Theme Thursday - PLAY

I teach kids who struggle and listen to the parents that love them stress out.  Being TCAP time in Tennessee, I am shocked every year at the amount of pressure the KIDS themselves feel to perform on these tests. It makes me sad.  I had a 4th grader cry last night during tutoring.  Big, hot, angry tears because he doesn't know anymore what is TCAP practice math or "real math" that counts for a grade and he is frustrated.

Thanks to the phenomenal Dr. Shula Chernoff, Professor Emeritus at Southern Connecticut State University, her passionate lectures to us on the importance of developmentally appropriate play and toys have been ingrained in my DNA.  To this day, I must. give. sand/water tables to 2 year olds.  Look how cute the girls are as they play...um, I mean work, Dr. Chernoff, I mean work.

What I perceive education to be.....

"Play is the work of children."  Jean Piaget

Parallel play, science, language skills, math, visual discrimination, hand-eye coordination, fine-motor skills....that's a lotta fun...I mean, work. Work!

Where I fear education is heading...
High-stakes testing--which this is, as it will slap labels on five-year-olds--is more than just casually popping in an academic thermometer on a given day to see how a kid is doing. It creates a culture that distorts curriculum, hijacks school resources, and robs young children of their precious days of discovery...Dan Brown

Hey little kids, solve all your family's problems so they don't interfere with The Test!  And if you can't, worry about it!  And teachers, scrap all the other stuff your kids may need, so they can be prepared for The Test.

Clan Donaldson: Theme Thursday: Boys

Clan Donaldson: Theme Thursday: Boys

Boy Cubs

It is always fun to play with Cari Donaldson of Clan Donaldson.  I miss playing with her in real life since she had the audacity to get up and move to CONNECTICUT!

She stokes my artistic spirit which I am afraid stays dormant most of the time now.....

Theme Thursday is a subject I know a lot a lot about - BOYS! And what is cuter than a cub scout....

Here is the original....

Ryan's most amazing photobomb!  And his big brother ( on the left) is obviously used to it and doesn't flinch....

Here is is again, cropped, brightened a bit and given a Sketchedy frame from the picmonkey.com site where I edit and jazz up my photos.

Here is is again, with a little grain for effect.....

And my favorite part....doctoring!

Boys are fun.

Grow.  Sniff.

Yes, YOU need to come to RISE!

I am popping on to share information about the Tennessee branch of the IDA's terrific annual conference.   I am heading to Knoxville this weekend to iron out all the little pre-conference details with the other board members and thought I would spread the word.

RISE CONFERENCE


Our conference is our biggest outreach to parents, teachers, paraprofessionals and anyone else affected by dyslexia and its related learning issues.  There are workshops for the new, nervous parents and workshops for trained professionals - everyone can find something to expand their awareness and find out ways to help the people in their lives.

Knoxville.

Who needs to come?

Look at all the places within 300 miles!  An easy drive to beautiful Knoxville!

And if you are wondering if it would be worth your time and money, spend a few minutes checking out this information presented on his website by our keynote speaker, David Boulton ( "Children of the Code")

Why should I care about reading?


Please share with any teacher or parent you may know who would be interested.  They can email me if they have questions.

Pam

Christmas Eve 2012

The day started with me rolling out of bed, checking the oven and the Forgotten Cookies.  This year, the bottoms burnt on one tray.  HUGE BUMMER!  I only make once batch a year, so yeah, bummer!

Daniel, realizing I haven't been tormented enough with the song " Christmas Shoes" this year, makes it his quest to drive me crazy - I keep finding it playing on laptops, embedded in links in my email.....he also sings it in his funny elf voice.

We found out that Evan's elf name is Squeezy McJingles, and no one can say it with a straight face.  Speaking of Squeezy, Evan spent all morning helping me clean and cook and hugging me out of his sheer excitement about Christmas.  Ryan on the other hand, keeps leaning on me because he has a cold.  He was feverish the other day, but I know he is on the mend because he cannot.stop.complaining.about it.

Tonight is our annual Christmas Eve party.  We basically invite a bunch of neighbors and friends that stay in town alone.  It is great fun, it is a group of people who never cross paths except at our house Christmas Eve.  Grammy makes her meatballs, Evan makes Rotel dip, Daniel makes deviled eggs, Ryan wraps the last of the gifts for me, and Mike goes out on the last errand run before the party.  You know, the one where I call him 6 times and say, " Oh, one more thing, honey......"  He really loves that. NOT.

Every year, the activities change.  Some years, the kids play board games, other years they make a fire in the fire pit and run around playing hide and seek in the dark.  One year, many moons ago, they all took turns  running  a plastic knife thru a candle flame in the dining room until I smelled burning plastic, caught them, and chased them away.  They are now teenagers and laughed about this tonight.  This year the activities seemed to be garage floor hockey and video games....

 "Don't worry that I am all dressed up nicely to serve Mass, I can play garage hockey in my suit, my mom doesn't mind!

                                                               The gang hanging out.


The dads played a game called "Try to describe the Johnny Walker Using the Same Words That are on the Box's Description."  Who would have guessed "dark chocolate" is an undertone?  Not me!

   Chris needed to phone a friend I guess.

                             

The last friends left about 11pm and everyone changed their clothes and headed out to Midnight Mass. It was beautiful.  We are so blessed to be able to see the face of God in Jesus.  Such a simple gift, yet so profound.  I was very blessed to have had my family and friends around me tonight at Mass.

After Mass, the kids convinced me we really could just stay up and open presents and that would be AWESOME!  So we did.

                                          Brothers give brothers the best presents!

                                           Photobombing Evan's swag pile!



Every Christmas, I try to enjoy every minute and complain about nothing.  For so many years, we added people to our Christmas.  Babies were born, people married and we gained aunts, uncles, and cousins.  We made new friends.  One year, it dawned on me that one day, we would have to celebrate a Christmas with someone missing.  Every year I worked really hard to enjoy all of it and be happy to have everyone around us.  Last year was the first Christmas with someone missing and it was super hard.  My goal was to make it whiz by and just get through it.  Keeping up the tradition of a Christmas Eve party was a huge crutch that helped me get through last year.  This year it was nice to be able to enjoy fun again.

I am now, officially too tired to edit my ramblings...Merry Christmas everyone!

"Readicide"

I am currently reading the book Readicide: How Schools Are Killing Reading and What You Can Do About It  by Kelly Gallagher.  It should be a must read for every parent sending their kids to school, no matter what the grade level.  I am about halfway done and it has already hit all so many of the  problems I see daily with my students.

1) Accelerated reading.  This is the ultimate is setting kids up to fail.
2) Completely inane and contrived stories in reading texts.
3) Completely inane and contrived follow up questions with ridiculous multiple choice answers.
4) Novel studies that pick and pick and pick out every minutia in a great story until it becomes completely unbearable to read.
5) Reading logs that want me to record said minutia.  This would seriously tempt me to write crazy things just to see if my teacher read them at all.
6) Teaching kids deep meaningful topics in a very shallow way, super fast......whoosh!........ so there is no time for them to develop an interest in a subject.

It is a very compelling book.  Sadly, for some reason, educational practices are rarely founded as a result of good research, they are founded as fads.  This hurts our kids and it kills their spirit, especially the ones who need help.  Reading this book just put it into an even clearer perspective.