Thanksgiving weekend

I had a lovely (and long) Thanksgiving weekend -- there wasn't school on Wednesday, so I drove A to work, then packed, did errands, and fit in some relaxing before picking him up again and heading to the airport. Our flight was delayed, so we didn't get into DC until one in the morning or so. Luckily the time difference worked in our favor (although I felt bad for A's dad, who came to pick us up). We slept in Thursday morning, and I even got some papers graded before the influx of relatives, mostly second cousins of A's mother who live in and around New York City. They are all first generation Russian immigrants, and their English has improved steadily over the past Thanksgivings that I've known them! There were an unlucky thirteen of us around the dinner table, but everything went smoothly and was delicious. I love Thanksgiving, although I do miss being surrounded by my own family and friends. Nice long walk afterwards was just the thing to help digest all that turkey and pie.

Friday we went out the the new wing of the Air and Space Museum, which is located very close to Dulles, enough that you can see the planes take off and land from the museum's observation deck. The museum is essentially a giant hangar, storing lots of historic and famous planes (and quite a bit of space material, too). We saw a Concorde jet, several captured Nazi and Japanese places, some cool gliders, and the Enola Gay, along with many others. In the afternoon A and I played pick-up Ultimate on some fields just south of the Washington Monument, and spent some time with my friend Megan and her toddler Little T, before meeting up with the family again for dinner and a Wizards game. A and I got to sit pretty close to the basket, which was fun -- but not as much fun as a Nuggets game. I didn't realize how much I have gotten to 'know' the Nuggets players, and how it affects my enjoyment of the game! Without Melo, AI, and my personal favorite, Eduardo Najera (he's cute), it just wasn't the same.

On Saturday some of us went out to a local course for some Disc Golf, which is fast becoming a Thanksgiving tradition in this family. I re-calculated all of the pars (as five, rather than three), and came in three under! It felt better than being fifteen over.... We met up with a high school friend of A's and his wife after lunch, for coffee, dinner, and then ice cream -- all essentially excuses to sit somewhere inside and talk for hours. She is due in the middle of December, so mini-golf and bowling seemed a bit strenuous (and cold). It was great to see them both.

All in all, a great trip. And especially nice to be out of town for a little while! More pictures are here. It's good to be home, though, back in my own bed. The house is kind of a wreck right now, since we got back late on Sunday, but hey, that's what next weekend is for!

Whether the weather......

You know it's Denver when the weather goes from seventy-five and sunny on Monday to twenty-five and snowing by Wednesday. Gotta love it. We woke up to an inch or two on the ground, and it's continued to snow, but very lightly. The roads seem fine. I dropped A off at work in my car, and I'll pick him up on the way to the airport. By then, I imagine everything will be clear. It's supposed to stay in the twenties and thirties until Sunday, so it seems like a good time to get out of town!

Happy Thanksgiving. I give thanks for all of you. You add joy to my life.

Finding a balance, indeed

Life is a pendulum, and it always swings back. I am feeling better about my classroom, starting to think positive thoughts about what I can change, things I can do; and actually getting excited about moving in a new direction, rather than feeling so stuck and stymied. It just takes time.

I started posting a daily problem for the kids to solve on an index card (so I can quickly see their thinking, sort them into piles, and know the needs I should address). I also decided to take a couple of days (it's convenient to do it next week, which only has two days) to step back and focus on division before moving on to the next chapter. I am also going to not only re-assign desks, which I do every three weeks, but turn all the desks a different direction, so it's easier for kids to focus on me, and harder for them to pay so much attention to each other. And I am going to assign seats on the carpet for group times. They will whine, but in the end I hope it will make things smoother for all of us. We'll see.

I'm not sure what helped me turn this around in my head, from a problem to an opportunity for change and growth, but I want to try to remember how it feels, and to keep finding that balance whenever I can.

Frustration

I graded my kids' math tests tonight, after they spent nearly two brutal hours working on them today, hands raised almost the entire time. It was not pretty. These guys can NOT divide. I'm at a loss as to what to do now. We've been working on division for two weeks. Do I stop everything and re-teach the chapter? Do I move on to fractions? Do I move on and provide lots of extra division practice on the side? I worry that they can't do independent work -- this is true for writing, too. They don't pay attention during the lesson, have no idea what to do when they return to their seats, wave wildly for my help, and wait for me to re-teach the lesson. Twenty times. To twenty different kids. Or they seem to do fine while I am standing there, but as soon as I move away to help someone else, it all falls apart. "Wait, don't leave!" is a near-constant refrain. I feel like whole group work is becoming wasted time, but I can't hold every kid's hand all the time, either. Am I helping them too much? Do they know I will teach it to them again and so they don't need to pay attention the first time? Should I step back and let them struggle through things more? Or are they really just that clueless, so that refusing to repeat myself would only lead to greater failure? It seems like I am working harder than they are -- that's not what teaching should be about. Argh. It's time for Thanksgiving break.

Veterans' Day peacefulness

I got to sleep in yesterday, while A got up, got dressed, ate breakfast, and came up to kiss me goodbye. It felt even more luxurious and lazy than when we sleep in together! When I got up (at eight, I'm not a total hedonist), I ate a bowl of cereal, then started doing all those things I've been putting off. I changed the sheets, went through my closets and piled up a bunch of clothes to give away at the clothing exchange I'm going to this Friday, put away the rest of the laundry from last weekend, emptied the dishwasher, washed all the countertops, hung up one of my dad's new platters on the wall, went grocery shopping, read and commented on my students' journals (for only the third time this year...oops), started a fantastic new book (The Mistress of the Art of Death, set in 1171), made dinner, and finished my fantastic new book. It was so peaceful. I felt so calm and collected when I was done. And a little bit like a housewife, but hey, it might not be so bad -- at least once a year. Maybe even once a month.

Today it was back to the grind, but tomorrow is Wednesday already, Thursday is the Science Fair (which means very little teaching and lots of science presentations), and next week we have only two days of school before Thanksgiving. Things to be thankful for....

Oh, check out my mom's new blog, Thoughts on Books.

Laptops

This sounds cool. I want one for every kid in MY class. Check it out.

Service learning

I am so excited to finally be raising money with my class for Pennies for Peace, an organization started by Greg Mortenson (the author of Three Cups of Tea) and his Central Asia Institute that raises money to build schools in rural Pakistan and Afganistan. I've wanted to participate in this project since I read the book last year, and it just fit right in to Service Month. (We choose a character trait each month to focus on with kids -- Respect, Cooperation, etc.) We read an article about schools and the lack thereof in Afganistan, and an article about Mortenson that was in the Rocky Mountain News, and then started collecting pennies. We've got 44 cents so far. The trick for me is finding ways to keep it going, to remind kids what we are doing and why, so it doesn't just peter out and become 'one more thing'. After all, collecting pennies doesn't really count as service -- but volunteering at the soup kitchen just wasn't going to work out for us. So I need to keep making the connection. Wish us luck.

Aggravation

I don't know if it's really true or if I'm just getting old and cranky, but this class seems like the chattiest bunch I had ever had. They just will not shut up. At the carpet while I'm teaching, at their seats when they should be working, in the hallway. Of course, today was the day after Halloween, but honestly, I've been losing my patience for a while now, and today was just the last straw. I'm just not sure what to do about it. I guess I need to spend a week cracking down hard on even minor infractions, to help them get the point. I hate doing that, but I hate yelling and nagging even more. Of course, the tears and tantrums after a consequence are fun to deal with too. Argh. I have to keep reminding myself how I have some great kids, too (of course, then I feel bad that they have to put up with this crap because I haven't dealt with it well). Or I remind myself about last year's class, which was quieter overall but contained three girls who practically needed restraining orders filed and reduced my student teacher to tears regularly. So, I guess it will all be okay. The next few weeks could get interesting, though.