery with my students.

Also, in my dream, I knew that there was a magical way to teach math, but it was just out of my reach.

All night long.

Yesterday I tried again and they finally got it!  

Yipee!

I am also happy that every day, we are sliding more and more into a routine.  They are understanding my systems and things are humming.

After school we had a faculty meeting and we are starting collective efficacy groups.  We were assigned and as I sat with my group, I was pleased with who I was assigned to.  Lacey sat down and said, "This is a good group."

Emily sat down and said, "I am happy to see the faces in this group."

So we have that going for us.

(Oaklee said she hates fighting and I promised her we wouldn't fight.) 

Before we met with our groups, we had a very intense discussion about boundary changes and school closures.

At the end of the discussion, Matt said, "Are there any more questions?"

I said, "This seems kind of anticlimactic after school closures, but I have a question about RIDER tickets.  (Our school-wide behavior system.)

Every teacher has been asking each other about it and I said I would ask at the meeting.  

I am one of the oldest teachers so I am motherly towards them and also not afraid to raise my hand and ask a question.

We got our answer and my group talked about our collective efficacy.  I made it back into my classroom with enough time to get handwriting sorted and to have our IT guy come and fix a broken computer. 

After dinner, I went with Adam to a park for disc golf with the youth.  If you think I played disc golf, have we met?  But I walked around and chatted and it was a beautiful evening.

Adam and I both thought the park reminded us of "spaceship park" in Connecticut (named by preschooler, Braeden).  It is in American Fork, but the tall trees block the mountains and that rarely happens around here.  Usually, the mountains are the backdrop, full stop.

I love living in a beautiful place and I love this less surface of the sun, but still nice and warm time of year.

This is all to say, it was a good day.

Compare and contrast

 Since I have a one line a day journal, I know that last year on this day, I was still waiting to get my PET scan and surgery scheduled.  I was a mess emotionally and I didn't feel well.

Things are, gratefully, so different this year health wise.  I am not cured, but I am better and don't have anything scary hanging over me.

Last year, I mostly sat on the Buddy Bench during recess duty because I was so tired.  Now I walk around and chat and break up fights and tell them to stay away from the bees.

My class is different too.  Last year was a refiner's fire I guess because it was the school year of not fun things.

Last year, when I was walking my class down the hall, it seemed like the loud circus was in town.  This year, my class follows me down the hall like a little silent row of ducklings.  They are just...civilized.  

Last year my kiva was constantly getting knocked around and I was constantly adjusting it.  This year it just stays in its spot.

Last year, when I would ask the specialty teachers how my class had behaved, they would give me an exasperated, "Not well."  This year, they say things like, "Excellent!" and "They were great!"

Last year, I had a student who was nonverbal, a student who spoke no English, several boys who were wild and raucous.  I had major behavior problems.  I had lots of kids who couldn't read much of anything.

Yesterday, I had them read their story aloud and I went around and listened in.  They were all just dutifully sitting there...and reading.

I don't even know what to think about that.  

Last year we had wild temperature swings.  Sometimes it was so hot and miserable.  Now it is cold.  Still miserable, but different.

Eventually, hopefully, they will get it fixed and I think I will be sitting pretty.

I take it back

 For years we've been saying at school that we would rather have our rooms too cold than too hot.  We've been saying you can always put on a layer.

OK.

I was freezing yesterday.  

My classroom was 62 degrees when I got there in the morning and warmed all the way up to 67 by the end of the day.  That doesn't sound too terrible, except I wore sandals! (It was in the 80s outside and I had recess duty.)

I had a cardigan, but I was cold.

Our AC is fixed and (obviously) working really well.

What isn't working is the regulator.  It is just on.  And cold.

Guess who is wearing socks and shoes and taking a jacket today?  

Weekend

 For the second Friday in a row, I got sleep.  I went to bed fully at 8:00 which was my bedtime in elementary school and slept 10 1/2 hours.

Glorious.

Also glorious: some rainy weather.  I took a few pictures of the sky on Saturday.

We met up with Emma at Deseret Book in American Fork, because I had offered to buy her new temple clothes.  Her car was broken into last summer and her temple bag was stolen.  We interacted with two different ladies at Deseret Book and it was a wild time.  One of the ladies was super excited because she thought Emma was a new temple patron.  We let her down gently that her clothes had just been stolen.  Then the woman was horrified.  She was practically reeling from the atrocity.  She finally asked Emma where she had been when it had happened and Emma said, "I live in Salt Lake City.  It happened there."

This woman said, "Oh!  That's good!"

(In other words, Utah County = still safe.)

The other woman reminded me of Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest.  At one point, Lady Bracknell says, "To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness."

This second woman looked at Emma and asked, "How were your clothes stolen?!?"

The ladies at Deseret Book are always a little scary.  First they greet you with such energy and then you seem to disappoint them every item you don't buy.

We went to lunch to celebrate making it out of Deseret Book.

I had Adam help me hang this picture:

This frame had been in my grandma's house.  She had pictures of "her missionaries" in it, grandchildren on missions (and one of my parents when they were in Nauvoo).  Since there were eight holes for pictures, I bought these maps of the eight places where we have lived. (We don't exactly live in Starr Valley, but sometimes.)

The frame is really heavy and of high quality, because it was my grandma's.  I usually find the cheapest frame I can find.  Here's hoping it stays afloat.

We had a nice Sunday.  Church and family history--part of the time I was preparing for our family reunion where we are each presenting about an ancestor.

Emma came over and we had dinner and Come Follow Me and took a walk.  She sang us part of a new song she is writing and Mark played a song for her that he had listened to recently.  We played a few hands of golf.

Sundays are good.

Today it is back at it.  Adam is home all week!  I am looking forward to that.

Grateful Friday

 Yesterday I was driving to work and got a phone call from Whitney.  She said, "No one died."

I didn't know how to respond to that.

She said, "I know it's early for you, so I don't want you to think anything is wrong because I am calling so early."

Then she explained that she was at Costco (in Atlanta, where she lives) and they had Esprit sweatshirts.  Did I want one?  Because she would buy me one and ship it to me. (She was there to witness the angst of me not being able to get one when we were in Washington in July.)

It was just the nicest thing and I said, "Absolutely!"

I am grateful for people that think of me and act on their kind impulses.

I am grateful for the torrential rain we had yesterday afternoon.  Monsoon season is a good time.  And we need it!

I am grateful Adam is home.  I wish he was home all the time, but at this point, I will take what I can get.

I had a student gift me with a book she had written (about her hamster).  A boy said he wanted to write a book too, but he didn't have any paper at home.  I gave him paper.  He wanted to do it at school and I told him that he could, when his work was done.  He kept doing everything except his work.  

Then he would cry when we would transition to something else and he didn't have time to work on his book.

Finally at the end of the day, there was a block of time that he was finished with his work and I told him he could write his book.  He had me staple it to his specifications.  I had to hear all about his pencil sharpener.  (I can't tell you how much I have heard about his pencil sharpener over the last week.  A loooooot.)  He finally got situated and said, "Hmmm.  It's actually hard to write a book."

He wrote about three words before time to clean up for the day.  I coaxed him to take his "book" home to work on.

Despite the sort of maddening characteristics of these people, I really love third graders.  I am grateful I get to be with them.

Speaking of third grade.  We had our first fire drill of the year yesterday.  One little girl is terrified of fire alarms.  Terrified!  She was in the special ed. room at the time, but the teacher told me she started crying and shaking and yelling, "I need Jesus!"

Same.

We all do and I'm grateful for the reminder.

And that's how wacky Wednesday began

 Yesterday my document camera was displaying my screen like a keystone.  It's a problem that I kind of know how to fix and kind of don't know how to fix.  I got one side going straight, but I couldn't get the other one straight.  Miriam suggested resetting the whole thing.

Then it was upside down.

(The bell is there because every day, one of the class jobs is to pick a picture to draw by their name.  It weirdly helps them to remember to put their name on the paper.  The student picked a bell and some of them didn't know how to draw a bell, so I put a bell on the board.  Like you do.)

During my lunchtime I plied Google for answers about my document camera and everything was for document cameras that are much newer than mine.  

I finally went to find Riley.  Staying in the custodian's good graces is the best advice I could ever give a teacher. 

He said, "Oh, yeah, that's an easy fix."

But then he struggled a bit to read upside down and I can read upside down easily--a skill honed by helping students at my desk.  Between the two of us, we figured it out.

Before I rest on my laurels too much, here is another thing to attend to....

Highs and lows

The lows:

I woke up feeling anxious.  No reason.  

I came home with a sore throat.  Too much talking.

I went to Walmart on the way home from school and I don't know if there is a worse time to go to Walmart (so busy) or a worse mood to take to Walmart (stick a fork in me and I am done after school).

Mark is sick.  We don't know if he was glutened or what.  He doesn't feel like eating and his blood sugar has been all over the map.  It is wearying to helplessly witness his health struggles.

Dolly Parton passed away.  I don't know if I have ever felt more sad at the passing of someone who 1) I didn't know or 2) isn't a church leader I have loved listening to for years.  I broke the news to my team while we were meeting, because Mark had texted the news.  They were stunned and sad as well.  What a legend!

I had two new students yesterday and I struggled to catch them up while I'm still trying to move everyone along as well.  I had them water color painting their self portraits at my desk while everyone else was doing other stuff and everyone needed me at the same time.  One of the painters spilled his entire cup of water on my desk and guess who is out of paper towels?  (I have put in a custodial request, but here we are.)

The highs:

Kim is back from her vacation and we are going to resume walking today.  I need it!

Every day, no matter what the day throws at me, I have a safe comfortable place to come home to.

Adam isn't halfway around the world, just across the country--makes talking easier.

Megan (the ILC coach) helped me get my students logged into their computers for the first time.

Fuji Apple Clear soda from Walmart is almost worth going to Walmart.  So good!

We had a very productive team meeting yesterday.  It was long and we were scattered all over the place, but at the end, we reached some actual clarity about things that had been percolating in our brains.  Alissa said, "Good sesh."

She wasn't wrong.

Finally, it turns out you can find something on Amazon to help you display the silver mounted bits your dad made you.