Summerrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

I have had the busiest few weeks...in the very laziest of ways. I don't know how else to describe it! My days are full of gardening, hanging out with my boys, cooking, doing endless mind-numbing chores around my (thankfully) small and manageable home, and working. Yes, working. Teachers typically work all summer. But, here's the beauty of summer work: we only work on what we WANT to work on. So summer is a time of creativity, reflection, and productive output the likes of which you cannot fathom from the whirlwind that is our gig from September to June. I am having a blast and falling in love with all things classroom once again. Soon enough the boys head off during the days for their beloved summer camp, and I'll be giving two one-week workshops at the same time. So scheduling and rushing and real work looms ahead...but for now, I'm quietly and happily puttering around in this Land of Nod between the past and the future.

A few pics from our short, oh-so-sweet romp at DisneyLand. Every year we go, and every year it is better than the last year. This time, we met my brother's kids and his ex-wife for a day and we had a blast. Can't wait to see them in a couple of weeks.

 (fyi: that IS a space mountain astronaut t-shirt my honey is wearing. LOVE)

 The new CarsLand at California Adventure is sooooo gooooood! The new Radiator Springs ride is AWESOME!!!!!!!  

Do you want to hear about how we got there at 7am, for a park that opens at 8am, to stand in line for a fast pass that opened at 9am, so that we could get on a ride that didn't even open until 11am? And do you want to hear about how, when I picked up my family set of fast passes at 9:15am, they were already for a return ride between 3:15 and 4:15? Do you want to hear about how, when I met up with the rest of my family and we strolled by that very fast pass outlet not 30 minutes later....the entire ride had 'sold out' of fast passes for the rest of the day and night? The hapless folks who didn't leave their hotels at 6:30 am to get tickets (haha! #winning! wait.) had to wait 2 hours and 10 minutes in the standby line. Because of a fluke, our kids got to ride twice (and we each rode once) during the designated hour only using two of our four fast passes (one of the kids we traveled with that day had a pretty severe disability, and had a special pass that we all got to use). So we were able to gift two of our fast passes to a man and his son, as they took their positions at the end of that line.

 Scotty was all arrrrrgh matey! on this trip. He bought (I bought him) one of those scopes after one of our many turns on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride (don't mind if we do go again, son, it is one of my favorites too!) and he was checking to see when the "pirate ship" was coming. It's actually their "Columbia" ship ride, but try telling him it wasn't a pirate ship.

Being a pirate is hard, lonely work. But well worth the sacrifices.

Challenged

I am a bit famous, in some circles, for creating materials and curriculum for teaching mathematics... and then either losing it or giving it away. I am constantly either trying to REcreate something, or, sheepishly, contacting my colleagues caretakers with short cryptic emails that begin, "Hey! Do you have a file or hard copy of the decimals/percentages unit I wrote last summer?" I have no good system for keeping track of my work life....yet. But I'm closer than ever with my new discovery (perhaps you've heard of it) called binders. Yes, binders.

Before binders, there were boxes. I brought home 6 boxes of work at the end of the school year, that I needed to organize so I wouldn't have to recreate things for my Chicago experience. The Thursday before I left, my living room looked like this:

 (Don't judge me.)

Boxes are bad for me because they hide so many sins. Duplicates, randoms, and weird objects make their way into the boxes. Further confounding me, is that I can't figure out a filing system for the boxes. I've tried file folders, but my descriptions on the tab that shows are never descriptive enough and I end up having to pull and look through every folder to find what I'm looking for. By the way, whatever I am looking for, is never in the box anyway.

By Friday night, my living room looked like this. In the binders, are several hundred plastic sleeves. The binders are by topic. Some are mathematical ideas that I think are key for the grade levels I specialize in. Some are pedagogy ideas that I think are crucial for teachers of mathematics who want to teach math in a sense-making, problem-centered way. Finally, I have one for the new Common Core Standards for Mathematics, one for professional readings I like teachers to do in the workshops (my crowning jewel! oh how I was sick of looking for and asking for and re-copying previously highlighted copies of, these readings!), and one for the tools and materials of the consulting group I work with.

In the one remaining box seen on the floor in front, I have duplicates of things that were leftovers. And in the red train case are my presenters materials, from the mundane (scissors, my favored chart pens, emergency dry erase markers, post it notes, and index cards) to the crucial (ibuprofen and safety pins, because nothing says "I have to stand up in front of 60 people today" like a migraine, a broken bra strap or a missing button).

Here is why it is so great for me to use plastic sleeves in binders: I don't have to care if they're organized, as long as they are in the proper themed binder. I can so easily flip through the sleeves that I don't have to care what order anything is in. If it's about The Number System/Place Value, it IS in that 2" space. Period. It takes 30 seconds to flip through and find what I'm looking for.

Also new for the last week I did in Chicago:  I took one empty binder and started populating it with sleeves from SEVEN other binders! A post-it note at the start of each section of sleeves told me which binders they originated from. That's why I was able to pack for 4 days of work and 3 days of play in a city 1800 miles from home in one carry on roller case and my tech backpack.  It's also why I was able to put all the materials back into their original binder in less than 6 minutes when I got home.

I started the Binders Are Delightful And Super Systematic (or BADASS) organizational technique with my classroom last year, and I can't wait to fine tune it now that I've had this break through with my math work.

I'm going to organize the shit out of this!

Home Again

Home after 7 days in Chicago. Still love that city! Now I'm doing laundry, enjoying the clean house and bountiful garden I came home to (good job, honey!), and settling back into all things home.

What I Wore :: Cardigan

BOOBS

It's allergy season and I was wearing a cardigan over my "teacher dress" (oh, yes, I assure you, there is such a thing as a "teacher dress", and it's a standard issue with your credential ;) when I noticed a tissue poking out of my sleeve. 

My Grandma Dot taught pre-school for...um....carry the one, that makes 8....a hojillion years**.  And there are a lot of tears (and boogers) in pre-school. She was never without tissue, and they were always stuck into the sleeve of her bright green cardigan, just as I have done here.

She never shared this as a "hot tip" and she never mentioned it at all really, so I was sort of surprised to look down and find that, with a muscle of memory I didn't even know I had, a tissue had found it's way into my own cardigan sleeve.

It got me to thinking about my children, and their children (or children's children) one day, and if there's anything about me that will find it's way into their bones? Like, will my great-great-grandchild love horses and cry when he steps on a snail, but not know why?

I kind of hope so.

Whenever I use the made up number of "hojillion" I am reminded of this news story, where folks were petitioning to officially call the number octillion (10 to the 27th power) "hella big". Still cracks me up.

Chi-town

The spring was a very difficult time for me. My amazing and beloved grandma's steep illness and death in May brought one of the most difficult school year's I've ever experienced to a halting and bitter close. I needed the summer to regroup and recoup. I wasn't at all sure that I would be teaching this fall, or at least, I wasn't at all sure it would be at this school, or in this district. It was an impossible situation, and I certainly didn't see this fall coming together any better than the way the spring ended.

It would be nearly impossible to explain the violence exhibited by a great portion of my students last school year. Their stories are not my stories to tell; let me just state emphatically that the kind of chaotic lives that result in 8 year olds who attack adults on campus, stand on kids' necks and try to stab them with a ruler, try to hang themselves in a garage, respond to every interaction with anger and physical aggression....it's not something I wish on anyone, let alone little kids who are still forming. You expect a handful of "behavior problems" in any class of 33. But this? This was not that. Promise. I'm not prone to hyperbole when it comes to children, either. I don't exaggerate or feel sorry for myself; I'm not out to win the Pity Olympics for What I Had To Deal With This Year. I say it with total humility and great sadness, that I don't know how much of a positive impact I was able to have, overall, when I was so worn down and so overwhelmed by the day-to-dayness of those four walls.

All that to say! I tiptoed into this summer and had several great adventures and many quiet days. I can't share them all here, of course, but I few stand out in my mind. Today's is an awesome adventure in Chicago during the last week of June. I went for work as a consultant for the non-profit organization that I work with that works with teachers on improving math instruction. I worked with an amazing group of about 80 K-8 teachers, administrators, and coaches. And I worked with one of my favorite colleagues.

It was my first visit to Chicago, and I totally and completely fell in love. I've not spent much time at all in the midwest, to be honest. Drove through it twice in my life for cross-country trips. Flew over to get to New York and the East Coast. But really? The Rockies to the Appalachians....kind of a mystery to me. Overall impression: incredibly friendly people, insane amounts of steakhouses, and Chicago is a beautiful, fun city.

I'm so spoiled to be from San Francisco, which I happen to think (with some bias) is the most beautiful, vibrant, exciting, and fun city in the country. But I have to say, Chicago was amazing. I spent two days there by myself after the rest of my colleagues went home (long story) and I fell in love.

You better believe I was going to Wrigley, no matter what! But, unbelievably, the Giants

were on a roadtrip to play the Cubbies that week! So Wednesday found us down in

Wrigley Town. It was everything you've heard, and more. It was so rowdy, and cozy, and amazing.

A "W" would have been better, I won't lie, but we got to hear the Cubbie's Song and yes,

I admit, we were humming right along on the way out. : )

 The architectural river tour is amazing. HIGHLY recommend if you get down out that way.

The Willis Tower used to the Sear Tower. There are new observation decks made completely of glass, floor, walls, ceiling. It was an amazing experience to walk out "into thin air" and hover over

downtown Chicago. Even more amazing to watch people freak out about it. Holy cow. Watching grown men and women crawl on the glass floors of the balconies? Surreal.

 I'm not a shopper (understatement) but I walked all the way down Michigan Avenue, just for people

watching purposes, and ended up down at Grant Park, the Art Institute museum, and the outdoor festival of Taste, where I sweated it out with thousands of my closest strangers, and ate ice cream

and spinach stuffed pizza. Not a bad way to spend an afternoon!

 The river that runs through the city. It's so charming there!

 I stopped to knit under The Bean in Memorial Park.

It's possible that my fabulous two days in Chicago was more attributable to the quiet of my hotel room, (where I read, soaked in a hot tub, and generally thought deep thoughts), or to the quiet dinners at Xoco and Luxe and the Greek food and the deep dish pizzas....

Maybe, afterall, I just needed a few days where I was "Mia" instead of "mama" or "maestra". A nice little palette cleanser to the end of the school year!

Keep All Sissy Soft Suckers Off My Corner*

*Run DMC ~ Is IT Live

Teaching is not for the weak.  Nor is parenting. Nor is death. All three have collided for me this week.

In perhaps the most surreal moment of my week so far, I pulled up to my mom's car at my grandma's funeral on this drizzly Monday afternoon. Her windows were up and she was mouthing something to me. I squinted at her through the glass, and it became apparent that she was trying to tell me something. 

I could juuuusssstttt make it out.  "They all think you're baked." Alright. That's.....weird.

I'm down to the next 12 hours. If I can get through the next 12 hours, I believe I will be able to say that the last 72 hours were not so bad in hindsight.

From my garden! I'm looking forward to a lot more of this. Starting soon!

Epic

During math the other day, I made a few puzzle-like items available to the students and invited them to explore a bit. Pentominoes, Tangrams, and Pattern Blocks are super fun and offer some really interesting and profound mathematics for kids to noodle on in interesting ways. I also had a box of dominoes, and thought that the kids might make some interesting connections around decomposing numbers (for example, a 7 domino may be represented as a 5 side and 2 side, or a 3 side and a 4 side, or a 1 side and a 6 side) which would be really super helpful for when I want them to do arithmetic without counting on their toes.  haha Not even kidding.


It took the dominoes group less than 15 seconds to begin a domino relay. You know what I'm talking about, right?

Do I really need to tell you how addicting these are?

The squirrels have become obsessed with making designs with the dominoes.

 This group of girls called me over every few minutes to watch the 

progression of their simple face to this fantastic vixen.

I am amazed at the level of intense focus and overall cooperation required to make a relay that 1) works and 2) stays up until you are good and ready to knock it down. 

This one minute video is a pretty accurate representation at the fascination with 

which they approach this task.

Love Notes

In a box, somewhere in my house, I know there are two treasures: a note and a card. Both are from my husband. The note was written to me in a college English class.  We did not go to college together, but when we were a-courting, he was taking a night class to finish up his degree and I, besotted and unreasonable, basically audited the class by sitting there mooning at him so we wouldn't have to spend one waking moment apart. I am a constant, attention-mongering pest when it comes to him; this was true from the moment I laid eyes on him, right up until I sat down to write this. For nearly 20 years, I've been poking at his neck and whining at him to talk to me, what are you doing, why won't you talk to me, and his response in 1992 was to drop everything and talk to me.  In 2011, his more measured response is a small smile, a 'what is it honey?', and usually a pat on my head to let me know he's about to move on to more pressing matters, like, I don't know, living his life. But in the early months of our love affair, he reluctantly wrote me a very silly, one page, passing-notes-in-class-kind-of-note, during an English class that he did not want (and I did not have) to take.

The card is a small field of pinkety-pink-pink flowers with no sentiment inside except the one line he wrote to me, the week before we were married in 1998.  What it says is between us, but I promise you, it is a love note.

I am a total sucker for a love note.  For reals. Erik has a set of love letters from me, written pages at a time, every day, from a one month return trip to my beloved Mexico that I took the summer after we started dating. This entire blog feels like a love letter to him and my boys, when the truth be known. He isn't moved to write me love letters (drats!) so I keep my treasures and gratefully accept the many tokens of affection that he does offer.

 I get dozens of love notes from my students every day. 

(I'm going to be totally honest, and tell you that some people ought not a be teaching; some people are damaged and unyielding and angry, and they should turn and walk away. It was one of the most humbling experiences of my life, when I walked into one such teacher's classroom, early in my own teaching career, to find a proliferation of love notes taped to her desk. Teachers are given such a precious gift ~ a child's heart, for a whole year, and maybe even for a lifetime ~ and these love notes are a touch of humility, a reminder of the great responsibility that goes with that precious gift.)

When I had to explain to the students first, that I needed to be gone for a couple of days because my grandma was very sick, and then, that I needed to be gone for a couple of days because my grandma had passed away, I began to receive such an influx in love notes and sympathy cards that I had to actually take some home.  There simply isn't any more space in my classroom to house the sentiments. They go from the profound ("Sorry about your grandma hope you get better so you will rember (sic) her in all your heart xoxoxoxoooxxooooxo") to the sublime (a grave, with "RIP grandma rest in heaven" splashed across the tombstone, with the words, "Get Better Soon" headlining the note). A common theme is a student and I, holding hands and or ambling companionably over hill and dale, or through a field of flowers, a bright yellow sun our constant friend. I get books (Super B!) and drawings and notes and missives.

They are treasures.

Valentine's Day...Elementary Style!

If you were to insist that there is a place on earth where one might feel more adored on St. Valentine's Day than as a teacher in an elementary school classroom, I would politely but firmly tell you that you are either crazy or a liar.  No offense.

Real roses, fake roses, chocolate roses.

Oranges and ginormous kisses.

A dozen boxes of drug store chocolates.

A helium balloon in a cardboard "flower pot".

 Nearly three dozen tiny valentines, proclaiming undying love and affection.

What could possibly be wrong with any of it?!  Hope your day was as sweet.  :)

Teacher's Pet?

Being a teacher of little kids is a lot like being a mom to little kids.  In other words, totally frustrating, completely chaotic, and often horrifying.  haha!  I am not even kidding.

One thing that comes up a lot is the idea of "favorites".  I tell both my kids they are my favorite.  And it's totally true, so I don't feel bad at all.  Maybe there's some way I'm supposed to avoid using the word "favorite" at all, maybe I'm damaging them both (add it to the long list of things they'll be discussing in the future with either a talk-show host or a therapist), but it's true anyway.  They are, each of them, my very favorite person in the whole world.  I don't understand the physics of how this works, it just does.  It's like the sum of your favorite is greater than the parts of your favorite.  Or something.

Okay, so it works with my boys.  But then I run into this problem at school, too.  And it's not because I have "a favorite" in my class... it's more because every kid totally needs something different at different times, and I can't meet every need (see also:  I am only human) but every once in a while, there's such an obvious choice I can make to do something for someone and it always makes me stop for a second.  Should I not do THIS THING for THIS KID if I can't do EVERYTHING for EVERY KID?  When I write it out like this, it sounds absurd!  Of course, any rational person would choose the first, knowing the latter is impossible, and that even the question itself is totally ludicrous.

Yet, here we are.

Bianca is in my class, and she and a few other students gave me presents before the winter break.  I got drug store chocolates, a teddy bear, some Dove soap, and a beaded glamour bracelet.  I love each and every thing, and I wrote each student a thank you card and sent it to their homes during the two week break.

I probably don't have to tell you the profound effect this had and these kiddos.  I totally get it of course.  I feel the same way when I get mail today that's REAL mail, you know what I mean?  And I'm grown!  For a kid to get mail?  From teacher?  On a handmade card?  It's the trifecta!

I don't hand make cards, but I have very talented friends who do (that would be in Real Life and The Internets!) so they got some dang cute cards, I don't mind telling you. Bianca, in particular, asked me about how to make these.  She's carrying it around with her, by the way.  They all do.  

So, I don't make cards, and I don't scrapbook either, but for some reason, I have some supplies in my possession.  Pretty papers, some card stock, stickers, embellishments... I can remember coming across a couple of kits at deep-deep-discounts (like, a few dollars instead of forty!) and picking them up, but then never using them.  As you do.


I was cleaning the garage this last weekend, and I found this wooden box and these supplies.  I loaded a sampling of the papers and cardstock, plus just about all the sticker and embellishments, into the fancy box.

One thing that I included was this fun pattern for making your own envelopes.  It's the one thing I've used the pretty patterned paper for, actually, and they are super cute, for sure.

So, I opted for a tactical offensive move.  I get to work early, and no matter what time I get there, there are a group of kids eager to come into the classroom with me.  (Sometimes I need quiet; but I never turn them away...I turn them away at lunch at least twice a week though.  Honestly, sometimes I just need peace.  Left to their own devices, 80% of my class would never leave the room.  Okay.  But get out of my grill for 10 minutes, what do ya say?) This morning, the young ladies who joined me, I shared with them this present for Bianca (she wasn't there) and together we made a sample card, using the supplies so they could see how it worked.  Then, we decided there was something missing, so we  added glue and a couple pairs of scissors I've had forever, they are fancy scissors that cut wavy edges?  I told them this was for Bianca, and because B is such a peach of a kid, and because I managed to make them feel like the present was also from them, they were all on board for the gifting.  We left it on her desk and she LOVED it.

B of course is the kind of kid who shares readily, and soon enough, a group of girls was working on a card for Sweet Alice, who was missing her uncle in the cafeteria (I do not pretend to understand) and everybody seemed pretty happy.  Of course, tomorrow I'll be parsing out the rest of the patterned papers I have here at the house to the other girls who were such good sports about it all.

I'm such a sucker.  :)

Such a blur, this time of the year!  Every day and evening is filled to brimming with something.  Tomorrow night, it's Tommy's Festival of Lights celebration, to the store to pick up presents for my classroom, a batch of something to contribute to Thursday's treats at school, and another round of making that will hopefully result in finishing at least two of the three projects hanging out there on my to-do list.

My birthday passed last week (43!!) uneventfully, but sweetly, with My Boys.  Erik bought me a new 18-55mm lens with gyro for my Nikon D90....my precious!  :)   I can now take clear pictures this close to something.

Like this thrifted sheet I used in a few projects recently (more to come on that, I'm sure!).  My kids gave the lens to me while I was trying to pee that morning, so I had to open it on the toilet, with them standing around telling me happy birthday.  What can I say?  Situation normal.

The other present I got was not being needed for my jury duty summons!  Which worked out great, since I was triple booked on my birthday....A class I was teaching, jury duty, AND parent conferences.  In addition to getting out of jury duty, I also managed to switch out my teaching duties; and so I spent my birthday doing 17 of the 30 parent conferences I would ultimately finish in two days (two no shows, but that's still pretty good!).  

25 of them had to be done in Spanish.  Now, I speak Spanish, but that's a special kind of headache, all that translating and thinking so hard!  The parents and kids I work with are so sweet though, and very grateful that I speak their language.  Habla espanol?  Ay, maestra, que buena!  Entonces, tengo una pregunta....  and they're off and running!  By this time in the year, they all know they can talk to me in Spanish, but at the beginning of the year, when they first find out that la gringa can understand, it's such a funny moment!

Last week was definitely the worst of it...with just a weekend of packed and quick fun to rejuvenate, we're off and running for this last week before our vacation.  Oh, oh, please let me get through this week!  :)

December Vexes Me

I had no idea I hadn't written here since November 30th.   I suppose it goes without saying that I've been busy!  haha!  The whole world lazes around while I alone have been tasked with work and preparing for the holidays.

My friend Claire has a saying:  "Teaching:  the only profession that simultaneously keeps you young and kills you."  I don't know if it's her original thought (I myself have thought a less well-articulated version of it every 6 minutes since 1996) but it's so perfectly true that I could cry.  No, seriously.  I could cry.  Right now.  Oh, I kid!  Sort of.  I'll get through this week, which will be so much worse than last week, but then next week will improve, and then I have two weeks off.  Just breath.

I took apart the last rag rug I was making and now it looks more like this:

 I can't say it looks better than the last version, but I will point out that it now looks more like I thought it would, in my head, when I first started it.  I'm going to call that a win.

 

A win I desperately need, by the way, as I spent a rainy Sunday this weekend doing quite a bit of sewing.  I am...not a great sewer.  I spend a lot of time staring at things.  I also spend a chunk of time on each project ripping out seams.  It's not that I don't understand "right sides together"; it's that if I don't constantly concentrate when I'm pinning two things together, I won't do it right.  And let's just say I'm not constantly concentrating.   I suppose there's some lesson here about living in the moment and staying mindful, but really, I'm interrupted no less than a dozen times every hour for some boy-wrangling, and I can't say I mind it. 

I can happily report, having said all that, that the three things I sewed this weekend make me so happy!  Now...if they were just done.  Ahem.