picnic

On Saturday night I went with the Haven clients and some old friends on a picnic. Apparently there’s a park/playground a few blocks from my house. Who knew? We had Eegee’s. If you are from here, you have a whole picture of what that is. Most of you aren’t, though. We had long deli sandwiches cut up so I had a small piece, and they didn’t give us enough cookies so I didn’t take one. The food is prepared by Eegee’s, which is the name of the company. Really, though, an Eegee’s is their dessert — Italian ice or lemon ice (although it comes in many flavors). For big events like this you can get the stuff by the tub, but usually you get it by the cup. It’s always a treat!

I got to touch base with Sharon, who I saw a year and a half ago but who only had my house telephone number — a number that’s worthless because my phone lines didn’t work. Now she has my cell phone as well so we can actually get together! Of course we talked about people from the olden days and wondered what and how they were doing. I also got to spend time with Cathy and Oonagh. We talked about some of the stuff we did centuries ago as well. When I worked at the Haven, I had this antique computer (it was a dinosaur even then — a dual floppy, and truly they were floppy disks! You needed both floppy drives to run WordPerfect.) The printer ran pinfeed paper. Someone later donated a second, huge printer, so I also had one for green bar paper, since I was the finance person. For a long time I had the only computer in the building!

Anyway, I used to dogsit for Cathy and Oonagh when they went to England each year. To stave off boredom and insanity, I’d make little books. One year I made one about the dogs’ vacation. There were some bricks in Cathy’s back yard, so I took a photo of the dogs by the bricks. This was within a year of the Berlin Wall being torn down, so the caption was that the dogs were visiting the Berlin Wall (the whole thing was from their point of view, as in “we visited the Berlin Wall”). One photo was of the cat in this box that also had Pepsi in it, so the caption was that all the important things were packed. Things like that. It really was cute, and Cathy has saved all those books. At the time they had four dogs — Oonagh had Baby and Daisy and Cathy had Oliver and Simon. They have all since gone to doggie heaven. Now they have Omar who looks like Baby, and Bridget who looks a little like Simon.

Omar:

Oonagh, Bridget, Cathy, and Omar:

Meeting and A

Ahhh, A. A is my dear student who I can’t retain because he doesn’t come to school often enough to make progress! He was there for the entire week of the AIMS (miracle of miracles) but that was it. Never saw him again. Finally found out why. The family crossed the border south for a trip (as usual) but dad couldn’t get back in because of his status. Apparently the kids do have papers, but eventually the mom decided to just stay there, so Monday or Tuesday she came up and withdrew the kids from school. On the plus side, I don’t have to pass him into fifth grade with a second grade reading level and even lower math skills.

Staff meeting today was … not pretty at all. As it is, we never ended up doing what was scheduled and got out twenty minutes early, mostly because half of us were too depressed to function. We were talking about the budget cuts and the possible scenarios. Kindergarten currently has nine teachers. The most they’ll end up with under any scenario is five — and no aids. There is no room for aids in any budget. We MIGHT have library (part time) if the cut is only ten percent. We lose OMA (the music program) — practically guaranteed. The OMA teacher didn’t know this prior to the meeting! The cafeteria, at the best scenario, is down to four people — two to ring the kids up and two to serve. The school has more than 900 kids and not much time for lunch. Maintenance staff isn’t from our budget. I’m not sure about the nurse. One scenario MIGHT be able to include a counselor, depending… The meeting was really bad, with people in tears.

UbD

I spent Monday and Tuesday at an all-day workshop for Understanding By Design. Each day there were 8 of us from my school, and I know some people went to it the last time they had it a few weeks ago. It was fascinating, and of course it was great that they gave us a notebook full of stuff because it’s waaaaay too much to remember. It’s also not something you think up for each lesson but you do it a unit at a time. It’s like this: At the end of the unit, what do you want students to understand? What are the standards and which are the most important? From that you generate a series of things that end up making it easy to determine what to teach each day, but the idea is to start with the end in mind. If you know where you want to go, you can figure out how to get there. The other piece, of course, is authentic assessment.

The problem is that we’re given the tests we give. We’re told which day to do which test in the math book. So whereas in a normal school the goal is to learn 2-digit long division, for example, our goal is more like understanding the list of skills for the Chapter 12 test which is expected to be given by all fourth grade teachers on date X. On the plus side, that’s being rethought over the summer.

Now, two days of workshops means two days of subs. After my sub experience the day I didn’t make it to school because of airplane issues (honestly, telling scary stories all day????), I made sure that I had a note to go with everything and the note was clear that you start with the top sheet in the lesson plan notebook and then turn the page and do the next sheet. Well, actually most lesson plans are two pages, but you get the idea. Yes, that’s two pages per lesson. I know those of you who get to write your lessons in little boxes envy me! The thing is, at the end of the year we have to turn our lesson plans in to the district! They keep them! I may get a standard lesson plan book and put the standards and brief lesson note in there and keep these, because they took a ton of time and I had some great ideas!

Anyway, back to subs. I told my students what I expected to be accomplished, and reminded them that they’re responsible for their educations. If they get Larry the Storyteller again (although I told the office I don’t want him in my room again), they need to get on track. They should have spent two mornings during writing class, for example, writing a script for a puppet show with a team, making paper bag puppets, and a sheet of background scenery. At 9:15 we’re showing the 3rd grade class that we do things with our puppet shows, today, so they need to be ready. In math I skipped ahead to the easier lessons in this chapter (probability, etc.) and expect those to be taught. If they play around, then they need to figure out how to answer those questions correctly on the test because I’m not redoing two days of math on my time. Etc. I can hardly wait to see what happened while I was gone! Let the tattle-fest begin!

On the plus side, there is less than a month left of school. The last day for students is May 20 and for teachers is May 21.

Pink Slips & Shirts

The other day I’d received my preliminary “pink slip” (actually a letter on white paper, but you get the idea). Today I got the official one, complete with a whole page of mental health and job resources. Oh, joy of joys. This one I had to sign for. But the principal again said not to panic or worry.

The pink shirts are that across the district (somewhat, but big-time in my school) teachers and staff wore pink shirts today in solidarity or support for those who got pink slips. Angela told me about it yesterday so I wore one as well, with black pants since I’m one of the Pink Slip-ees.

I had a sub yesterday, of course. But we are trained to be prepared for subs, especially right before a break. So my schedule was written on the board, and my lesson plans in the notebook so you simply do the first one, turn the page, do the next one, etc. By the notebook were letter trays with labels large enough to see from anywhere in the room: Writing, Science, SFA, Math. In each was whatever was needed to do the lessons. I got to school today and the various classes on the schedule had a check mark next to them, as is the children’s custom when a class is finished. But something wasn’t quite right. So when I went to pick them up from the playground, I got the story: THE SUB TOLD THEM STORIES THE ENTIRE DAY!!! Scary stories! They were very impressed! I told them I hoped they enjoyed it because he was never setting foot in my room again! Geez! And the point of having lesson plans ready was what exactly?

I was looking at the “dashboard,” which is a feature of this blog site. Nathan told me that he was going to link his blog to mine, but I noticed that someone else had. I followed the link to that person’s blog: Stacy’s blog. I may tried what she tried. She liked this site and thought it was the best of the ten she saw! I’m interested in reading more of her blog, since she obviously has good taste .

remaining Wisconsin pics

I took pics of John and Lisa’s garden because it’s the ultimate spring view — plants blooming or getting ready to boom amidst the dismal spring brown. New Life.

These are photos from the hot, steamy place. It’s nice walking into a rain forest!

Pictures from the walk on Easter

A movie star

Airport II: Only Me

My last day in Wisconsin (in theory), John and I had a great time. We went to Lazy Jane’s for breakfast-ish (I just had coffee because I’d eaten earlier) and played Scrabble. At one point I had five Is, plus a W, so I almost wrote WIIIII — pronounced Wheeeeeee! But I refrained. We looked at books at the Frugal Muse (you gotta love a name like that!) and went to “the hot, steamy plant place.” Really, I forgot the name. I did take a ton of photos, though! We walked around the mall, and then he drove me to the airport. When we were coming out of the mall, it was cold and occasional icy drops of wet stuff fell from the sky. (It was in the 40s/50s the rest of the trip.) I got to the airport early enough that there was another Chicago flight before me. Well, it was a flight leaving late, but my suitcase went on it, I learned later. That was the last flight to Chicago. Perhaps ever. I sat and sat and then my flight was cancelled due to Chicago weather and the fact that I was going to be on a little wind-up plane. So I called John and Lisa, and they generously took me back to their house again. I was rescheduled for a morning flight (6:05 a.m.) because there were no other places they could send me that would get me to Tucson. Still, I got to see the kids and family one more time and have a great supper. I stopped at Walgreen’s to get a few things because my toothbrush, etc., were already on their way to Tucson! When we got out of Walgreen’s, I noticed a tiny amount of snow on two cars. I declared hopefully that perhaps they’d been in a town where it snowed. Yep, turns out they had been — the very town we were in. There was only a trace of snow in patches, but it was snow.

I also called my boss and told her that I needed a sub until noon because I wouldn’t be back until around 11:30, but she was very nice and told me to just take the day off. In the world of education, taking the day after or before a vacation of is strictly forbidden everywhere, so this was very nice of her! She knew even better than I did that I’d be exhausted.

So this morning I got up at 3:45 and we drove to the airport. I already had my boarding pass and no longer any luggage to check, so I went through airport security and to the gate monitor — where it said my flight was cancelled. So I went back downstairs, and they finally got me on a Northwest Airlines flight home via Minneapolis. When I get to the Northwest ticket counter, the guy says that there’ll be no seat choices. I pointed out to him that I’d sit on the wing if he promised to just get me home. Of course, aside from the underwear I bought at Walgreen’s, I’m wearing what I had on yesterday and slept in.

So of course, this means I get to go back upstairs and through airport security again! At least this time they didn’t bother to pat me down! Now I’m thinking that everyone else gets to have smooth travels but it’s not unexpected that this fiasco/burden happens to poor me. Of course, then I realized that since I wasn’t the only person with a ticket on either one of the cancelled flights, it actually happened to a whole lot of other people along with me! Don’t you just hate it when logic ruins a perfectly good pity party?

But I did indeed get home, and my luggage was there in the American Airlines office with a note saying I was arriving from Northwest. I stopped being cold when I hit the Tucson air. My car was extra toasty, and I had a sweater on, so needless to say I took a shower as soon as I got home.

I guess the kitties weren’t expecting me (especially since I never come home noon-ish from anywhere). I had to call them a few times before they showed up, but all was well. I had Christine kitty-sit, and she brought her sons with her at least once (and probably more than that).

I took a nap, and now I have to load the last of the photos onto the blog and then do my U of Px assignments that were due yesterday but that I got an extension for.

Easter

For Easter I went to church with Carla, Michael, and the kids. Julia wore the dress Dottie bought her for her birthday, and there was another girl named Angel who wore the same dress! Cute!

Then I went north to Easton with John and Lisa for Easter dinner with Lisa’s family — her parents, her sister, brother-in-law, and son. Jacob was born a year ago on John’s birthday. They hid eggs outside and jacob had a bit of an Easter egg hunt. We also went for a nice walk. There used to be a dam in the river, but that’s gone now.

After a while, Lisa’s mom turned on the fireplace for us. It was rather nippy and windy. It was a nice visit. The whole vacation has been a nice visit!

more posts

I had the rest of the photos upload when I went to bed last night, because it takes so long!

some of the pics

Here are some of the photos from this weekend. It is very challenging, trying to upload them onto the web site from this computer!

Well, I got my pictures loaded onto my computer finally, but I can’t get my on-line picture site to see and upload them on this computer. I’ll keep trying, but if it doesn’t work then I’ll have to do it on the other computer when I get home.

Yesterday John and I drove out to Jefferson. It was all weird, because it really didn’t seem like all that long since the trip was last made, even though it was last summer! I went to the Good Friday service at my old church, St. John the Baptist, and saw many friends. Then Sue, Annie, and I went to Culver’s for a shrimp basket, to Heather’s to see her and her sons, and then to Sue’s to see Joe. That’s where John picked me up. It’s a brief paragraph, but it was a lot of fun!!

Today I went and spent the day — or at least the afternoon and evening — with Betty, Carla, and Julia. Julia turned four in March and of course is adorable and fun. We went to the park and played in the house. We also played Polly Pockets. I’ve played Polly Pockets for YEARS!! I really should get my own at this point

Tomorrow morning I’ll got to church with Carla and the kids, and then North to dinner with Lisa’s family.