It's true

I'm not going to lie. You'd know I was and I'd know I was, so what's the point? I'm just going to come right out and say it: Yes, teachers have favorites. We try not to, but we do. And now I'm going to show you some of mine.

Here's the first:

Tetris Post It notes! Yes, of course I meant favorite presents. What did you think I meant?  What?? Are you crazy??

Anyway...so maybe I did have each of my ~110 students hand write a letter to Santa for homework on Tuesday telling him just how good I've been, and that I really and truly deserved to get these in my stocking. One must use the resources one has at hand when dealing with that jolly old elf. I knew those post its would be mine--Santa couldn't possibly resist the innocent pleas of 110 fifth graders.  But, I have to say that I am blown away that one of my little darlings went online that very night to find them and deliver them to me today.  Poor Santa, made obsolete by a 10 year old.


Number 2:

Candyland band-aids! These are from Juliet, who isn't technically a student, but I do school her in many things--like what is and is not an acceptable music choice for instance--so it counts. These are so freaking adorable that I kind of want to cut myself just so I can put one on RIGHT NOW before Amaya finds them and commandeers them for her own boo-boos. I don't share well with others. Don't tell Santa. Oh, wait you can. I already got my Post Its.  o










And last, but not least:

A hand drawn card illustrating what I've taught him in Social Studies thus far. I have to be honest again here. I find the county's 5th grade SS curriculum to be drier than 5 day old toast. That's neither here nor there really, just a side note. The point is that the best gifts are always the ones that time and thought have gone into. And the ones that acknowledge all that someone does for you, and that tell you that you deserve a wonderful Christmas break. The ones that make it clear that you matter to someone, that you've made a difference in his life. Those are the ones that make me tear up and the ones I'll save for years. Those are the ones that keep me doing this job when I have days when I think I should do anything but teach. It's more than just paper, it's the gift of purpose--reminding me that I have one, and I need to keep on trying to fulfill it. 

Potty Humor

Note left on the classroom bathroom door.

Made me chuckle.  I do believe the truth in advertising people would take issue with its accuracy though. 

Ticker Tape Through Today

Wake up to cross dressing elf:

Rock, Paper, Scissors with the female offspring to determine who gets the last pancake. Lose. Pout.

Arrive at school to find cross dressing elf must have friends:

Cease pouting.

Talk with teammates about scat. As in poop. For far too many minutes. Chuckle like a 10 year old boy. Realize it's true that you are who you hang out with all day.

Spend 225 minutes grading tests, organizing Geo Bee, writing interims, delegating party duties, answering emails, tallying permission slips, and filling out behavior reports while DARE officer talks about pressure. Eh? Pressure? No experience with that. More coffee please.

Eat cake for lunch. 15 minutes later, want more cake.

Arrive at gym. Realize I can either remember a water bottle or a hair tie, but never both. Begin crafting detailed postulates to explain the inability for both items to be in my possession at the same time when anywhere near a place of exercise. Blow hair out of face for 5000th time while taking a giant gulp of lukewarm water. Contemplate shaving it all off.

Still want cake. Eat a banana instead. Taste buds neither fooled nor amused.  

Make dinner utilizing leeks as an ingredient. Smell like leeks for rest of evening. Kinda like it.

Have 10 minute conversation with Amaya in attempt to explain the meaning of the word ornery. Chase sums it up: You're just trouble Amaya.  Close enough. 

Surf internets for a bit before sleep. Find this:

Begin outlining diabolical plan to get students to cut and dye thousands of triangles so I can copy Yuko Takada Keller's work. Wonder if this in some way violates child labor laws. Decide it doesn't. Yet think it best not to mention it to DARE officer.

Sit down to write a blog post. Stare at screen. Fingers move. Words appear. Wonder if they make sense to anyone but me. Doubt it.

9 July 2011

Ennui? Who Me?

I'm lost. I just don't know what I want to do with myself these days. Truth be told, I'm a bit bored, but at the same time I'm not sure I'm willing to take on all of the stress of going back to teaching full time either, and there just aren't a lot of part time teaching options that I can live with. So, I'm thinking that I might go back to school in pursuit of either a second Masters or perhaps a PhD. It's in the let the idea bounce around in my head and see how it feels stage right now, so I'm researching the possibilities and trying to get all of my ducks in a row on the chance that I do decide to pursue this option.  One unfortunate requirement that I've already discovered is that most schools want a GRE score from within the last 5 years. Since I took the GRE 12 years ago, that means that I am going to have to retake that sucker. Enter today's delivery from Amazon.com:

Uggg. It's going to be a bit tougher this time around having been removed from the world of academia for so long. Preparation is the key. After doing a few practice sets of problems I have come to the following conclusions:

•  At the risk of appearing hubristic, I have to say that I am fairly astute in the realm of verbal reasoning. This is one benefit of being a word nerd. Not to mention that I am also quite adept at guessing well. POE is not just a modern rock goddess people.  Still, there is always room for improvement. Since I look at learning new words as a game though, I don't really think that studying for this section will feel much like work to me. And bonus: this pursuit will in no way vitiate my moral fiber unless I focus too much on unvirtuous words--which I totally would not do. Vitiate is my new word of the day, by the way. I'm so going to own this. 
•  My math? Meh. I used to be such a math brain too, but as they say--if you don't use it, you lose it. My life today has very little use for most algebraic functions and practically zero use for geometry theorems. While most of the problems I could reason my way through and figure out long hand, I just don't really have the patience for it. Or the desire. Plus the test is timed. Hence the purchase of the above book. I figure if I devote a month or two to brushing up on all of those formulas and rules and whatnot, I'll be good to go. That is my hope anyway. And if not, well I guess I'll just have to fall back on that guessing adeptness again. C. Always C.
•  It appears that the word ennui is not only a favorite among poets and songwriters, but also the ETS question scribes. I'd put further thought into the reasons for this (easy to rhyme? everything sounds better in French?) but frankly, between the start of this bullet and now, I've completely lost interest. As I imagine you have too.

It was so much better in my dreams...

I had this thought that it might be fun to photo document a Drewless day in the Mellon's life. But like most of my ideas, my vision played out much better in my head. First problem, I didn't think about the idea until around noon after I'd already fed and watered the children, hand delivered them to more capable hands than mine, and spent significant time sweating in the gym. But don't worry, my first picture is not of me all soaking wet with stinky sweat. Nope, it's this one in which I asked the internet to give opinions on the hat.

Overall, my facebook friends said it was a keeper while my twitterers remained as silent as they usually are. Which makes me wonder if anyone ever actually reads my twitter feed. Well besides my own Mama who reads it here on the blog. It might be time to abandon the twitterverse...I'll have to think on it some more. But that's' neither here nor there at the moment so where was I? Oh yes, my Drewless Day. 

After the fashion emergency, I headed to lunch with Jan. But somewhere between my house and hers, I forgot that I should take a picture of this event. I guess I can no longer claim to be a follow through kind of girl.

After lunch, I took Chase to his keyboard lesson. Guess what. I forgot to take a picture. Shocked, aren't you? But... I did get this picture of Amaya entertaining herself while we waited for his lesson to be over.

And this one of her laughing at my day documenting failure.

All that learning (Chase) and smirking (Amaya) worked up quite a couple of appetites, so we headed to Panera for dinner.

Little Miss has two fingers up as a request for her two pieces of candy. You see Chase's music teacher gave him some candy after the lesson. Mean Mama that I am, I insisted that they eat their dinner first. This edict was way more painful for me, trust me. All through the meal, I had to listen to the them whine, beg, complain, bargain and flat out demand that candy. Have you ever tried to reason with a 2 year old in between bites of your own sandwich? Not a party, that's for sure.

I've read somewhere that it's always wise to take a walk after dinner, so we walked on over to Harris Teeter to get bunny food and ice cream for our dinner at Adriana's tomorrow.  Once again, this activity did not seem to wear them out as much as it did myself. Can't figure out why.

After our little shopping excursion, we headed home for cookie dessert and a little play time. Then it was bath, story and bed. I did try to take a picture of the evening routine, but Chase put his hands up and said, "No more pictures for me today Mama. Maybe Tuesday." What could I do but respect his wishes? And then console myself with some of that candy?

Practice Makes Legible

I know he's four, but it still seems too soon. How can Chase be learning to write his name and the letters of the alphabet already? But he is, and taking much glee in the effort I might add. I do feel kind of bad for him, because genetically speaking he has a lot of predetermined poor penmanship bias to overcome.

On his paternal side, we have Andy whose handwriting is simply atrocious. His signature can't even be read as it most strongly resembles the Nike swoosh rather than any actual letters of the alphabet. This is probably because he's a man and doesn't care though. I'm sure the potential for lovely script is there lying dormant.

On the maternal side things don't look much better.My grade school report cards were always filled with VGs (Very Goods) in every subject but handwriting. Those I got Ss (satisfactory--barely) This may have had something to do with being left handed and that whole right slant mess coupled with not holding my pencil/hand/paper/arm/body/temper correctly. Luckily, Chase is right handed--which means he has less chance of being a genius but a better chance at having neat handwriting. Pretty even trade off I'd say.

So as I was saying, Chase enjoys practicing forming his letter and numbers. And he's getting pretty good at it too. At least as far as tracing goes.

But he can also make those little symbols from scratch as demonstrated by the 13 & 15 he wrote while waiting for our dinner at Fuddrucker's.

So with all of this joy over the acquisition of new skills, you can imagine that we've been spending a lot of time drawing, writing and coloring here in MellonLand. Which brings me to this:

I saw this green Tupperware container at the thrift store a while back and had to buy it and its yellow friend. I had no idea what I was going to do with it, but I knew I needed to possess it. Why? Because when I was just a kid earning straight Ss in handwriting, my mother had a big blue one just like it. Whenever she would make No Bake Cookies, she would put them in that blue container. This was wise on her part because as a child, I was completely incapable of getting the lid to close on that sucker. Thus, she always knew when I had swiped an extra cookie or three. Not that the certainty of being caught ever stopped me or anything.

Anyway, I quickly found a use for my little memory lane props:

And they fit so perfectly in my--I mean the children's--coloring basket

which has the perfect home in the kitchen cabinets below the phone.

So now any time my little darlings want to color, write or draw--I just pull out the basket and they have everything they need right at their little fingertips. When they're done, we just pack it all back up, slide it on the shelf, and close the door. Viola! I might not have the neatest handwriting, but I make up for it with my organization and ingenuity. VG all the way.

That’s quite a preschool

I mean I knew they were good.

I just didn’t know they were Olympic Gold Medal good. 

I die

I know. Rachel Zoe overuses that phrase to the point of inducing mouth vomit on her reality show, but today when I saw the bulletin board that Amaya's teachers made, those two words sprung instantly from my lips. Seriously. I die.


And here's a close up of my little waitress. Couldn't you just keel over from the cuteness?

I'm totally lifting this idea when I go back to teaching--if I survive the adorableness attack that is.

Secret Agent Sloth

Amaya had her first day of school last Friday. As you can see from the picture, the girl was ready to go. Unlike her more reserved brother, Amaya dove head first into the classroom and never looked back. Not a single tear was shed. This might have something to do with the fact that she is the only girl in a class of eight boys. She finally has assumed her throne as the Queen Bee. I'm sure it won't be too long before she's convinced all of those unfortunate boys that it is the ultimate honor to become her worker drones whose only purpose is to do her bidding. Poor schmucks.

So, the little Petunia being at school with her brother means that I now have three days of rest, relaxation and all around sloth each week. I'm blessed, I know this. But also, so are my kids. No really. Here's why: not only do they get peer interaction and enrichment at school, but on their days off they get a well-rested Mama. This is important because a well-rested Mama is more willing to engage in entertaining activities with her offspring.

Observe:
A well-rested Mama is able to put snacks in cute little containers instead of just handing the children ugly bags from the pantry. This serves two purposes: 1) It tricks Chase into thinking he got the entire bag of 100 calorie ABC cookies when in fact he shared it with his sister. 2) Placing raisins beside said cookies makes them look like a dessert, too. Which, yes, I know they pretty much are a dessert as far as sugar content goes, but they are but a stepping stone my friends. Once I get the unsuspecting munchkins used to eating the raisins, I plan to switch out the fruit for first carrots, then broccoli and finally spinach. Diabolical, no? See, only a well-rested Mama could have come up with such a convoluted mission.


A well-rested Mama has the energy and patience to do such things as dress her son up as a Chicken at 9 o'clock in the morning. Cluck! Cluck!



Finally, only a well-rested Mama can plan and implement an art project that uses glitter. Frankly, I believe that there are a limited number of Mamas who would go this far no matter how rested they were. Glitter is dangerous. I have a couple of secret weapons though. The first being: The Smock.


But this isn't just any old art project. Oh no, not when there is a well-rested Mama on the case. This one has multiple objectives. First, letter recognition. Second, fine motor skills.


Third, identifying the difference between food and non food. Glue is the the latter by the way.


Fourth, beginning word sounds. (Spider starts with S. Get it?) Fifth, arachnid anatomy. Spiders have 8 legs, not 1, 13 or 43. Eight. We spent some time on this concept.


And finally, traditional holiday symbols. Halloween=spooky spider. That's a lot for one 10 minute art project wouldn't you agree? Before you become too awed by my abilities, I totally swiped the idea from a really cool kids' craft blog: http://www.notimeforflashcards.com/ Being able to devote the proper amount of time to espionage is yet another benefit of being a well-rested Mama.

See, Amaya's already catching on to the food/non food concept. Yep, SugarBean, a tomato is food. But let's not eat that one either. Also please note my other secret weapon against the glitter attack: an old cookie sheet. Sometimes it's the simplest ideas, ya know?

And here we have the finished product. Spooky how advanced their penmanship skills are, isn't it?

Of course, after all of that, Mama isn't quite so well-rested anymore. Good thing tomorrow's a school day.