Mail

                                  

You can tell a lot about what demographic you fit in just by looking at the mail. Eric gets bills and offers to purchase/change insurance. Madeleine gets the LLBean catalog, thanks to her recent duck boot purchase. Mercedes gets tons of offers for credit cards. And I get the Viking Cruises catalog. (Occasionally Caleb will get mail from USRowing.)

If you are lucky, you will be getting something in the mail from me in the near future (Merry Christmas!).

I never have anything of substance to write about so I might just start posting random thoughts to fill this blog. Looking back, it was one of my resolutions to post more this year. Failing that a bit.

Writing Class

You know writing is one of my favorite times of the day. Here are a couple of nuggets, giving a little insight into my students' family relationships. This first one is by a little brother of one of my former students, who also features prominently in the story.

I went to get some ice cream. It fell. "Not cool, dude."

My brother laughed. I punched him. That is what you get for doing that.

He got mad. He punched me back. I did not care. "I don't like you." "Don't care."

And then he added another page, because Mrs. Fox said we really should end on a happier note.

I like you. I like you too. "Love."

This is from another student's story about going to a parade with his dad. Subsequent pages detail how bad he had to go to the bathroom, that he was jumping up and down. Great literature here.

Student: Come on, I want to go home. Dad: Be quiet, I can not hear.

We are now writing All-About books and one of the boys has written an awesome book about bats. I'm glad I don't have to teach more technical writing. My goal is to get capital letters at the beginning of sentences, punctuation at the end, spelling, and handwriting. You can see I have a lot of ground to cover.

A Temporary Cook

                         

It is wonderful having the self-proclaimed "most highly favored" child home on fall break. She had a huge pot of chili waiting when I got home after a typically hectic day. Yum!

This is Pretty Accurate

A Question

I'm leading with this photo of the Chickamauga Battlefield because it was such a peaceful place to visit a couple of weeks ago. We drove down in the evening and it was bathed in this wonderful fading light. It was impossible to imagine the fighting and dying which took place here over a 100 years ago.

Preferred venue

Right now I feel like some aspects of my life are a huge battle. We have hit a major snag in Sadie's wedding preparations and aren't sure which direction to take. Her chosen venue was apparently managed by someone who had been taking money from couples but not paying vendors for quite awhile. The shit finally hit the fan a couple of weeks ago (sorry, not sure how else to word that) and we are now in limbo. We met with the new managers yesterday who have written up a new contract, even offering to return all our money and give us a wedding for free anywhere we want if something happens to our chosen venue before next July. We know they are not to blame for any of this, but we are still anxious about paying any more money toward a venue that could go bankrupt and leave us seeking legal action at a time that should be nothing but joyful.

Possible new venue

We are off to see another venue today. It is lovely and right on the river (and only available June 4 for all of next summer which would speed up our timeline). It would be perfect for Madeleine or Caleb, my rowing babies. But the venue that Sadie originally picked out is perfect for her. It is an old restored church, with gorgeous stained glass windows and beautiful hardwood floors. Do we compromise and go with another location that can guarantee they will be around next summer or risk it and stick with our original plan? Will any of this matter in 150 years?

Winter Workout

I do okay walking in the summer, but then school starts, the sun sets earlier and I turn into a couch potato. So I found this elliptical on Amazon and am determined to keep up with it. I've never used one before and I was surprised how quickly it got my heart rate up.

                            

Caleb put it together following the directions. I didn't like the way the handlebars stuck way out in front, forcing me to lean forward in this picture. So I took it apart and switched them so they angle back now. It feels more natural to be able to stand upright.

Another plus, now I don't feel guilty while I watch Acorn TV because I'm getting a workout at the same time!

Some Updates

Here are a few highlights of my room, which is almost ready.

The teacher table now has blue and green dry erase wall pops, which the students will use to practice writing sight words. The "bulletin board" is actually contact paper on the file cabinets. Last year I used fabric but it didn't stay put. Notice the white stripe on the wall. I painted that to cover bare concrete.

The library is now color-coordinated for fiction and non-fiction. The back door is going to be a bulletin board highlighting "Character Traits" vocabulary. When we read books, I'll put up pictures of the characters with a trait they represent. The first day we're reading "First Day Jitters" and the vocabulary word is "apprehensive". Other words they are supposed to know are confident, mischievous, clever, fickle...You get the idea. One thing that I still need for this corner is a huge tub to keep the Big Books in.

This is my listening library. I'm pretty proud of it. I have over 60 books so far and the blue basket on the shelf holds 6 mp3/headphones for the kids to use independently. Notice how all the cabinets and shelves are white? Madeleine painted them at the end of the school year while I was passing out report cards.

This is an overview of the room. I bought the little bookshelves this summer for them to keep their supplies on. I'm hoping that this will keep them organized and we won't lose/misplace notebooks and folders as much.

That wraps up the tour. Two weeks from today this will be my home for 10 months.

Data

All summer I get excited about new plans, organizing materials, and buying too many books, bins, shelves, and even mp3 players for my classroom. Summer is a magical time when teaching is all in theory, before the reality of 6 year olds who don't always follow best laid lesson plans sets in. I'll post pics of my, almost ready, classroom later.

Today I woke up to this news story which basically slams my school district's test scores. You know how I feel about tests. Yuck! What a lot of people don't know is the level at which students have to perform in order to pass the TCAP. Read the "Corresponding Quick Score" below. Although it varies from grade to grade and subject to subject, most scores require a score in the upper 80 percentile or even a 90 or 91 in some cases. How many colleges or professional organizations require such a high passing rate?

Small classes, due to rezoning, resulted in my school's scores surpassing the districts by a huge amount. Our 3rd graders math rose from 40% scoring proficient last year to 71.1% scoring proficient this year. That means that 71.1% of our 3rd graders scored at 89 or higher on their test. That is amazing to me! The heartbreak is for those students who scored in the 85-88 range, who would have been proficient under last year's cut scores, but weren't under this year's higher score requirements.

I am interested in any other state's cut score requirements for passing. Maybe 90% is normal across the country. Pass along any info in the comments below. I looked at Indiana's data and saw for 3rd grade math there were a maximum of 735 point with a pass score of 413 (56.19%) and a pass+ score of  513 (69.79%). I may be interpreting that data incorrectly, but if not then Tennessee students are being held to a much higher standard than Indiana students.

Testing sucks. There is no other way to describe it.

Row Your Boat

The kids did their annual Gorge Row with CJR this weekend. Caleb took a video of the first portion, from the boathouse to Moccasin Bend, and then put it into time lapse. The video quality is better when I play it on my computer. It didn't translate to blogger as well. The original video is about 18 minutes, this video is only a few seconds. Altogether it took them about 4 hours to row the 23 miles downstream. They had beautiful weather for it.

Unfriending

My best friend

I was a very latecomer to Facebook. I pride myself on having "friends" from the whole spectrum of humankind. However, I "unfriended" my first person today. I was very sad, because this is someone who I get along with in real life, but I am tired of my Facebook being filled up with anti-Muslim, homophobic, Confederate rhetoric. If it was presented in an intelligent way I wouldn't mind as much. But it is very offensive and, for lack of a better word, loud. I'm a little ashamed of myself for doing the unfriending without having a conversation with this person, but it isn't someone I see very much any more.

If you are my Facebook friend, know that we don't have to all see eye to eye on issues, but we do have to be respectful of one another. 

One Month

On August 13th I'll welcome my new kiddos to "what I call" first grade. (Sorry about the Miranda reference; I've been binge watching.)

                    

Summer is the time for teachers to make all kinds of rainbow and unicorn shaped ideas for the upcoming year. With these happy thoughts we buy/create/plan extravagant learning systems. Above you can see the beautiful book boxes I've bought for my kiddos. I am sure that by May 2016 they will still be just as beautiful and not covered in crayon graffiti of misspelled curse words. See how optimistic I am in the summer?

                    

I have also bought some new containers for the library. Blue boxes are nonfiction and green are fiction. The kids actual do a pretty good job of getting the books put away correctly. Looks like I'm all set to start hauling things back to school in the morning. 

Family Portraits

The kids were all home so I took the obligatory annual sibling photo.

Mitch was here too. So I got the happy couple.

And since it was Father's Day, here is one with Dad. I forgot to change the white balance inside, so the coloring is off on this one.

Some Candids

In response to Lady Jane's comment, I am adding some non-postcardish photos. Eric does a much better job of taking pictures of people, so I may add more once I get a hold of his camera.

Road Trip 2015: featuring these two

Taking pictures of the sea lions at Pier 39

Let's go to Alcatraz (we didn't). Look at the bird photobombing this shot (in the flag).

Eric took lots of people pictures

Eric at Glass Beach

Looking over a high bridge on Highway 101

North California coast

Walking out to the lighthouse. That pink blob to the right of Caleb is a dead octopus.

Eric at the lighthouse in Crescent City, CA

Roses in Portland

More roses

"Take my picture!"

Caleb has now decided he wants to climb this mountain. He has looked into mountaineering expeditions. He has a few years before he'll be able to go without a parent. And a it will take a few years to save up for such an expensive trip.

We think the mountain in the background is Mt. Baker, but not sure

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So there are some pictures with people. Sorry I'm not in them, but I was behind the camera. Hope you enjoyed these.

Road Trip 2015:Part Five, The End

I said the Redwoods were my favorite, but I guess I had two favorites because Mt. Rainier was amazing.

Madeleine is so stylish!  Welcome to Mt. Rainier

"...the most luxuriant and most extravagantly beautiful of all the alpine gardens I ever beheld in all my mountain-top wanderings." John Muir, conservationist, 1889

Hiking on the Lakes Trail

Mt. Rainier reflection. It was a little breezy so the reflection is not perfect.

This could be a postcard!

There were so many flowers along the trails. I read a sign that said the flowers bloom for 6 weeks a year. We definitely timed our visit right!

This is as high as we hiked up the mountain. This is where the snow began to overtake the trail at Glacier Vista. I never realized that there are about 20 glaciers on Mt. Rainier. Each valley you can see behind the kids is a named glacier.

This is looking down the trail we hiked up. We started below the dark trees in the middle of the photo and hiked up for one mile. It was a grueling mile, at least for the older generation!

I finally caught a bear on camera! This bear was in the Paradise area at Mt. Rainier. I was watching out the car window, down into a beautiful valley. I said, "If I was a bear, I would live in that meadow and never leave." As soon as I said that I spotted this guy! What a great ending to our trip.

Road Trip 2015: Part Four

This installment features the cities of Portland and Seattle. I wasn't too impressed with either city, but I did enjoy the natural surroundings. One important thing I learned once we crossed the state line into Oregon, is that it is illegal to pump your own gas in that state. I felt so weird, sitting in the car while an attendant filled my gas tank. It must not be illegal to pee on buildings downtown, during lunch time, right next to all the food trucks in Portland. You can use your imagination, no pictures.

Multnomah Falls just east of Portland

Portland is the City of Roses. Can you spy Mt. Hood in this photo taken from the International Rose Test Garden?

I love roses! It was about 88 degrees when we visited here. The locals were dropping like flies, schools were getting out early, but I was pretty comfortable. I wonder how they would handle our muggy 96 degrees that we're having today.

I was really impressed with this. I'm not sure everyone else cared as much. I still remember the big explosion from 1980.

The kids went up in the Space Needle. We waited at the bottom.

Pike's Market. We looked at Starbucks, but the line was long, and it was too hot to think about coffee anyway. And do you notice the blue sky? That is all we saw during our whole vacation. I was expecting gray, cold drizzle, but this was a nice surprise!