The Company You Keep

I've been teaching sixth grade so long that I am often accused of acting like one of my students. And that's why you teach middle school, friends and family will say in response to, for instance, my pointing out that they said, "do do" (as in, what we do do in that situation is...)

I don't mind though; heck! I consider it a compliment. If you're only as good as the company you keep, well, my company is energetic, creative, open-minded, spontaneous and funny. I could do so much worse.

Bonus: With a little extra time at the end of class today, a student leaned on my desk. "So," he started, "why can't you hear pterodactyls when they use the bathroom?"

I was stumped for a moment, but then I began to laugh. "Does it have anything to do with silent P?"

"Yep," he answered as the bell rang.

Winning!

I try to provide a wide assortment of books in my classroom library so that every student can find something good to read. Recently I added Meanwhile, by Jason Higa, a graphic novel in choose-your-own-adventure format. It was immediately a big hit, but how could it not be, with thousands of options, all stemming from the simplest of questions, Chocolate or Vanilla? From there, the main character, Jimmy, heads off on an amazing adventure featuring a mad scientist, mind control, and a time machine, all controlled by the reader's choices on every page.

Just today several students in one of my classes were excitedly talking about it.

"What book is it?" another boy asked.

"Meanwhile," they told him.

"Oh yeah," he nodded. "I beat that book last year."

"Wait, what?" someone said, "How did you beat it?"

"Easy," he shrugged, "I got the happy ending."

And Would Suffice

We were homebound yesterday, trapped in a glittering prison of ice. (Or, as one of my students posted in his slice, Elsa has hit us and everything is frozen!) As pretty as it was, we had a few errands left un-run at the end of the weekend.

Not to worry-- sub-freezing temperatures overnight preserved the skating rink quality of most sidewalk and streets in our district, and so school was canceled. Out came the sun around 9 AM, and balmy temps of 41 banished most of the ice by 10, turning our ice day into a nice day for catching up on chores!

And it was definitely not the end of the world.

Ice and Fire

The weather here today is both treacherous and beautiful: a wintery mix has encased everything in a solid coat of ice. Although it is nearly impossible to leave the house, the crackling fire offers an awfully convincing argument to just enjoy the view of the sparkling world without from the chair between the window and the fireplace.

I think I will.

Write That Down, Pass It Around

I've been a member of the blogosphere for just about six years, which is a long time in internet years. To give you some frame of reference, back when I started, Facebook had 150 million users, as compared to over a billion today, and I was not one of them. Twitter? 22.3 million then, 285 million now, me included. Neither Pinterest nor Tumblr even existed, yet.

I spent a little time this morning clicking around some of the blogs I used to follow when I began writing mine; more than half of them have been abandoned or formally shut down; their authors have married, changed jobs, divorced, gone off to college, had children, battled illnesses, moved on or just faded away. The other half are going strong, though, and it was nice to check in with those writers.

A couple of years after I started my blog, I challenged my sixth graders to begin daily writing, too. Those particular kids are sophomores in high school now, but a little quick internet research showed me that some of them, at least, are still writing. And just yesterday, this year's students began a hundred day writing challenge of their own.

Traditionally, I launch this activity on March 1, because that is the anniversary of my own odyssey, but this year the first is Sunday, so I pushed it to February 27, because I wanted to begin in class. Even so, I was concerned that kids would forget to post today, since it is Saturday and the campaign still so new. I needn't have worried: when I logged in a few minutes ago, 25 kids had already published their second slice of life, which is not bad for an optional activity.

98 days to go!

Who knows where it will end?

I Like Talkin About You You You You Usually

I know, I know.

It's age-appropriate for sixth graders to be self-absorbed. But when you rotate through eighteen 90-second speed book-talks and nobody asks about your book because they're too busy talking about theirs, it stings a little.

Still, I was glad to hear all that enthusiasm for their independent reading!

(And for the record? I'm reading One Came Home, by Amy Timberlake. A Newbery Honor book last year, it tells the story of 13-year-old Georgie, who, in 1871, leaves her home of Placid, Wisconsin to search for her older sister, Agatha, because she doesn't believe the body the sheriff brought home was really her. AND it's pretty good, too.)

Peter Piper

It's that time of year when forward thinking gardeners (Isn't that all of us? Doesn't it take a leap of faith in the future to plant a garden at all?) start their seeds. In the past, my focus has been on tomatoes, and this season there will be plenty of those, but I have learned that the peppers must come first.

Growing up, I was never a big fan of peppers. Back then, we really only had one kind-- green bell. My sister loved them in salad, but I picked around them. My dad sauteed them every Saturday night with mushrooms and onions to go with our steak and french fries, but to me? They ruined the other vegetables. They were also in our chili and spaghetti sauce, and the first thing I did when I learned to cook was to hold the peppers.

When I was in my 20s, I was introduced to Thai food, and boy was that a pepper of a different color! Hot peppers barely seemed related to those others. The more I cooked and traveled, the more various the peppers became, and my appreciation grew. Pepperoncini, banana, ancho, habanero, roasted red, New Mexico, smoked Spanish paprika-- they all have their place in my kitchen and on my menus. I have even found a use for green bell peppers; it's impossible to make a good Cajun etouffee without 'em.

So this year I'm planting lots of peppers. The mail-order seeds arrived just the other day, and despite the snow on the ground, today I am dreaming of late July and August when the Guajillo, Hatch, Paprika, Aji Dulce, Peachy Mama, Cornejo del Toro, and Gochagaru will be ready to pick.