What I Learned in School Today

1.  How to draw an English muffin:

2. How to draw a cat:

3. It was harder than I thought it would be to say good bye to these kids. 

What a year!

Traditional Learner

 In case anyone needed any confirmation that my learning style is old school, here ya go: 

The teacher for a day pulled up his slides. "The only things you will need for this lesson are a piece of paper and a pencil to take notes."

I was on it! In no time every in-person student, the teaching assistant, and me all had our materials on the desk and ready to go. What followed was an extremely detailed presentation on Sonic the Hedgehog, a topic upon which I know virtually nothing. But, although the teacher moved quickly through the dense material, my pen moved even faster as I evaluated information, created bullet lists, and made connections, using arrows and boxes to organize the facts. 

When I turned my loose leaf paper over, the kids in the room with me looked up surprised. They had already given up, and their notes were sparse. "C'mon you guys!" I encouraged them. "I bet the assessment is open note. The more you have, the better you can do!"

What followed was a 30 question Kahoot! With mics muted, our little group joined forces. I pointedly referred to my noted throughout, and in the end? Our team won the day! But the real prize was when one of the in-person kids shook his head and said with a bit of disbelief, "I gotta start taking better notes!"

Fine-tuning

Teacher-for-a-day has not been quite as successful this year as it has in the past, which is hardly surprising, considering that many would say teaching in general has not been as successful this year as it has in the past. 

Even so, a lesson today was just too short to be a hit, but it was designed by a student who really did her best, so I turned off my mic and camera and let her present  five slides on drawing an ice cream cone. I learned along with the class, completing all the activities with enthusiasm, as I do with all the lessons, and when we got to the end with a simple ice cream cone drawn on my paper and no assessment in sight, I unmuted. "Why don't we all color these as our favorite kind of ice cream cone and post photos of them in the chat?" I suggested. It was what I would have done if I had underplanned the lesson (which happens more often than you might think).

Fortunately? The teacher liked my idea, and her comments as she moderated the drawings really ended the lesson on a positive note. And later, when I read through the feedback before sending her a summary, I was pleased to see that all the kids enjoyed the activity. 

Non-stop

The question of the day was What are your three road trip must-haves? 

First answer? Food, phone, and a bottle to pee in.

Well.

Safe travels, kid.

Off Brand

Perhaps it was the way Milo cries pitifully at the door, but only when Lucy is outside, that on a whim we decided to order tiny harnesses for our cats. When they arrived today, I eagerly pulled them from the box, but then stood there dumbly with a tangle of colorful nylon straps hanging from my hand: the engineering was a mystery to me. Fortunately, they included directions, and when I lifted those from the bottom of the package I read the brand name of our new merchandise: come with me kitty and laughed out loud.

Because that's not creepy at all.

I Know How She Feels

"Do we have any classwork today?" read the message in my inbox this morning. I frowned and checked the timestamp. It had been sent a few minutes earlier.

"Nope!" I replied. "Because it's Sunday!"

"Thanks," she responded. "I was confused when I woke up this morning."

Just one more week.

She Would Have Approved

We stopped by my brother's on the way home from the farmer's market this morning. It is my mom's birthday, and I wanted to spend a little time. 

He wasn't home though, so Heidi and I chatted with Victor and Emily, admiring the garden and letting the dogs play a little. We were just heading home when Bill got back. "We're having fried chicken and chocolate cake for dinner tonight," I told him.

"I'll be there at five," he joked.

"Make it 6:30!" I said.

And so it was.

Happy Birthday, Ma.