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Hawaii Song
04.06.12 | Permalink | | Comments Off on Hawaii Song
Guinevere and I have been playing guitar and singing together off and on for a while now. We actually have some songs under our belt, and we have a nice little time when we get together and jam.
We decided to write a new song together tonight and came up with the topic of writing about Tami’s parents Mimi & Bop Bop since they are currently in Hawaii and that has been a source of fascination and conversation for us since their departure almost two weeks ago.
The lyrics are very cute and are as follows:
I wonder if Mimi
Wears mumus in Hawaii.
I wonder if Bop Bop
Wears grass skirts on his HineyI want to lay with the turtles
While mommy takes off her girdle
So we can swim with the dolphins
While Jude goes miniature golfin’
I wonder if Mimi
Wears mumus in Hawaii.
I wonder if Bop Bop
Wears grass skirts on his HineyI wanna lay out on the beach
until my skin gets really Bleached
But I bruise like a peach
and that would make me screech
for sun lotion.I wonder if Mimi
Wears mumus in Hawaii.
I wonder if Bop Bop
Wears grass skirts on his Hiney
and here is the lovely song:
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Another Writer
After careful consideration, Bradley and I have decided to forgo traditional preschool for Jude in favor of some Little Gym memberships or dance classes. In those classes he will still develop relationships with his peers and need to attend to a grown up who is not his parent so he will have that needed year of socialization and group dynamic readiness. We decided to do this so we can figure out where his physical strengths lay and the hope is that he will become a more active child. But that leaves us with the problem of kindergarten readiness. We had sort of decided to kind of wing it and do a home-school preschool with workbooks, library trips, zoo trips and a goal of letter/sound association, number quantity association and the ability to read his name come the end of August.
I brought this up with my brilliant friend, Becca Ross, who is a Kindergarten teacher at our school. I know that kindergarten readiness is a BIG issue for those teachers, so I wanted to get her thoughts on what we were planning to do. It was a GOOD thing I did as she is starting a home-school preschool program that is an online course for parents complete with book lists, printables and curriculum to guide your preschoolers education! We are going to pilot the program this spring to see how it goes, so if anyone wants to join us the cost is a mere 50.00 for the course.
And just look what our little writer can do. Someone likes to spend his evenings doing ‘homework’ lately. He complains all the while he does it, then asks for another page once he finishes the first. 🙂
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School Day
04.05.12 | Permalink | | Comments Off on School DayThis year may mark the final year Gigi is at Hilltop. For a variety of reasons, we have concluded that third grade MAY just be the year to make the transition to Moorlands and into a neighborhood where she can start making local friends. Playdates, when one lives away from the school area, are surprisingly difficult to arrange… This year’s ending is drastically different from others as well since I have the fabulous Ms. Troske as an intern in my classroom this year. Presently she is in the middle of her solid three weeks of student teaching, so I am encouraged to be out of the classroom quite a bit. What’s a teacher to do who is left without a classroom, you may ask? She is left to spend the remainder of shared schooling in her daughter’s classroom as a volunteer! So the other morning I spent Daily Five time in Gigi’s classroom with her, watching all of that great thinking in action and, of course, sneaking a few pictures (low quality ipad camera pictures, just as a head’s up).
The second graders in Miss Jansen’s class start out with a morning meeting where a lesson is taught, previous thinking is reviewed and everyone gets ready for the day. Miss Jansen has done a really good job of setting routines and expectations, so when they are released for their various activities each student has a ‘sense of urgency’ to get to their spot and right to work immediately. It is obvious they have practiced this skill because ALL of the kids know what to do and they follow through.
All of the kids had a comprehension assessment to make sure their brains were doing all of the right things while they read. After Gigi took her little quiz, she moved onto the next activity which was her reading group.
I love how engaged ALL of the learners look and how Miss Jansen is quietly speaking to the student next to her. The feeling in Miss Jansen’s class is a peaceful and quiet one. It is the perfect environment to grow as readers and writers.
Gigi’s class has places to do word work, study science and little nooks and crannies to read or write around the room.
Gigi’s turn to read in her group.
Lastly, Guinevere worked in her fractured fairy tale. Her tale is the story of Rapunzel, the twist, or fracture, was that the father kept Rapunzel in the tower instead of the other way around. The previous day we wrote a story together all about the time she went to a Justin Beiber concert and her mom wore ‘skine’ (skinny) jeans and a halter top and a huge pink bow in her hair.  It didn’t happen. (yet).
All in all it has been such a pleasure to take the time to serve in Gigi’s classroom. While she has been at my school for the last three years, my interactions with her have been pretty minimal. I don’t have very many opportunities to go into her classroom in a real authentic capacity. So I am grateful that her teacher, my friend Miss Carly Jansen, is willing to let a parent, who is also a teacher, come spend extended times in her classroom. It has been so much fun to see my daughter acting like a second grader (they really DO act different at school, even when you ARE there) and it is so nice to know the kids she goes to school with. If she is at Moorlands next year I will miss her terribly, but the trade-off of friends close by will far outweigh my little lonely heart that misses my girl.
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Fence
04.04.12 | Permalink | | Comments Off on FenceWe are spending this Spring Break making a fence to keep Captain Rubberneck on his side of the gravel (we have a neighbor who is neither our fan nor us his). Here is our progress so far:
First up was Pipi (Pronounced “Pie-Pie) Littlejohn with the hip tool that made digging just that much faster and easier. They had 12 holes done in under an hour and my understanding is that he will return tomorrow to do the remaining 12 on the apartment side of the house.
Once the holes were dug I put in some posts. Martha sniffed stuff. We were quite the team. My official position during fence building is “Lead Scurrier”. It is a title I invented myself, but essentially I am sent scurrying after whatever is needed: shims, tums, beers, boards, hammers, get cement, get shovel, dig, mix the cement, pick up dog poop, sandwiches, kid duty, sort boards and that sort of stuff while Bradley saves his arms doing only arm injury -worthy tasks like hammering and pouring just so.
Then the foreman came out and started bossing everyone around, pointing and hollering, “Do more of that!” “Do more of THIS!” We were unsure of what either ‘This’ or ‘That’ were, but we did our best to scurry around and look busy until he FINALLY went away and started making a circus on the back patio with balls, hula hoops and scrap lumber.
There was a lot of re-digging, leveling and pouring of cement, but finally we had the outline for what our yard will look like:
By the end of day one we had the yard side all poured and placed, the middle braces all in place ready for boards on day two.
Bradley had to rip bunch of boards, but at the end of day two our fence looked like this:
Pleased as punch!
Today we are looking for a good price on play chips so we can finish the front of the fence, and tomorrow we will attack the apartment side and FINALLY we will have privacy against prying eyes (like anyone was prying, but whatever) while we are in the hot tub! Yeah for Spring Break Fences!
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Captain America’s Grandma
03.26.12 | Permalink | | Comments Off on Captain America’s GrandmaWatching a Captain America cartoon, The Captain’s shield gets shattered. Jude is so worried. He asks me, “how will they ever fix his shield? It was special… His grandma gave it to him.”
Such a sweet construct for what makes something special. He is just waking up with every passing moment, and I love to see the little boy who cares so much and is so inherently good.
