what college is teaching me

(Have I mentioned I'm back in school?)

I have now have a well defined sense of right & wrong. I am right, everyone else is wrong.

end of the year teacher gifts

For our teachers this year I made water bottle slings, except for Birdie's 3 male teachers. For them, she made chocolate chip cookies.

This year brought new things into our lives:

Children in two different schools; one in jr. high, three in elementary.

All kids gone all day.

Our baby learned to read.

Our oldest earned a national math award.

And became a teenager.

Also some not new, but still exciting things:

State projects

County projects

Art projects

Field trips

Spelling tests

Math tests

And always, of course:

Teachers who give of themselves with their motive being making better the lives of children.

Perhaps my favorite moment of the school year was about a month ago when I picked Birdie up one day and asked, "What was your favorite thing you did today?"

Her answer came thoughtfully, "Probably the test we took in algebra."

We've been blessed.

a monkey & his blankie

We used to home school. The year we put our daughters in public school for the first time Suzy had one of the most amazing teachers I've ever met. I cannot say enough good about her. That was also the year Teacher got married. Suzy and some of her little friends were able to attend the wedding reception.

This year Tessa is in the same teacher's class and this year Teacher is having her first child! We're hitting her milestones well, don't you think? So for this teacher we love I've made a monkey rag blanket & a monkey friend to go with it. Tessa is so excited for Mrs. N, she can hardly stand it.

P.S. I decided to let Tessa name him. She chose Bananas.

75 Cent Teacher Gifts

Seventy-five cents is actually a guess. I didn't stop to figure out the exact price. They were inexpensive, anyway. I knit a bunch of little stockings (for reference, the plate in the picture is dinner-sized) and filled them mostly with dollar store items. The hand sanitizer came two to a pack and was the most expensive single item included. The clementines came in a big bag from Costco (we barely put a dent in the bag making our 13 stockings). Pencils and erasers came in packages that were divided. I bought the kisses for something else, had some left over so I just put them in for fun (and so I wouldn't eat them all myself). I made the hard suckers with a friend, also inexpensive. I'm told the teachers liked, if not loved, their little gifts. I liked making them.

finally getting to the fun stuff!

Getting in the car after school today, Megan, who is in seventh grade, said, “Mom! We finally did something fun in science today!”

I asked what that fun thing had been and her answer came in an excited rush, “We had the periodic table of elements and we looked at the abbreviations. We had to write the atomic number, what the letter stood for, like H was for hydrogen and we wrote down the weight. Then we figured out how many protons, neutrons and electrons there there are in each one. There were one two or three (graduated) rings. We had to draw how many electrons there were...”

It’s good to know that school isn’t all academics and the kids are getting some fun and games in as well.

Perhaps it's time to consider getting a life.

Last night was one of our favorite nights of the school year. Math night.

2007-2008 was our first year having children in public school at all, let alone this particular school so last year, not knowing what to expect, I took them at their request. I was nervous, I'll admit. Math was never my strong point and I doubted it could ever be considered fun despite my dad and husband both reading math books or working problems for entertainment (I think they could probably get treatment for that). But the evening ended up being loads of fun. This year I looked forward to it and was excited to see the flyer come home in my little one's backpack.

Many of the teachers prepare math-based games. There are tables set up in the cafeteria and hallway. We go, we play, we have a great time. Last night we enjoyed Fraction Tic-Tac-Toe and a shape puzzle game in which you try to fit your geometric piece on a grid hopeful that when the time comes that no more pieces will fit, your opponent will be the one left holding the out of place shape (this one was Tessa's favorite, probably because she almost always won - stinker). We also played a dice game where you try to get totals as close as you can to 1,000 without going over. And a crowd favorite: measuring treats like pretzels, marshmallows, raisins, m&m's and fruit loops into a baggie to make your own trail mix.

Anyway, so math night; lots of fun. But last night was Thursday and in order to go I had to miss the new episode of the office. No matter how fuzzy my antenna reception, I still felt a little of a tug at not being able to watch. Lame, huh? I figured I could watch it online this morning - in peace, even. So, I got the girls off to school, almost giddy with anticipation. I came home fixed my tea and a plate of gorilla cookies (can't they be breakfast? they contain oats, peanut butter, milk, they are good for me!). I sat here at my computer and loaded hulu, my preferred online tv source. No new episode (insert sad face). Ok. Breathe. I can handle this! Really! I headed over to nbc to check there. Nothing. Now what should I do?

This is probably some kind of sign. It's time to get a life.


***a wee bit of an update: I betcha Woolwinder is right - it wasn't on because of the debate, not positive, but it makes sense. I store politics and entertainment in separate places of my head, so obviously I hadn't put the conflicting times together.***

Third Grade

When I meet someone that I really like, one of my first impulses is to ask them if they want to read my blog, and then, if they blog as well. But I'm always too self-conscious to actually do it.

I adore my daughter Suzy’s third grade teacher. She is wonderful and amazing and neat and I want to be just like her when I grow up. The last two times I went to volunteer we got some time to talk, not very common because she’s, you know, busy teaching. But lately it has been recess when I get there and, even though that’s still a pretty busy time, we've had a few minutes to chat. Today we had close to the whole hour (while we were both busy working, of course) because shortly after recess the kids went to the library then somewhere else that I didn't ever actually figure out.

I wanted to give her my blog url. I wanted to give her my email address. I wanted to invite her over for a slumber party. She's awesome.

first day of school in pictures