Success at Last!

That little pumpkin kit I got in my stocking?

Well, lookie there!

Never Not Ever

Yesterday, for our food unit we read the book I Will Never Not Ever Eat a Tomato where a boy named Charlie convinces his sister Lola to eat carrots, peas, mashed potatoes, and fish sticks by calling them orange twiglets from Jupiter, green drops from Greenland, cloud fluff from Mt. Fuji, and all the mermaids' favorite, ocean nibbles from the grocery at the bottom of the sea.

Today, the students worked in teams to invent new identities for apples, butternut squash, basil, and cherry tomatoes. They were supposed to use their knowledge of sensory details and figurative language to transform those healthy foods into treats that kids would love to try. To inspire them, I had samples of each so that they could experience them personally.

The results were inventive and entertaining: we ended up with  Saturn slices, butter rocks, Martian gold, sun drops, money sprinkles, baby bouncers, juicy fruit, Martian candy, space jam, warrior nuts, green space octopus, and min-mers (whatever those are!) I'm not sure many kids would want to try many of those foods, but I know a lot of kids who ate their vegetables and did some pretty good collaborative thinking and writing today.

Clean Plate Club

Another day, another food picture to help students recognize analyzing, evaluating, and synthesizing. The task was to look at a composed bowl of food, decide if you would eat it, and figure out what ingredients you might add or subtract to have it your way.

It was a popular question, and I planned time for any student who was willing share to their ideas. As a cook, I found their replies very interesting. Some chose to replace the shrimp with another protein, some chose to add a second protein. Several eliminated the vegetables, and although avocado is very popular, a couple opted out, and a few others made it into guacamole. One student said she only like avocado on toast. Some kids added rice to make it a rice bowl; some added greens to make it a salad. Other additions were hot sauce, cilantro, cucumbers, and tomatoes.

The funniest answer I got started like this, "First I would get rid of the shrimp and avocado. Then the zucchini, peppers, and corn would have to go."

"You would start from scratch?" I asked.

"Yep," the student said, "after I washed the plate."

Have it your Way

I did a quick thinking exercise with my students today. In an effort to explain analysis in a different context, I put a picture of some kind of chili mac casserole up on the screen and posed the question, Would you eat this? Whether the answer was yes or no, I knew that when asked why, they would point to ingredients they recognized in the picture.

"That's analysis!" I explained. "You are breaking something down into its parts to see what it's made of!"

My follow up question was, What would you add or take out to make it a better meal? 

More cheese! Less tomato! No peppers! More peppers! Gluten-free macaroni!

"That's evaluation and synthesis!" I told them. "Writers do that, too!"

Perhaps the analogy was a bit abstract, but I'll keep working on it. Oh, and anecdotally? All the classes before lunch loved the picture! After lunch? They were quite a bit more critical.

Advice from the Coach

The quote of the day today was also the theme of the story we read. What to do with a mistake: recognize it, admit it, learn from it, forget it. ~ Dean Smith.

And all day long? The lesson was relevant.

"I couldn't write last night because..." a student would say.

"Recognize it, admit it, learn from it, forget it," I'd answer. "Are you going to write tonight?"

"I don't have my writing notebook. It's just..." another kid would start.

"Are you going to bring it tomorrow?" I asked.

And when they nodded, "Recognize it, admit it, learn from it, forget it," I'd reply.

"Are you doing your assignment?" I'd ask, and the guilty look was all the answer I needed.

Even so, most kids (heck! most people!) feel compelled to make an excuse. "Recognize it, admit it, learn from it, forget it," I'd tell them and move on.

And so it went. "We should get posters of that!" one of my co-teachers said.

Hmmm.

sk sk sk and i oop

"Are you a visco girl?" one of the students in my small intervention group asked the other day.

"What's that?" I asked. "How do you spell it?"

"V-S-C-O." She laughed. "It's from TikTok-- You have a Hydro Flask, you wear Vans, you have an Apple watch, an iPhone, you like Starbucks and you have a reusable straw... That's VSCO girl. You just need a big t-shirt, some friendship bracelets, a scrunchie, and some lip balm."

"And want to save the turtles," her friend added.

"Wow!" I said, "that totally could be me! But I think I'm probably more of a VSCO Lady."

Too Cool for School

The poster at the craft fair of Dick and Jane running with scissors and captioned, We do bad things because we are bad children. And we like it! made us giggle, so much so, that Heidi purchased the small, hand-sized magnet version of it.

As she paid, the artist chatted her up a bit. "I'm so glad you like it," she said.

"Oh my god!" Heidi replied. "It's hilarious!"

"Thanks," the artist shrugged.

"In fact," Heidi continued, "I'm a teacher, and I just might put this in my classroom."

"Oh," said the artist, wide-eyed, "well." She handed the bag to Heidi. "Just don't get fired!"