I had made it through 7 hours of kindergarten with no major incidents. The kids were obedient and the sub plans were comprehensible. The morning class had been a breeze and the afternoon class was shaping up to be the same. With less than one hour to go, I thought I had it made. Then, [...]
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Posted in Childhood, True Stories, tagged computers on July 19, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Katherine sat in her favorite corner of the couch and leaned forward slightly as she watched the characters on her favorite TV program solve yet another unsolvable problem through friendship and ingenuity. On the other side of the house, her Momma decided that the computer needed to be turned off (be it because of the [...]
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Katie was an avid reader. She didn’t know why people said that. Weren’t avids the little white bugs that ate Mamma’s roses? All she knew was that when people called her one, it meant that she liked to read a lot, and that part was true. She read all the time. She read at the [...]
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Posted in True Stories, tagged Alaska, island on February 23, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
She was enjoying the conversation and companionship of her classmates while loading her school things into her shoulder bag when her attention was caught by the young man to her left. “Did you just say that you drove here?” Angel asked him. “Aren’t you from, like, Alaska?”
“That must’ve taken forever!” commented another student.
“Nah…you [...]
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We recently did an activity where my students analyzed the preamble to the constitution and they discovered that the constitution makes six promises:
1. Have a better government than England (“in order to form a more perfect union”)
2. Fair laws for everyone (“establish justice”)
3. Everyone can feel safe (“ensure domestic tranquility”)
4. Everyone gets protection (“provide for [...]
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Posted in Childhood, tagged eggs, grocery store, instruction on January 26, 2008 | Comments Off
With one hand clutching the top of the shopping cart’s wire basket and both feet precariously pressed against the metal rod on which the wheels were mounted. She leaned out as far as should could, then grabbed frantically at the cart when it began to tip over. She giggled with delight and looked at the [...]
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Posted in Teacher Stories, tagged shoelaces, skater shoes, teaching stories on January 19, 2008 | Comments Off
While I have never been a fan of “what they’re showing,” a recent fad in my classroom has driven me to distraction. I speak of skater shoes. (I am not sure of the terminology–as I said, I’m not a fashion buff.) These are the current, over sized footwear of choice for the male in crowd. [...]
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Posted in True Stories, tagged choice, lesson, skiing on January 19, 2008 | Comments Off
When I was a Senior in High School, I took an advanced physics course. I enjoyed it mostly because I was taking calculus at the same time and each class reinforced the other. Each winter, all the physics classes in my school took a ski trip. It was justified by having [...]
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Posted in Teacher Stories, tagged choice, recess, students, teaching on January 14, 2008 | Comments Off
I have had some of the oddest experiences this year in my classroom. My students’ favorite activities are silent reading and notetaking. For second graders, this is very strange. A recent example of their unusual characteristics happened on a cold snowy day, when I announced that we would have our morning recess [...]
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Posted in Childhood, tagged Christma on December 26, 2007 | Comments Off
When I was a little girl, my mother bought a small, fake Christmas tree to put up in my room, so that you would see a Christmas tree through the front window. We had a doll house where the roof opened up into a flat surface and the tree stood on top of that. [...]
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