Unexpected

I try to balance my class between novel and predictable. So, we have a weekly routine, but within that there are plenty of opportunities for new and different activities to tackle the curriculum. In keeping with that model, Monday is the day I check in with students on their independent reading, and we also have a word study quiz.

This year, there is a student who has been on my team's collective radar literally from the first week of school. Opinionated, vocal, distractible, and self-deprecating, he is also work-avoidant both in and out of class, not a successful combination. On this first Monday of the second quarter, he was unprepared: no book, no reading log, and he readily admitted that he hadn't studied for the quiz.

I can't say I was surprised, but a little while later, he pulled me aside. "I've had enough," he told me earnestly..

I looked at him with curiosity. Despite his academic struggle, he is generally very good-natured, light-hearted even.

"Today is the last time I'm coming without my stuff!" he continued. "I'm going to do my work, read my book, and study! You'll see," he assured me.

"Okay," I answered, "I'm going to hold you to that. But let me know how I can help you, ok?"

He nodded and returned to his seat quietly.

Sour Tomatoes

How fortunate we are that well into November our garden continues to provide. In the last couple of weeks we've gotten plenty of peppers to dry and mix into our proprietary house chili powder and enough tomatoes to ripen on the window sill and put up in a quart jar. 

Then there are these guys...

Coming Soon: Pickled Green Tomatoes!

Not Just for Selfies

A tumble of ice cascaded from the freezer when I opened the door a little while ago. We were away from home all day, but as busy as we had been, the ice maker was obviously much busier. Clearing away the frozen crescents from the thin silver arm to manually lift it into the for God's sake stop making ice position, I saw that the little piece of wire had pulled loose from one side and so there were literally no brakes on the maker.

Just then another perfect batch dropped, partially burying my hand. Although urgent, it did not seem like a difficult repair: I could see the hole across from me where the wire was still in place, so surely there must be a corresponding opening on the facing part, even though it was out of my line of sight. I reached in and poked about with the loose part, trying to find that obscure cavity by touch alone with no success. I cleared some space in the freezer and stepped on a small ladder, but neither my neck nor the design was yielding. 

I need a mirror! I said to myself and then visualized such a tool and where I might find it in the house, but I could not think of where a hand mirror might be. What do we use to see ourselves? I wondered, and the solution became clear. I grabbed my phone, swiped on the camera, flipped the view around, and thrust it into the freezer where the teeny, tiny hole was revealed. In went the wire, and the ice maker was fixed!

Good Start

Heidi received a big fat envelope in the mail earlier this week. Inside her parents had packed all her report cards, first communion programs, and traffic tickets (yes, traffic tickets) from kindergarten through college. Since then, she has gleefully reviewed her developmental milestones, Especially interesting? Why her very first progress report, dated September 1973. At not yet 5, Heidi entered kindergarten and was deemed strong, coordinated ("able to run, hop, skip, and jump"), prepared ("well-rested and ready to learn"), and socially adept ("carries and uses tissues or hankie" and "able to tell stories in sequence and using complete sentences").

That's my girl!

Semantics

"Why do you think I ask you to be quiet when we're in a workshop?" I asked my class today in an effort to, well, get them to quit yappin' and start writin'.

Several hands shot up. "So we can wooooork!" they practically chorused.

"Yeah," someone added, "It's called 'workshop' not 'talkshop'!

Still Wondering

The waiting room was pretty crowded when the young mother walked into the doctor's office with her two small sons this morning. The boys were restless, and the three attracted my attention as she checked in at the window. A quick look around the small lobby showed me that there were no seats together, and so when they turned around, I moved to the empty chair next to me so that they could sit while they waited to be called. She held the youngest in her lap, he looked to be perhaps 18 months, and patted the seat next to her for her older son. He was skeptical, but sat anyway. "I'm hungry," he said to his mom.

"You just ate breakfast," she told him.

He squirmed.

"Let's read a book," she suggested and handed him one from her bag.

"No!" he scowled, and so she took another and began reading it to the toddler on her lap.

I heard her older boy sigh and felt his eyes on me.

"No school today?" I asked him.

"Nope!" he answered.

"What grade are you? First?" I guessed.

He smiled. "Yes!"

"What's the name of your school?"

I wondered if he was from our district, but I didn't recognize the long name he mumbled. Still I nodded enthusiastically. "Nice!" I said.

"We're going to the zoo today," he told me.

"Fun!" I answered. "What's your favorite animal?"

He cut his eyes at his mother, who was listening to his conversation with the stranger next to him.

"That's not an appropriate joke for people you don't know," she said to him.

He laughed. I was confused.

"Oh, you're not really going to the zoo?" I guessed.

"No, we're going," she answered, "but he was kidding about it with me earlier, and I don't want him to repeat what he said."

"Oh," I replied, because there seemed nothing else to say, but I couldn't imagine what she could possibly be talking about.

Fortunately, the awkward silence was broken a moment later when they were called in to see the doctor.

I guess I'll never know.

Half-Baked

All the sixth grade students at our school have been taking their quarterly district-required standardized reading test the last couple of days. Designed as a predictor for the state assessment they will take in the spring, the first quarter test consists of four texts and 23 questions.

The passages are a mix of fiction and nonfiction, and one of them was actually a recipe for crispy oven-fried chicken. Which one of these steps should come first? the students were asked and given four choices including beat the eggs and lay the chicken legs one inch apart on a baking sheet.

It's kind of a tough question for a non-cook, and let's be honest: how many 11-year-olds have the background knowledge to make that inference? Plus, did anyone stop to think that they were literally asking which comes first, the chicken or the eggs?

But the best story of the day came from my friend Mary. One of her students pulled out his iPad during the test. "What are you doing?" she asked him.

"I want to get a picture of this recipe!" he replied. "It looks so good!"