Blog Backlog - November 2010

In November, baby was thankful for her Minnie Mouse t-shirt & handmade hat to wear to Disneyland (or maybe I was more thankful for those and the baby was just happy to be held...)

We were thankful Neen had fun crafts to make, like turkeys and scarecrows!

X was thankful for his cousin who thought up great things to do.  I think he was also thankful for his hands to cover his ears because this particular thing was loud! 

X & Z were grateful for the pile of leaves to play with! 

X was thankful for the chance to mail a letter to Santa & to see  Bass Pro Shop. The other week, he told me he was going to wear his "fish" sweater every day and he wouldn't take it off until he got to go back to that store because it was so cool.  Thankfully, that thought didn't last the night.  Whew. 

Z is a natural on that cat!

 

We were thankful for cousin set #2 to get to know each other!

 We were thankful for the Magic Kingdom...

 the teacups...

 Jedi training camp...

 these guys...

and photo ops!

We had a great Thanksgiving in sunny CA!

Amendment

Okay, truly we are not poor. We have been blessed with amazing family, jobs we enjoy (most days), loyal friends, and more than plenty of toys and gadgets in our house to play with.  I know that there are many people who are in truly dire circumstances and my food poems would probably make them laugh at what feels hard to me occasionally.  Sometimes I chomp at the bit with impatience.  It just feels like we should be able to do everything on our own at this stage in our lives.

If I ever feel poor, I take a look around and think back to one of my college roommates who invited me to her family's home for dinner one time.  I have never seen a house so bare or a family so skinny! They literally had nothing in their house but a table, a few chairs, and a few plates and utensils.  There was a box to sit on and maybe a small TV.  During the meal, older kids went and washed dishes and utensils so that all the kids could get a chance to eat the mac & cheese.  When I commented on how warm their house was and mentioned that my dad liked keeping the thermometer low, the little kids piped up that they only had the heat on because I was visiting.  It was a humbling experience and a great way for me to keep perspective now.

Poor is...food

After reading "Hate That Cat" by Creech, which is an entire book written as a journal in poem form, I wanted to try it a little myself.  I guess I've thought a lot about food this month.  This set of 13 short poems reflects my thoughts on the pros and cons of life on a tight budget.  Things may have been a bit tighter than I've been used to... :) 

12/27

Poor is

taking 

so

much

food from

you

grandma.

You say we

rotate

your

food storage well

okay

then

can we take

this too?

stuff it

in the

suit case

so she won't. see we took

too

many. she gives

 us 

more. hugs

Poor is

embarrassed.

gree-dy,

grateful.

1/8

Poor is making

soup in

a jar.

Lentils.

Spices.

Fiber.

Poor is

ideas.

1/16

Poor is

proctoring,

accep-ting

xtra

positions.

Add-ing

responsibility.

Poor is

opportunity.

1/18

Poor is

being

six dollars

over childcare

subsidy. Denied.

Good

luck.Work

hard

e

r.

Poor is

fighting.

1/23

Poor is

making food from

scratch.

Omitting.

eggs

Substituting. 

powders

Chili.

Cookies.

Waffle mix.

Poor is

time! 

1/24

Poor is

what?

only

butter

and milk and

half-empty condiments?

Poor is

empty.

1/25

Poor is

your 

son dancing

when he

sees

bread

eggs

yogurt

in

the refrigerator.

Poor is

guilt.

1/26

Poor is

using 

up gift

cards.

Birthday

pizza. from
October. Thank you
brother!

Poor is

joy!

1/27

Poor is

m

i

s

s

ing

organic

blue corn chips

hummus

beach sun

Poor is

nostalgic.

1/28

Poor is

McDonalds

as

the

o

n

l

y

reward.

Poor is

fattening.

1/30

Poor is

having 12

cans 

of 

tuna

and

15 cans of

kidney beans 

to try and
make

a

meal. 

Poor is

creativity.

1/31

Poor is

eating

food

samplers in

bulk.

Those were 

just

appetizers, you say?

Delicious.

Thank you.

We'll leave now.

Poor is

devouring.

2/1

Poor is

over

looked,

husband

skip.p.i.n.g 

lunch

to

save

a

buck.

Poor is

sacrifice. I

love. you

wake

me

up next time
to make you lunch. At

least take

the

package

of ramen.

New

flavor even!

Poor is a

learning 

experience.

No need to

rinse and repeat.

Ready, Set, Goooooo!

This is an outline of a typical day in my life (see below).  In general, I feel like life is always going a little too fast for me to keep up. I didn't put any spaces between the things I do because that's how it feels to me, one thing after another with very little breathing room. I often imagine that the things I need to accomplish are a big snowball rolling down a hill and getting bigger and bigger and bigger (not the most optimistic view, I know, but it's what comes to mind - I'd be grateful for alternative suggestions!).  Thankfully, there are days when the snowball of to-do's shrinks through help I get from others, a really beautiful, sunny day, or the occasional productive morning or evening.  Those days feel wonderful and then my snowball can roll for a while again before it feels like its too out of control.  (Please note: this is how my typical day goes.  Joe does a ton, too, which you don’t see from this perspective.  He’s right in there working everyday, taking the bus early so we can have an easier morning, playing with Xavier, helping with dinner, laundry, baths, diaper changes, snow shoveling, etc. He is wonderful! ) 

6, 6:30, and/or 7am-push snooze & ignore my good intentions OR get up eventually, do some Wii Fit

8am –get awakened by X saying “It’s morning! Play with me!”, grumble a bit, kiss Joe goodbye, feed baby

8:30 – change baby, morning prayers

9am –fix breakfast & eat with X, unload dish rack (no dishwasher here except for our two hands)

9:30 – play with X & A, take a shower

10am – put baby down for nap

10:30 – play with X, try to sneak in some work and cleaning

11am – finish getting dressed for work, prepare lunch, start dinner & laundry, if possible

11:30 – eat lunch with X, change/feed baby

12:00 – get baby in carseat, put shoes on X, remember everything for preschool, baby, and work

12:30 – drop off kids, speed to work

12:45 – Run into work late & race into kindergarten class for storytime & skills practice

1:00 – teach math & writing skills for rotating groups of 2 or 3 students, supervise & assist tutors

2:00 – send students home!,  clean up, prep for after school club & next day

2:45 – pump milk for the baby, label & store milk, text Joe just to touch base with each other, take a second to go to the bathroom, if possible

3:00 – run to pick up ESL students for ESL group, teach ESL skills to kids who don't want to be there (I don't blame them, it is the last 30 minutes of school)

3:28 – race the “school’s out” bell to get down the hall to the cafeteria to pick up snacks for my after school kindergarten group before all the students are let out and there is mass chaos

3:40 – help after school kindergarten students write names, teach rotating groups math & writing skills

4:15 – talk with the students during snack time (I get a snack, too, if someone isn’t there that day!)

4:30 – hurry students to go to next after school activity, sanitize the computers, desks, and chairs, pray that I don't get sick after having ______(insert any student's name) sneeze or cough on me during the rotations, leave lesson plan for next day’s AM teachers.

4:45 – Look at clock and realize I have way more to do but know it’s time to go pick up the kids

5:00 – race into the preschool/daycare to pick up X & A before the $1-a-minute fine starts at 5:15pm.  Feel so happy to see X and A; feel loved by the kids’ excitement to see me.

5:15 – pick up Joe & share X & A's excitement at seeing him coming

5:30 – tumble into the house with all of our stuff, refuse X’s plea to play with him right that second, take a deep breath and try to transition from work thoughts to home thoughts, try to ignore my hungry and exhausted body since the kids really need attention right now, nurse baby, play with X for a few seconds

5:45 – make the rest of dinner if I happened to have started it (or start from scratch…), eat, feed baby while eating, try to get X to eat a few bites of food without gagging, complaining, getting out his own preferred foods from the fridge, or asking to be excused. J

6:30 – play with X & A, talk with Joe, check email, think about doing dishes

7:00 – put kids in bath, dress & feed August, & put her to bed

7:30 – get X ready for bed – this sounds much easier than it is!

8:00 – say family prayer, read or listen to stories with X, cuddle with X, fall asleep before X (yes, before)

Later (anywhere between 9 and midnight) – wake up & realize I had a lot of work to do but fell asleep instead and am now totally groggy and unmotivated. Get ready for bed. Check email. Say hi to Joe and see if we want to watch or read anything together (Chuck, Lie to Me, Sliders...). Pick up the house a bit, pray that I'll get more done tomorrow and be less grumpy with X. 

Much, much too late (usually after midnight and before 2 or 3am) – drop into bed, feed baby, say couples prayer & feel grateful that we have each other, we have jobs, and we have two wonderful kids, listen to Joe fall asleep instantly, slowly fall asleep with head spinning of To-Do items, lesson plan ideas, the next day's schedule, thinking about the pros and cons of working as a preschool teacher from home, and thinking up inventions I know will make us millionaires someday. S..l...e...e...p... 

I Spy…an opportunity!

The three-day weekend wasn’t really a holiday for me because I ended up working about 9 hours.  As an AmeriCorps member, you are required to do a 6-hour service project on Martin Luther King, Jr. day.  We combined three AmeriCorps study groups and made fifty-three “I Spy” packets for Head Start as well as car maps and file folder games.

Of course, the best thing about doing service is knowing that you’re helping someone else, but I was really grateful for the service project because it gave me a chance to learn how to use my sewing machine!  I bought it for $40 at a garage sale last summer and it is NICE, complete with carrying case, threaded bobbins, instruction manual, and everything.  I was too exhausted from pregnancy during the summer to try to figure it out but I finally pulled out the manual a few Saturdays ago.  All the numbered buttons on the machine really intimidated me, so after a few pages of trying to figure them out with the manual, I put it aside for another day.  At the project on Monday, however, I didn’t have to read the manual! There were five other sewers who helped me thread it, refill a bobbin, and troubleshoot.  So great!  

After making several “I Spy” packets (I think I only made 5 of the 53 - oh dear), I came home and made two miniature ones.  I didn’t have any hard plastic so I used one side of a zip-lock bag for the see-through part. I cut out a square of fabric about an inch bigger (on all sides) than the plastic square and sewed the plastic into the fabric on three sides to make a pouch.   I found 15-20 little things around the house (a sticker, a lego, a couple of colored beads, a mini-craft stick, a paper clip, etc.) and took a picture of them. Taking a picture of the items is important because kids that can't read will be asking you what the list of I Spy items is unless you have a picture for them to check against.  Then I put in about 1/3 cup of rice into the pouch as well as the 20 items and sewed up the top.  Voila!  Our own “I Spy..” packets!

The Alternative Me

Who knew I was an “alternative schooling” kind of gal?  Not me, at least not until I did my Master’s in Education a few years ago.  Did you know the public school system in America started out as a way to reinforce Christian religious teachings from home?  Public schooling i.e. using public funds for Christian purposes didn’t make much sense when more people of different faiths and cultures settled in the U.S.  Since then, the public schooling system pendulum has swung every which way and isn’t resting even now.  The further into my M.Ed. I got, the more I discouraged I became with “regular” public schooling and the more I’ve thought about and looked for alternatives ever since. At the time, I was fascinated with some of the ideas of Summerhill school in England which allows kids to pick what they study and when.  If someone wants to talk with friends all day and never go to class, no one worries about it.  It really is a neat way of learning, if you look into it, BUT it's a boarding school and parents have little to no rights regarding their children and their study habits/pursuits.  So, nope, that won't work for me but it will influence me as I see curriculum being jammed into kids, ready or not.

My favorites are charter schools.  They have the public funding and approval so its affordable for any family, but they get to try out different teaching philosophies (i.e. Plato/Socrates-style, project-based, community-based).   The problem with charter schools, however, is that they can limit the number of students, so the demand is always more than the supply.  That means they do a “lottery” which makes every parent anxious because what do they do if their kid doesn't get in?  Another problem with charter schools is that they are stuck with the philosophy they choose, which doesn’t allow a whole lot of flexibility.  Finally, unless a parent is researching options, many families (especially where English is not the primary language) don’t even know about these charter schools and therefore the school population for charter schools is absent of a lot of diversity and  less advantaged families.

Now that I’m on the parent end as well as a career person in education  (X starts kindergarten next year!) I am looking at lots of options.  So far, I’ve been thrilled to find two schools here.  One is a charter school and the other is a virtual school.  As a parent, I’m worried about safety, convenience, and learning opportunities at the right level.  I found (and applied for) one charter school for X that has 20 students per grade.  They seem to have a more realistic philosophy- working to integrate students as citizens of the community (making sure kids know there is a world outside of the school and how to use it) and helping students of all ages work together as they will do in the workforce. 

The school's reading and math are all done at the same time and students are grouped by ability, not age, for those subjects.  So, yes, technically a 1st grader could be in a group of 7th and 8th graders learning a particular math concept if s/he were at that level.  Most likely, however, the "brilliant" 1st grader would be surrounded by other 1st, 2nd, or 3rd graders working on the same concept .  I also like that Spanish is taught starting in kindergarten. If plenty of research has shown that learning a second language is best done at an early age, then why is the foreign language requirement in jr high and high school instead of in elementary school?  The other thing I like is that P.E. and science are community-based, so thestudents might take the local bus to go skiing or ice skating, or do a paper on a local bug found in the nearby river.  Music and arts are also shared with the community.  I’m crossing my fingers for this school.  Joe has valid concerns.  If X gets ahead of students in a regular public school and we have to move, how do we keep up the intellectual challenge?  Ok, he didn’t really ask it like that, but you get the idea.  Basically, how would the charter schooling transfer if we ended up getting a job somewhere else?  Good point, dear!  I wasn't sure, so, I kept looking and found…K12 virtual academy!  I think this is more of how schools should/will lean toward learning in the future, but we’ll see.

K12 combines homeschooling with online learning and public schooling.  It goes from kindergarten through high school. It has both a virtual public school and a private school option.  The public school option is free, obviously, and even provides a computer if needed and subsidizes internet costs.  Basically, FedEx delivers the entire year’s curriculum, science projects, etc. to your door in 4 or 5 boxes and your kids work through them from home at a somewhat set pace throughout the year.  It may only take them 15 minutes to figure out and complete some assignments but then much longer for others.  Licensed teachers monitor progress and work from their homes during “office hours” to give specific help to students.  The teachers live in the state you are in and there are optional face-to-face meetings with parents and students every month.  K12 students get together and go on lots of fieldtrips as well.  I’m not exactly sure how that works but it sounds interesting.  From what I saw on their website, high school students are allowed to participate in student clubs and have a regular graduation, although graduation looked like there were about six people in the room.  J  The biggest con for K12 that I could see is that it is also a charter school, therefore limiting student numbers, and requires a lottery for students to get in. 

What I think public schools should do is to combine physical schools and teachers with the K12 idea of self-paced online schooling.  I guess what I imagine is that the school sets up computers for students with several teachers monitoring and helping either at their own computer or physically walking around.  Other classrooms would have teachers and areas available for science and other experimental or physical work.  Students would work through the curriculum at their own general pace but also have the advantage of having more social opportunities and a way for families who usually have free or reduced lunches to continue having their kids fed.  Everyone would have recess, lunch, music, arts, P.E., etc. at set times but could easily pick up where they left off on their own specific learning in the online/at home curriculum during the rest of the time. 

So there you have it.  Now that I’ve explained this all, I have to go to work at the regular public school kindergarten and ignore my internal fight with myself that by teaching in the traditional style I am teaching “all wrong”.  J

Family pictures