A Busy Birthday

Mr. C had a busy day today. Up at 4:30 to go to Oak Ridge for a regatta. They did extremely well in their flight, which was a very close race.

He also got to spend the day with M. Speaking of M, she'll be home for the summer next weekend! 

Mr. C's birthday present was a mountain bike that his dad gave him a couple of weeks ago. It's hard to believe my "baby" is 14!

New Life

Here is Granny and Grandpa's old loveseat in its new upholstery. It is very snazzy now and you can sit on it without falling through because all the insides were replaced too. 

Thanks for my birthday present Mom!

Spring Break

It has been a bit wet and quite windy, but it is great to be able to step out of real life for awhile. 

While I'm stuck inside, warming up with a cup of tea and watching the white caps on the Atlantic from my hotel window, I figured out how to blog on my phone. Enjoy the view from yesterday.

The Answer is 42

The question is: What is the best year of your life? haha! Great movie.

BUILDING THE MACHINE - The Common Core Documentary

This documentary is 39 minutes, just so you know before you decide to watch. It does a good job of giving background on how the Common Core came to be.

 I think that there should be another documentary made about what the Common Core looks like in the classroom. I can not vouch for the secondary grades. From this documentary, it sounds like classes are being dumbed-down so that students can be both college and career ready simultaneously. I can give examples of what Common Core looks like in the primary classroom. I know that my students are usually given a day or two of concrete math instruction, with manipulatives, before being expected to internalize math concepts and perform on an abstract level and provide reasoning, usually in written form, to justify their strategies. I know that my first graders are expected to read a sentence such as, "Dan is going fishing with his dad." and then answer a question such as, "In the sentence, which word is a possessive pronoun? A)Dan B)fishing C)his D)dad".

Teaching has evolved into scripted lesson plans. I have to write lessons that actually state, "Yesterday I taught you... Today I am going to teach you..." and I have to write out what words I will say during a lesson. When I began teaching, I wrote a weekly lesson plan that outlined all the subjects I would teach over the course of the week. It had boxes for each subject, or time period, and I would write "TSWBAT count objects using one-to-one correspondence". Enough said. I used my brain to teach the children, I didn't hold my lesson plans up in front of them and read from my pre-planned script: "Students, today I am going to teach you to count these colorful, plastic teddy bears. Do you remember when we sorted our teddy bears by colors yesterday? (Students will respond: Yes!) Good! Today we will sort our teddy bears and then I will teach you how to count them using one-to-one correspondence. I want you all to repeat our new academic vocabulary: one-to-one correspondence. (Students will respond: one-to-one correspondence!) We will see how many bears we have of each color. Are you ready to learn? (Students will respond by displaying 'Ready to Learn Behavior': frog eyes, elephant ears, and quiet as a mouse.)" This is just scratching the surface.

*TSWBAT= The students will be able to

March

I just realized that I haven't posted anything on here in over a month. So here goes for March.

The weather has been crazy here this winter. Last Tuesday we had snow for about 3 hours, with the sun shining the whole time. It also never dropped below 40. I guess the wind chill was just that low. Strange. Anyway...during the snow, Mr. C decided he wanted brats on the grill. Since he's the only kid left at home there are a lot of dinners that are "fend for yourself". He fends very well. I think I had frozen waffles that night. I don't fend as well.

We are into the spring rowing season. Last weekend we traveled down to Lake Lanier for a regatta. There was a 19 mph headwind, rain off and on, and basically not great rowing conditions. I won't go into details of how Mr. C's boat fared.

Hubby has lost 20 pounds since the start of the year. No pictures, but he looks great and hopefully a lot more healthy. I am very proud of him and wish that I had as much will power.

Work is so-so. Lots of stuff going on there. I am seriously considering trying to get out of public education and going to a private school. I'm going to observe at one over spring break. There are a lot of factors to consider. Although I don't make boatloads of money, I do get a 25% discount on M's tuition at UT. I would have to give that up if I leave the public schools. Right now I am so upset about Common Core and assessments that I think it would be worth it to leave. I wish that the whole Common Core/testing culture would fade away and common sense would make a comeback.

Stress relief. I used to read, but lately I've turned to TV. I hardly ever have shows that I "have to" watch. However, right now I have a few that I need to, just to take my mind off of real life. We are one of the few families who don't have cable and the plethora of options for recording multiple shows. As antenna TV watchers we have to watch when shows are on, or when offered on the internet. It took some planning but I was able to watch Once Upon a Time, Cosmos, and Call the Midwife this week. Ahhh, sweet TV bliss.

33 days until summer vacation!!!!!

Here Comes Spring!

For all you Hoosier folks, spring is on the way! At least here in Tennessee. Hopefully yours is not far behind! (Of course the weather people are calling for a wintry mix on Wednesday, but let's enjoy today.)

Check out the temp on the way home from the store today!

Last year only one of these bloomed, but today I have six!

It has been a fantastic weekend! We drove down to Auburn to see Smarty on Saturday. It is full-on spring there. We went out to eat lunch and then walked to Toomer's Drug Store for some fresh-squeezed lemonade (you have to try it it you're ever in town) and then walked around in the glorious weather. When we got home we found that Marvelous had hitched a ride to Chattanooga and was there for the night. We had steak on the grill for lunch and then went to get ice cream and walk around the park this afternoon, before Hubby drove her back to school. So excited to see both my girls in one weekend!