Today, I miss my classroom.
I miss welcoming your children
and teaching them
and learning about them
and loving them.
I miss pulling into my parking spot,
the sun freshly risen
that apple skin hour
sipping my first-day-back Starbucks
as the cool morning air greets me.
If you lead a group of kids anywhere, they usually walk in clumps. This is fine if we’re trekking about on a field trip or headed out to the playground, but when we need to go from point A to point B in an efficient, orderly way, we need lines.
When I first started teaching, I had a student-teaching assignment out in East San Jose. It was a difficult semester for me, to say the least. I got stress rashes and cried in my car almost every day after teaching, and I can totally see why there’s a lot of teacher burnout in low-income areas. If you’re one of those teachers, I wish I could personally give you a high five and sincere thank you for serving this demographic!
In the meantime, I share with you a poem. An encouragement, and a reminder of who we are caring for as you dive into this next school year. I’m not sure it qualifies as a poem, actually… but I used to tell my students they could just change up the spacing and call anything a poem.
Almost anything
can seem
poetic.
…Right? =D K maybe not, hope I didn’t offend anyone out there. Well, whatever it is, I wrote this while I was in the thick of this challenging student-teaching assignment. Dr. Shierling, our Reading and Writing Curriculum instructor, had given us mini notepads and instructed us to write about “an unforgettable moment.”
I immediately knew what I was going to write about, because just the day before, I had experienced a moment I never wanted to forget. So I started writing…
Yesterday, I was brave. I was daring. I took a risk. A big risk. I let my students show just how much more they knew, than I did. I showed my students how little I knew. I let them laugh at me, and I did not get upset.
And, I realized just how brave they are– every day.
Here is a game that involves fractions, memory-strengthening, and a litttttle bit of gambling (…sort of… not really). It takes a little more explanation in the beginning than say, the game of 99, but once you get the hang of it, it’s very simple.
Although this is recommended for grades 4-6, if your child understands the concept of fractions (even just visually), then they might be able to play. They may just need some help adding up their totals at the end. You can also cut out fraction bars or circles to help them visualize the totals at the end. Then again, you could just wait until fourth grade. There are plenty of other games to play in the meantime! 🙂
Does the title sound familiar? Chances are you originally found my blog after reading my piece on teaching kids how to apologize. I’m pretty sure that’s how Verily Magazine found me, after which they asked me to write a version of apologies for adults. So I did! You can read it below, or find it HERE.
Thanks again for reading along on my blog! =D
***Congratulations to Charlama C., winner of the book giveaway!
Thanks for participating!***
This game is a little like Go Fish, where you try to match up cards and make pairs. Unlike Go Fish, however, you don’t just pick matching pairs of cards. Instead, you can make a pair if one number divides into the other. Well, that’s about it. There’s the game. You don’t need to read any further =).
…But go ahead. Cuz I went through the trouble of formatting it all nice for you and everything :).
>>>CLICK HERE FOR A PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION WITH THE SCORING TEMPLATE AND INSTRUCTIONS.<<<
**REMINDER: BOOK GIVEAWAY ENDS TONIGHT AT 11:59PM PST! :]]**
HOORAY! I JUST FOUND MY NEW FAVORITE WAY TO USE UP EGG WHITES!
…and I had a lot of them. I should’ve taken a picture of the three cups of egg whites brimming over in my Pyrex. Kinda gross. Why so many egg whites? Because ice cream, my friend. Lots and lots of ice cream. Specifically, lots of “frozen custard,” which is just a fancy way of describing a method of making ice cream with egg yolks.
Made an angel food cake, egg white omelette, or some macarons and have leftover egg yolks? Here are ideas for using ’em up! I love rich, creamy desserts, and here are some of my all-time favorites! Bookmark or pin them so they’re handy the next time you need this!
Using up egg yolks is easy for me. Ice cream, creme brulee, pastry cream… these are all some of my favorite things. I’m always left with a bowl full of egg whites, so I’ve had to find ways to finish off up to sixteen egg yolks at a time! Here are my favorite ways to not waste those whites. Bookmark or pin them so they’re handy the next time you need this!
8/1/2014 UPDATE: And the winner is… Charlama C.! (Winner selected by Random.org.) Congrats!
Click here if you still need a copy! 🙂
Thanks, all, for participating!
———————-
A week ago, one of my lovely blog readers reached out to me and asked me to read and review a book she had written on teaching kids how to understand and talk about their feelings. I liked it so much I offered to do a giveaway of the book on my blog! Just in case you were wondering, I was not paid to read the book, write the review, or host a giveaway.
I am pleased to share with you Yell and Shout, Cry and Pout: A Kid’s Guide to Feelings
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