perspicacious.org

I'm down (ha!) to 27 in my classroom as one of my very sweetest and brightest left with her mom to go take care of a dying grandma in Samoa. I'll miss her lots. But, life moves on, this week more so than usual.

Report cards go home with the kiddos on Monday. I just finished with them today, printed and proofed them this afternoon. And will reprint and stuff real quick like on Monday morning. It makes me sigh. I feel like I have no clue where everyone is at in math, and only the vaguest idea about reading. I just don't get enough 1 on 1 time with them.

I'm trying to throw some more metacognition their way, as I don't think I can be truly constructivist without some discussion of what we know and how we know it. I do a daily lesson I call "circle talk" where I put a circle template up on the overhead. I put one category of things inside the circle, and one category outside, i.e. mammals and reptiles, even and odd numbers, or words with short a and words with long a. It's very adaptable to whatever we're studying and gives me a chance to reinforce things like science concepts. Part of their response activity is to write about what things are inside and outside of the circle and how they know. The how is so hard. I get a lot of "I used my brain" (or "brane," since we're 2nd graders) and "someone on my team helped me." They're trying.

I also do a weekly writing activity about what they learned during the week and how they learned it. There's a lot of "I learned about [insert animal name here] from a book" but everyone is pretty stuck on how they learn about math. We'll keep talking about it I guess– so abstract for 7 year olds.

Like every 2nd grade on the planet, we'll estimate, weigh and measure a pumpkin this week, count the seeds, and make a pumpkin book. We'll also cut out bones and connect them with brads. No wonder there were no brads left in the workroom.

Conferences are Thursday and Friday and can I tell you how little I am looking forward to them? I don't mind, really, but doing 27 of them is just unpleasant. I had to make the conference times shorter to squeeze everyone in. Some I dread, most will be fine. Too much to do.

Bless A's mom for coming into my classroom this week and making five batches of salt dough with the kids. We actually made seven batches total, each enough for four kids. I made the last two batches because A's mom scraped her thumb open and was forced to plunge an open wound into a bowl of salt. And really, I am not that cruel.

We played with the dough and generally made a huge mess in the classroom, and then spent yesterday morning carefully molding it into the shape of Alaska. We even added the Brooks and Alaska Ranges by rolling out snakes of dough and pinching them into wee little mountains. There was much ewwing to be had.

The maps are drying on my windowsill, and will (hopefully) be painted this week. I'm almost more frightened to paint with 28 children* than I am to make dough. Everything with this number of kids is scary.

* My newest student began on Wednesday. I should not have gotten her, as I have the highest enrollment of the 3 second grades, but my new little charge speaks only Spanish and the office thought it would be better to give her to someone who speaks Spanish. I'm mediocre, really, but better than nothing. Fortunately, when I forget how to say something I have two little built in bilingual translators, also from Puerto Rico.

The kids have been so great to watch with her, as they really all do want to be her friend and play with her and there is lots of motioning and smiling and making of presents and cards. During center time yesterday we got out the recycled materials and made many creations, most of which were bestowed upon her. Now we all know the word "regalo"– present. What she did with the soda bottle and toilet paper tube rocket, and foam meat tray and kleenex box boat, I am not sure.

They really can be sweet, which is awfully helpful when there are 28 of them.

I am in a book! How cool is that? The book is called Kirigami: Exquisite Projects to Fold and Cut, and it is available at Barnes and Noble. It comes in a boxed set with a bunch of origami paper.

The author of the book contacted me after finding my paper snowflake tutorial, and asked if he could use the images in the book. I didn't get any money (alas), but I am credited on page 50 as the originator, and listed as a contributor for the book. And I got a free copy. Neat, huh?

Here's a snippet of the first snow fall of the year, or the first one since May, anyway. The little juncos that are still around are hopping and scratching and looking for hidden seed under the snow. I wonder where this one was headed?

R and I spent a good portion of our day off yesterday putting in storm windows, cleaning out the gutters (eww), and raking up the last of the leaves. We feel sort of triumphant now at having beaten nature's winter clock. Looking out the window now it appears that most of our neighbors didn't make it– they all have leaves buried under today's snow.

Sorry for not blogging…ever. What am I doing? The short answer is that I'm usually here, at this desk, in that gray desk chair. Grading papers and writing lesson plans. My students are coming along, much more than I would have thought based on my first couple of weeks with them. There are too many of them (27), and they are too young overall (4 should be in first grade and are not). But they are pretty sweet and try hard and mostly follow directions and I try not to keep myself up at night thinking about the individual attention that they are just not getting.

Today R and I are having a stress day, and I have the wonder sub in my classroom. She is the wonder sub because she doesn't need any lesson plans, she just brings her own things in and teaches without any input or setup from me. If you aren't a teacher and haven't had to write sub plans at 6:00 at night when you were deathly ill you can't really appreciate how nice this is. And the kids love her, too.

Monday is a teacher inservice day, and there are workshops going on throughout the day. The offerings for 2nd grade teachers are pretty slim. I think I will go up to the university and do a tour of the arctic research facility in lieu of "tying up loose threads in your math program." That's one of my other options. Oh, and "the Everyday Math asessment assistant." Yes, I like the science choice better and better.

I am taking a science class on "current trends in science education." Basically, it's a discussion group on what's going on in current science education. We'll write up our findings, and next semester the curriculum committee will use the findings to update the curriculum. Do I care about current trends in science? Well, I do, but I care more that the course costs $100 for 3 credits. I'll learn to be interested.

In the meantime, I actually have learned some really cool things from the other people in the class, most of whom are high school science teachers. I've already used one of their ideas in the classroom. I took the kids to the computer lab and brought up the Geographic Information Network of Alaska website. We looked at satellite images of Alaska from space, and then zoomed in progressively closer until we could see our school building. The kids sketched the school and surrounding area. It was pretty neat.

So that's it from my end. The cats both got sick and needed to go to the vet last week, and Oliver has a urinary tract condition that will require him to eat special low ph food forever. But other than that things are good. Now if I can just make it through the rest of the month.