Just as I Hoped

I'm kind of strict when it comes to electronics in my homeroom. When the bell rings, the expectation is to power down all devices and, if the announcements aren't on yet, talk to the people at your table. Reading is okay, too, but I take seriously the idea of using homeroom in middle school as a way to build relationships that will help students feel connected to their school, and in-person interactions are needed even more than ever after the disruptions of the pandemic.

Personal devices and, to a lesser extent, independent reading are counter to the notion of community, and that's why I discourage them, even on Fridays, which are designated as "reading" days in homeroom. Luckily, we have staff and students who do recorded book talks every week, and those offer a communal experience around reading, but the challenge of how to cooperatively use the other 30 minutes of the period remains.

In the past, I've had students choose a book that we read aloud together, and that's pretty good, although once a week is not quite enough to solidly hook the group. I also have a few games that we can play around the books they are reading to make our time more social and interactive. And this year, a couple weeks before winter break I was poking through the game cupboard in my room when  I found my mother's set of Bananagrams. My mom loved all word games, and our family has spent countless fun hours pushing tiles around to make winning words, so I set the bright yellow canvas banana bag on my desk, thinking it might be a good way to spend a Friday morning.

The game was a hit! The sixth graders play in teams of two, working together to arrange and rearrange their tiles into little crosswords. I team up with the girl in my class who has speaks limited English, and it's kind of spontaneous little vocabulary lesson for us. "Do you know the word 'poke'?" I might say, and then give her a little one in the arm if she says no. From time to time, I glance up from our game to give hints and advice to the other teams, and after a few weeks of playing, I see improvement in their strategies. Best of all, we are all sitting together around one of the tables in my room, talking and laughing and thinking about words. 

It's awesome!

Spirit of the Challenge

Our brain break today was to draw "a ghost with a pretzel and a strawberry milkshake." We had three minutes to do our best and then post the picture so everyone could appreciate if not our talent, then certainly our effort and creativity. One student finished way ahead of everyone else. "It was really easy!" she said. "You guys are over-thinking it."

When we revealed the drawings we found that she was right, in the middle of all manor of ghosts with their snacks was one elegant drawing of a pretzel and a milkshake floating in the middle of the otherwise blank page.

"See what I did there?" she laughed, and the rest of us could only congratulate her on her quick wit (and pencil)!

Planning Way Ahead

Yesterday, while we were discussing their One Little Words, I mentioned to one of my classes that I had done another new year exercise called 22 for 2022. "The idea was to make a list of 22 specific things you want to do in 2022," I explained. "it was kind of fun."

"What did they do in the year 2000 for that?" one student wanted to know. "Zero things?"

"I don't know!" I laughed. "That's a good question!"

"And what are you going to do in the year 2077?" asked another student. "Make a list of 77 things?"

"Well," I replied without thinking too hard, "I'll be dead by then, so I don't have to worry about that!"

The poor kid looked a little shocked.

"But you should make that list," I encouraged her. 

She looked unsure.

"At least you have a lot of time to think about it!" I said.

OLW 2022

Another year, another One Little Word assignment-- regular readers might remember my new year tradition of asking my students to share one word that represents something they want more of in their lives in the coming year. This time, instead of asking the young writers to compose a paragraph about their choice, they simply posted the single word, and then each read it to the class and explained why they had chosen it. Seeing the words stand alone was powerful, but hearing the student's voices as they elucidated their ideas was quite poignant. I think I'll do it again this way next year.

Here are the words they chose:

Learn
Productive
Relationships
Success
Sleep
Kindness
Read
Happiness
Me
Science
School
Joy
Chocolate
Light
Doors
Focus
Hope
Remember
Balance
Responsibility
Cats
Acceptance
Therapy
Candy
Intelligence
Love
Screentime
Games
Laughter
Helpful
Comedy
Active
Smart
Intelligence
Taste
Responsibility
Food
Cash
A's
Adventure
Lively
Friendship
Achievement
Change
IQ
Trust
Ambition
Accomplishment
Math
Lacrosse
Competition
Control
Work
Apple cider
Soccer
Luck

So Old It's New

After a few weeks away from school, a couple of the students' iPads were a little glitchy this morning. "Not to worry," I told them, (the students, not the iPads) "I can print out a copy of the assignment, and you can just do it by hand."

They are so used to completing assignments electronically that such an offer seemed very novel to them. "You mean you just push a button on your computer and the paper will come out there," one kid pointed to the printer.

"Yeah," I shrugged, "that's how it works."

"Wow!" she replied without a trace of irony. "That's amazing! Technology today!"

Lazy Sunday

The rain started at around 10:30 this morning, and true to prediction has continued steadily all day giving us a gray and slushy Sunday. "I have three options," I told Heidi around 11:30, after a nice little brunch. "I could do the NYTimes Sunday puzzle, watch some episodes of Evil, or get out the jigsaw puzzle that Richard and Annabelle gave me for Christmas."

"Choose less screen time," she suggested, and so we cleared off the dining room table, brought over an extra lamp, and dumped out the puzzle. It's been years since we've taken the time to do a puzzle at home, so many that we wondered how our nearly 5-year-old cats would take it. But we needn't have worried, both of them and the dog curled up in their beds and slept away the rainy afternoon, while we made excellent progress.

Around 5, I stretched, put on my new winter raincoat, and took the dog for a quick, 2 mile walk, and then it was back to the puzzle, knowing that winter vacation ends for real when the alarm goes off tomorrow morning at 5.

Going Strong

Today would have been Elvis's 87th birthday, had he lived. I know that because a couple of days ago would have been my dad's 87th birthday, too. It's funny to think that those guys were born just 2 days apart-- my dad didn't have a lot of Elvis-like qualities. 

Today is also Heidi's parents' 56th wedding anniversary, a date easy for me to remember, because, see above. This morning Heidi decided she wanted to do a little more than usual to help her folks celebrate the day, since they aren't really eating out because of COVID. So we had some flowers and prepared food delivered to them from the grocery store near their home. That way, her mom won't have to cook, and they will still have a nice meal. 

It took us less than 10 minutes to get everything picked out and sent on its way with the promise that it would be at their door in less than two hours. "Wow!" Heidi shook her head as I closed the lap top. "That internet! It's still pretty amazing."