This slice is part of the March Slice of Life Challenge on Two Writing Teachers! #sol26. I’m slicing every day in March. Thanks for stopping by!
My amazing teammate has the perfect, “Toodles!”
She uses it at the perfect times.
I’m trying to adopt it as a catchphrase myself. Here’s what I’m learning about “Toodles!”
When there are kids who just showed you a dance they made up at recess and you loved to watch. But then they are just standing there staring at you.
That’s when you say, “Thanks for sharing that friends! Toodles!”
When you see a student out in the real world and you’ve had the whole conversation, you are actually so happy to see them. But then they are just standing there staring at you.
That’s when you say, “So good to see you! Toodles!”
Or when it’s time for morning meeting to start and you are in the hall with the few stragglers, trying to get them to finish up and head in to start the day.
That’s when you say, “I’m going in for morning meeting. See you in a minute! Toodles!”
Help me out, friends. When else can I practice my new favorite catchphrase?
This slice is part of the March Slice of Life Challenge on Two Writing Teachers! #sol26. I’m slicing every day in March. Thanks for stopping by!
Yesterday was Opposite Day in second grade. Luckily it was short lived.
It started with kids calling me my student teacher’s name, my student teacher was called my name. Then it progressed. Lunch one was lunch two, lunch two was lunch one. Chairs that were still up were down, chairs that were down, were, you guessed it, up.
“It’s Opposite Day!” kids announced to those just coming in.
And so it rolled.
I was worried, to be honest. I was sick and I didn’t think I had the patience for a whole day of Opposite Day.
“It’s Opposite Day!” Someone exclaimed to me.
“I’m so excited.” I said.
She smiled. I don’t think she understood that my “excitement” was my one and only contribution to Opposite Day.
Luckily, the opposites quieted down by morning meeting, and I forgot about it until just now. Phew.
This slice is part of the March Slice of Life Challenge on Two Writing Teachers! #sol26. I’m slicing every day in March. Thanks for stopping by!
Today we got to something some of my students have been waiting for, hoping for, begging for. They drum-rolled as I went to switch the slide. They cheered as the new slide appeared. It was finally time to learn…
The cursive capital G.
It’s always nice to be able to make them so happy.
We started how we always start a new cursive letter, “pencils up in the air!”
I took them step by step. “Start at the bottom. Curve up to the top. Loop around to the left and swing up to the right. Pull down to the bottom and swing left to cross. Swing up to the right.”
My student teacher reminded them that things can be easy for one person and hard for another. She asked them to be encouraging.
I moved on to the next letter we were learning. My student teacher complimented my ability to read the formation directions while drawing the letter.
I thanked her for her kind words and added, “It actually is tricky sometimes!”
“No it’s not” that same someone else said again. “She wasn’t talking to you,” another student said.
I looked at the clock.
We started practicing the lower case w. One of the students said something about it that I couldn’t hear. I asked 3 times for her to repeat herself, when my para told me. “She said it looks like an outline of a bum.”
“Oh.” I’m annoyed at myself for trying so hard to understand what she was saying.
“Well, it’s just a w. It looks like a w, and that’s what it is. That’s all.”
In the back of my head I remembered how a few days ago my student teacher said she admired my patience, and I laugh to myself as we finish up cursive and head to lunch.
This slice is part of the March Slice of Life Challenge on Two Writing Teachers! #sol26. I’m slicing every day in March. Thanks for stopping by!
You know those kids in your class that have such a hard time with (you can fill in the blank — ) listening, keeping their hands to themselves, not interrupting, staying on the rug, staying on their chairs. . . you know those kids they have good moments and hard moments good days and hard days good weeks and hard weeks
I want to know the form of poetry to adequately express the moment during a hard week when you walk by their after school program and one of those very kids runs up to you arms open wide smiling from ear to ear proclaiming “Hello!” as they hug you and your papers and bags almost fall to the ground because that moment is the sweet hope of teaching, I think.
This slice is part of the March Slice of Life Challenge on Two Writing Teachers! #sol26. I’m slicing every day in March. Thanks for stopping by!
Yesterday we were making dinner when the garbage disposal stopped working. It just hummed a little hum, not a care in the world. I looked at my daughter and I think she saw the absolute “no effing way,” in my face.
“Is it bad if we say this is an after spring break problem?” she asked.
“Nope. That’s what it is,” I said, “an after spring break problem.“
But I fiddled with it anyway, tried the little reset button on the bottom. But, it still just hummed its little hum.
So after checking multiple times that the switch was off, I stuck my hand in there and quickly realized the problem. There was a glass wedged in, unmovable.
She stuck her hand in too. (After checking that the switch was off. Why are garbage disposals so scary?)
“How are we going to get this out?” She said.
There was no way to get that glass out. It was perfectly stuck.
“Not to be misogynistic or anything…” she started saying, “but isn’t this where we maybe…”
I started wondering who you call and what they would do.
“I guess we pay someone to fix it.” I said with absolute disdain. I mean, what would they do? Take the whole thing apart? Hundreds of dollars later they would have the glass and my disposal would work again?
“Or…” I said as I picked up the nearby ruler that I had finally brought inside from when it was measuring our latest snowfall.
I stabbed the ruler into the disposal a few times, broke that glass, and took out all the pieces.
I made sure all the glass was out, rinsed out the sink and turned on the disposal and heard the tell tale working whirr.
Fixed!
“No men needed!” My daughter said.
“No men and no money!” I agreed. “That’s a life lesson I want you to remember. You don’t need men or money.”
Then we laughed and finished making dinner.
**Yes, next time I’ll turn the actual power to the kitchen off. Yikes.”
This slice is part of the March Slice of Life Challenge on Two Writing Teachers! #sol26. I’m slicing every day in March. Thanks for stopping by!
Sometimes my dog looks like Falkor from Never Ending Story. Hear me out. He might be black and grey, not white and pink… I get it. Finn is not technically a luck dragon. But, it’s all there, in his face.
Every so often one of us reminds the rest of us about this. Okay, it’s usually me reminding the kids. But, recently it was my daughter, reminding me. We looked at him, as he lay forlornly under the kitchen table, in what seemed to be the exact way Falkor rested. Waiting. Wise.
I asked him if he was really Falkor in disguise and he started wagging his tail. I started singing The Never Ending story to him and he quickly got up, stretched, walked over to me and leaned against my leg. This worked several times. I have a witness.
“The never ending stoooorrry…. Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah…” Tail wag. Saunter over. Lean in.
However. When my 16 year old came home that very night, and I said, “Watch this! The never ending stoooorrry…. Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah…”
Finn just continued to nest himself into the couch.
“This is embarrassing for you,” my son said. And I kept singing, “The Never Ending story…” “Oh mom. This is so embarrassing. For you.”
“I’m not embarrassed.” I told him, in between “ah-ah-ah-ah’s.”
“It’s really embarrassing for you.” he insisted.
I tried to tell him that you can’t tell someone that they are embarrassed.
But, he’s sixteen, and there’s really no point.
He is very committed to the story that I am constantly embarrassed, and embarrassing.
In fact, you could say, it’s a never ending story. Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah…
This slice is part of of the March Slice of Life Challenge on Two Writing Teachers! #sol26. I’m slicing every day in March. Thanks for stopping by!
I always feel late on my way to work. I think it’s because I wake up with a hopeful plan that has to keep changing. Depending on the day, I leave somewhere on this continuum:
I’ll leave before 7! I’ll get so much done this morning! I could even have time to stop for coffee for us and get work done! I’ll leave right at 7, and there’s still time before the coffee line is too long! Okay, I’ll leave at 7:10, no coffee but still at work to do some work. If I leave before 7:20, I can still do the one thing I need to do before the kids arrive. If I leave right at 7:30, I won’t get stuck behind that school bus. If I get stuck behind that school bus, I’ll just have to do my best. Go with the flow, Ona.
Recently I came to an intersection, and watched a college student run to a bus stop. I looked at the bus stop where the bus rocked a bit, and I worried this was not going to go well.
The way I invested in this story…
I watched him run. I watched the bus start. I watched him slow down as he realized that he was not making this particular bus. I wondered what the bus schedule was. Would he be able to make his class on time? Does another bus come soon enough? Will his professor understand? My empathy might need a check up.
This week it happened again, at a different bus stop. I saw a college student running. He hopped on the bus, but then I noticed, as I was going through the roundabout, another student, farther away. He was running too, even faster. His backpack was bouncing and he was determined! I looked in my rear view mirror as I passed the bus, hoping to not see it drive away yet, knowing the student was too far away.
I watched him run. I watched the bus remain. I can’t tell for certain, but I think that bus waited! I think that student got on the bus. The last thing I saw through my rear view mirror was the bus still there, and the runner disappear behind the bus.
Part of Slice of Life Tuesday Slices on Two Writing Teachers! Join in and write on Tuesdays!
I have decided that I am not getting sick – cold or tummy.
Yes, my students are in a steady rotation of staying home (or coming to school) with fevers, runny noses, coughs, belly aches, head aches, all the aches But. I have decided that I am not getting sick.
Yes, my own kids have scratchy throats and just today I started sniffling maybe I have a little headache maybe I made a cup of Throat Coat tea this afternoon But. I have decided that I am not getting sick.
I mean I am taking extra vitamins and echinacea and zinc and drinking lots of water and I did make some Cold Care tea just now But. I have decided that I am not getting sick.
Since I’m not getting sick, I wasn’t annoyed to take the dog outside in the cold to watch him sniff the snow. Since I’m not getting sick, I haven’t been tired since 2:00 this afternoon.
I’ll get some more vitamins and tissues tomorrow just in case. I’ll go to bed soon just in case.
Part of Slice of Life Tuesday Slices on Two Writing Teachers! Join in and write on Tuesdays!
Way back when I was a new teacher, there was a mom who was mad at me… very mad at me. This was my second year teaching, I think, and my first year in sixth grade.
25 years later and my memory is a bit hazy, but I think I remember enough. Her daughter was in student council, and once a week or so she would miss the first part of homeroom. She would miss the start, or maybe the end of our daily journal writing. Even though part of being on student council was the understanding that you would need to make up missed work, she had a hard time finishing those half page journal assignments.
I guess she earned a B on the journal assignment one marking period. If my memory serves…
Mom was mad.
She said, “My daughter is a great writer. She doesn’t need to do these assignments.”
She said, “My daughter is in student government. She doesn’t need to do these assignments.”
She said, “My daughter doesn’t get B’s.”
I don’t know if this was one phone call or three. I don’t remember if there were meetings, or if there were emails. I mean, there was email, like email was a thing… But not as much email. Maybe there was a hand written note from home!
I do know that the teacher across the hall, my mentor and friend Mardi helped me through this tricky situation. (And many more situations after this.)
She told me that sometimes you just have to ask, “What would you like me to do? What grade would you like your child to have?”
It doesn’t solve every issue, or every miscommunication. but, it does give pause.
Part of Slice of Life Tuesday Slices on Two Writing Teachers! Join in and write on Tuesdays!
the other day there was a facebook memory where I was half complaining about the constant rocking and nursing of a baby in the middle of the night, and half knowing that “one day I will miss this.” you know, I was right. I do miss that. so many things to miss, you know? toddlers with sticky fingers loud days snuggling first days of elementary school even those times when I had to help 3 kids in 3 different schools, in 3 different grades do homework while I taught remotely have taken on a sort of sentimental quality (okay, I don’t miss 2020, but you know what I mean) all those long days make short years and there are just so many things to miss now but I think I’m ready to go on record to officially say that in 6 years when I no longer have to do it anymore I will NOT miss filling out the FAFSA and doing financial aid paperwork at all.
On a Thought 