Category Archives: Slice of Life

A slice of Almost

August 5, 2014#bookaday, Slice of Lifeonathought

Part of Slice of Life by Two Writing Teachers. Head over there for information and links to more Slicing!

I love the ocean. I love all bodies of water, but to me the ocean is the absolute. I must admit that when I’m enjoying a lake or a dam or even a bay, I’m also thinking that it is beautiful and peaceful and calm because it is almost like an ocean. I look at the ripples as the water meets the sand or dirt, and I compare them to ocean waves. I strain my ears to hear the sounds of the water, hopeful to feel the same sense of peace that I get from the sounds of the sea crashing wave after wave.

On our beach vacation last week, I took a short bike ride (all by myself! amazing!) and came to a trail head near the marsh. The marsh has always been a beautiful piece of scenery at the beach. But the main attraction is the ocean. As I rode down the one lane gravel path, I watched the grasses sway and wave in the wind. I thought about how this place wasn’t beautiful because it was almost an ocean. It was an ocean.

An ocean of bright green vegetation, and birds and soft wind. This idea of “almost an ocean” played over and over in my mind as I rode. I started to list in my mind all of the things that I am almost (almost a runner, almost reading a book a day, almost vegan, almost did enough school work this summer, almost finished cleaning the house before I left, almost relaxing on my vacation). I guess I am a marsh – almost an ocean. I saw that ahead of me was some water, and when I got to it, I laughed.

A beach. It was peaceful, quiet aside from bird calls and breeze. I didn’t find myself thinking about how it was almost an ocean. I didn’t try to hear the waves, or put my feet in the sand. I just stood there and breathed in the beauty.

I wondered about my almosts. I turned them around in my mind like the marsh beach. Not almosts anymore, but things I know I am. I know I run, I’m reading a ton, I eat a plant based diet, I have worked on schoolwork this summer, my house is fine. I’m relaxing. Right now!

No doubt, my deep thoughts on my bike ride were thanks to having just finished Absolutely Almost by Lisa Graff. Have you read this book? You should. You will fall in love with Albie, and maybe start thinking about your “almosts.” You might find that you can use the life reminder from Lisa Graff’s Albie, “You couldn’t get where you were going without knowing where you’d been. And you couldn’t be anywhere at all without having been almost there for a while.”

A slice of the turning point

July 22, 2014Reflections on teaching, Slice of Lifeonathought

Part of Slice of Life by Two Writing Teachers. Head over there for information and links to more Slicing!

Summer Turning Point

Summer starts with an exhale 
I hug my students and say goodbye
pack up my classroom
find space in and above cabinets for last minute papers, books, markers, games, dice... 
I throw files into the nearest box
I finish grades
finally
I shred papers and 
sigh as
the accumulated stress and worry knot rises 
almost ready to leave but 
staying still
waiting 
stagnant
I want the knot to
peter out
dwindle
go away
but I wonder
when will I stop feeling behind? 
(Spoiler Alert: Never) 

Summer continues with tired
and people asking me all the time
"Are you enjoying your summer? It must be so nice!" 
"All of that time!"
"I'm sure it's great to have so much time with your kids."
Time.
Yes.
It is nice.
I have time
to read 
and I relax, swim, read, and play more than I do during the school year
I write
in the middle of the day
and I parent all day long
which is (sometimes) lovely  
I feel grateful for all of this
time with my children

Summer
I wonder when the switch will happen 
Now I read curriculum books from my to-read stack
in between fiction and swimming and playmobil 
These teaching books are great
but it feels like work
I want 
to find myself planning 
joyfully for August

Around July 4 I have my first back to school nightmare
I realize how much of my to do list is still left waiting
I force myself to get things done
I plan, I print, I update and organize

Then I make myself chill out

It is a quiet surprise
when the turning point happens

I find myself creating a google doc to organize my thoughts on Reader's Workshop 
I pick up, and reread, leaf through, sticky note, and mark up my favorite teaching books 
I surround myself with inspiration: Donalyn Miller, Penny Kittle, Stephanie Harvey and Franki Sibberson 
I lie in bed and plan wonderopolis, current events, poetry responses and library book chats
I jot teaching notes on my iPhone, and email colleagues random questions and thoughts
I drive home and my mind rearranges classroom bookshelves

Summer will end with an inhale
a blank slate
there are weeks to go 
and I will not rush it
days with my kids are sweet
sometimes they all get along and play 
the weather is perfect for swimming 
there's still some summer left
It took a while for last year's exhale
but now 
I'm looking forward 

But really. 
No rush!

Fortunately, Unfortunately

July 15, 2014Family, Pets, Slice of Lifeonathought

Part of Slice of Life by Two Writing Teachers. Head over there for information and links to more Slicing!

I am upstairs, which is new for me – sitting at my husband’s computer. I have a beautiful mountain view. It’s sunny and rainy, and I’m going to take that as a metaphor for this summer, with its ups and downs. Most recently, just in the few days, we have had “sun” and “rain.” I have had time with my best friend who lives far away, and then had to say goodbye. My children have spent time loving it up with a litter of orphan kittens that my parents are fostering, and then yesterday they were there to watch one kitten suddenly and horribly die. I’m having a hard time today seeing the rainbow after yesterday’s rain – and trying to work through this post trauma time with my children.

Yesterday reminded me of the “Fortunately/Unfortunately” summarizing poetry we do at school – learned from Sara Holbrook (@saraholbrook) at a wonderful inservice years ago. I’m going to try my hand at this for my slice today. . . With many apologies to Sara Holbrook! I believe you first write using the words Fortunately and Unfortunately… Then you revise taking out extra words. I don’t usually do a writing exercise as a Slice of Life… but it’s an experiment! Here we go!

A slice of Fortunately, Unfortunately. 

Monday, I wake up with plans to spend time with my old friend, running around after kids at the local park
Fortunately, everybody's bikes are all loaded up in the van
Unfortunately, my friend has to cancel 
Fortunately,  now I don't need to vacuum
Unfortunately, my house is a disaster 

Fortunately, I go work out with my friend at school
Unfortunately, one elliptical workout doesn't cure her cancer
Fortunately, it does give us time to chat, while our heart rates climb
Unfortunately, we haven't been to the weight room for months

Fortunately, we remember how to use the machines
Unfortunately, the phone rings and my husband tells me that the orphan kitten Polly died
Fortunately, I wasn't there to see the horrible death
Unfortunately, my 3 children were, and I'm not home to help them process

Fortunately, my husband is home
Unfortunately, my children are in shock mode 
Fortunately, my friend remembers that Mr. Rogers has a book on this
Unfortunately, I think it's going to take more than a book

Fortunately, there are distractions and cuddles
Unfortunately, I have a busy day away from home
Fortunately, I get time with my amazing-but-far-away best friend
Unfortunately, it will be months until I get to see her again
Fortunately, I eventually get home to calm, cozy children
Unfortunately, the morning starts with more traumatic crying
Fortunately, there are more distractions

Finally, we will start to heal, paying more attention to the sunshine, and less attention to the rain

REVISED --taking out all but the most important words. . . 

Monday 
wake up 
bikes loaded up in van
 friend cancels
no need to vacuum
 my house is a disaster 

I go work out 
with my friend 
 one elliptical doesn't cure her cancer
it does give us time
while our heart rates climb
 haven't been to the weight room for months
we remember how 
 the phone rings 
 the orphan kitten
 Polly died
I wasn't there to see
the horrible death
 my 3 children were
 I'm not home 
my husband is
 my children are in shock 
remember Mr. Rogers' book on this
 I think it's going to take more 
 than a book

There are distractions and cuddles
 I have a busy day away from home
time with amazing far away friend
 it will be months until I see her again
I get home to calm, cozy
 the morning starts with more trauma
 crying
there are more distractions

We will start to heal,
pay more attention to the sunshine
less attention to the rain

We miss you, Polly

A Slice of Encouragement

July 8, 2014#nerdlution, Family, Slice of Lifeonathought

Part of Slice of Life by Two Writing Teachers . Head over there for information and links to more Slicing!

run, stop, turn around
off the path
backwards
forwards
s l o w 
    d o w n

stop.

I’m running. I’m stopping and turning and watching for my kids, who are in various places, getting behind or ahead. My youngest keeps veering off the path, or getting tired on his plasma car. This isn’t what you would call my best run ever. It’s better when my husband comes and helps to watch the kids, and walks with them when they want to go off the track and into the park. I have tried this without him before, and it was a disaster. But, it’s exercise, and I’m grateful for the beautiful (hot) morning, and the kids who agreed to come with me, to our beautiful park.

I see a woman park her jeep, and get herself ready to run. She puts her headphones on, and does that little head tilt of readiness. I’m jealous. She’s alone! Her run will just be about her run. We cross paths often, as she runs and I stop with E, my 4 year old. Occasionally we pass when I’m actually running too. We smile at each other each time. Her smile is kind, while mine most likely looks a little like a “I-can’t-believe-I’m-trying-to-exercise-still-with-these-kids-becoming-less-and-less-cooperative” smile.

E is done. He stops his plasma car, takes off his helmet and shrugs his shoulders. “I’m hot.” So I do some lunges while he does some 4-year old jumping jacks, and we go under a tree to do crunches (E does the cutest crunches you ever saw, with his legs down, basically a nap with some slight head movements.)

The runner approaches me, with her same kind smile. “Keep it up! You’re doing a great job.” She hands me a bottle of water, I thank her and she walks away.

My eyes are about to tear from this kindness and morale boost, but luckily I’m with my three children. E and H jump on top of me as I try to do heel touches. I stop for a drink of my gifted water, and H says, “I hope she didn’t poison the water.” I pretend to be poisoned, we all laugh and we are ready to go home.

Thank you, stranger, for the water and the encouragement. In my inconsistent and slow running life, I’ve so far been impressed by the kindness of other runners. Everyone cheers other runners on, nobody seems to care that I don’t look like a runner. Best of all, none of the encouragement I’ve gotten seems condescending to me, even though I should wear this shirt for all my runs:

A slice of nostalgia

June 24, 2014Slice of Lifeonathought

Part of Slice of Life by Two Writing Teachers. Head over there for information and links to more Slicing!

We lie down and settle in. The kids are excited to see what happens next in Harry Potter. While we wait for my husband to come in to start reading, I take the opportunity to practice mindfulness with my kids. I remind them about taking a moment to simply be. We don’t have a singing bowl, which is what I use in my classroom, but the fan is on, making a low hum. So, I tell them to close their eyes and listen to the fan. I suggest finding a pattern in the noise.

We listen. It’s a modern fan – tall and white. It is oscillating only slightly, the way new fans seem to do and I hear the noise shift just a bit as it moves from side to side. But even though the sound is less than the old fashion oscillating fans’, it is there. I can feel a memory coming into focus from that sound. I can’t grasp the specifics, maybe because I know the sound of the oscillating was in more than one part of my childhood. I want to hold this nostalgia and turn the focus ring to see it more clearly.

Is it in the front room at my grandma’s house, where I fell asleep on a bed a little too high, with the windows open, to the sound of the oscillating fan?

Is it the comfortable beach house bedroom, where we’d flop after a long beach day and boardwalk night, to the sound of the fan and the ocean waves in the distance?

Maybe it is just an in general memory – of hot summer nights and the breeze on and off again, on and off again. I remember the feeling of just wishing the breeze would stay on me, getting so annoyed when the fan was pointing somewhere else.

I try to think of how to describe the sound of an oscillating fan and it feels like an odd, almost boring creative writing exercise… White noise, louder, softer, louder, softer, rhythmic movement of the hush of a fan. Sometimes too loud, sometimes just right. Later I will google this, hoping to find someone else describing it. I will instead find you tube clips of the sound, and apps to mimic the summer sound. I will be reminded that there is more buzz in an oscillating fan than in the fan that is in my room these days. But for now, the memory is still unfocused, leaving me with a general feeling of nostalgia.

Our moment of mindfulness is over – the kids are working on their stamina with this. I try to explain my nostalgia to my children. I tell them about my fan memories, and realize that sentimentality is an odd thing to try to describe. Later I muse on this with them. I tell them that life is full of ordinary moments, like listening to a fan as you fall asleep. But that one day they will be grown up and they will hear something, see something, smell something and it will bring them back. They will feel happy and sad, they will want to go back in time and freeze it. They will want to be mindful. They will want to explain their nostalgia to their children. They listen and then run away to play, and I am left wondering for which part of their childhood will they feel most nostalgic, and can I please freeze time?

A Summer Slice

June 17, 2014Slice of Lifeonathought

Part of Slice of Life by Two Writing Teachers. Head over there for information and links to more Slicing!

Right Now I am. . .
Trying to get back in the blogging habit
Attempting to slice again
Starting small with a Right Now Slice
Marveling at the difference between school-year-late-night writing, and summer-midday writing
Ignoring my children who are in various places being too quiet
Enjoying the silence
Worrying about the silence
Looking at stacks of books to read
Deciding when I'll start my summer to do list (not yet...)
Dreaming of a hammock and a glass of iced tea and a whole day to read
Watching the trees move slowly in the humidity, a thunderstorm is coming
Enjoying writing again

Oh Slicing, where have you been?

June 10, 2014Reflections on teaching, Slice of Lifeonathought

Back to Slicing!

Part of Slice of Life by Two Writing Teachers.

It’s the “last day of school eve” here. Always a time for reflection. . . What went well this year? What should I have done differently? What will I do differently next year? As I ponder these questions, my end of the year work keeps piling up. Report cards, room cleaning, parent emails, planning for next year, meetings, meetings, meetings. But for me, reflection is one of the ways I close up my year. Tomorrow I will say goodbye to my 2013 – 2014 students and that always highlights what a strange thing time is.

At field day today one of my math students was at the chalk art station with me. This math student joined my math class late in the year, and I haven’t had as long to get to know her. I watched her draw a beautiful picture of two horses on the blacktop today. “That’s beautiful!” I said, as I realized that it was the first time I’ve seen her draw. I realized at that moment how familiar this feeling is, to find out things about my students at the end of the school year. They are always things I wish I had known all year.

Every year, I try to get to know my students. I do community building and Human Bingo. We make playdoh representations of something important to us on the first day of school, and share during morning meetings. We confer during literacy, and spend time throughout the day being ourselves. So today I am asking myself why I had never seen my math student draw a picture before, why I didn’t know she had a love of art.

I wondered today, as I remember wondering last year…. Am I really doing the things I think I am doing when I meet my class each year? This year we spent more time getting to know each other. We talked about growing our brains, and I remember asking everyone to share the activity they were most successful and passionate about. I remember many of the answers, but I don’t remember all of them. What can I do next year to make sure that I get to know the passions and special talents of my students? How can I make them comfortable enough to truly share in the beginning of the year and beyond? I have a few ideas, but I’d love to hear yours!

A slice, value added.

April 15, 2014Reflections on teaching, Slice of Lifeonathought

Part of Slice of Life by Two Writing Teachers.

I spent the first part of my afternoon reflecting on, celebrating the process of and planning for the future of some ELA curriculum work that is so respectful of students and teachers. It is time well spent, this work that is focused on the journey of a child K – 12. I spent the second part of my afternoon learning more about the new teacher evaluation. I almost didn’t slice at all about this. First of all, I’ve sliced before about my feelings on value added assessment. Second of all, I’m mad and my slices don’t necessarily need my sarcasm level right now. But, when I got home I realized that this truly is the slice that sticks out in my day, and I need to slice it. So I wrote a poem. Straight from my gut.

Right Now I am:
 
Listening to a robotic voice tell me about value added assessment
Feeling my eyes roll
Watching my colleagues’
Eye Rolls
Mouths open
Shocked stares
Wrinkled noses
As we listen to the robot tell us 
what it means to plan instruction 
verify our roster
have integrity
and take responsibility for the proportion of our instruction based on enrollment but not attendance or weather

I am still:

Wondering why the robot is proud that the assessment system is part of the largest privately held software company in the world. 
Comparing the state of education to the Hunger Games
Assuming I would be the first one killed by the “Peacekeepers” 
Attempting to understand the math 
the point
and how this will help my students
May the odds be ever in our favor*

*My apologies to Suzanne Collins

To Do List

April 8, 2014Reflections on teaching, Slice of Lifeonathought

Part of Slice of Life by Two Writing Teachers.

For days. . .

I sit with my computer open to my grading program, and my papers piled on my desk. I have to do lists. I have blog posts to check in and respond to, and reading letters too. I have a small stack of math homework, already corrected during class, but calling my name to be checked in. I have report cards due that need comments (well comment codes which tell so much about my students). I even have 2 bookshelves that need to be built, and a push-pin poetry board to put up.

But I also have ideas. So I push away my to do list and plan instead. I plan a close reading lesson with “Stray” from Cynthia Rylant’s Every Living Thing based on Kate Robert’s presentation at the #TCRWP saturday reunion and my coach’s help. (We won’t talk about how I asked her for help an hour before I wanted to teach this lesson, because my last-minute inspired planning is a post for a different day!) I plan a follow up investigation into setting after our close reading of Stray because when we really work hard with setting, it becomes obvious that there is more than meets the eye. Also obvious is that my students expect the setting to jump out of the page and into their brain. I read through Nancie Atwell’s Naming the World book to gather some poems we can use for our work with setting. I cry as I read and decide to go within the theme of pets that started us off with the short story “Stray.” Students will need to read closely to find the setting, and I have a feeling they will feel connected to these powerful poems. I also plan the start of my annual huge “Muppet” project (still so much work to do!) I plan a lesson on verb continuums based on a pin that linked to this.

Tonight I open my computer, with my same to do list.

So I slice.

If only I were slicing!

April 6, 2014Slice of Lifeonathought

A Spring Sunday

I miss slicing
each night
I miss taking all the things
I notice all day
and deciding
what to slice
what to write

If it were still slicing time, my slice today would be about this spring Sunday. I would tell you about how each year we finish our fall raking in the spring. I would write about how amazing it feels to rake all the old leaves away and see green. Green!

If I were slicing, I’d tell you how part of spring clean up is throwing toys away that have accidentally been left out all winter and are broken or rotted. I would tell you how the soccer ball should be in the trash can, but how I couldn’t do it. It’s old and gross, yes. But, it is the soccer ball L got after her week of summer soccer when she was 3…. One of my worst parenting fails ever. It was this amazing soccer camp, with coaches from across the ‘pond.’ We arrived on Monday and were told we had to put the shin guards on L’s feet. L didn’t want shin guards, so she cried and screamed for 15 minutes. At which point the coach mentioned to me that it was really okay if she didn’t wear them. (Too little, too late, buddy!) At that point it was too late. Her attitude was wrecked, and she spent the rest of the week on the sidelines, watching. I spent the rest of the week wondering what I should do. I watched as the coach yelled, “Are you ready, Team?” and all the other children yelled back, “We were born ready, coach!” I was embarrassed that L wouldn’t play with all the other children who lined up with the coach. On the last day she was dribbling the soccer ball next to the field. When third grade came around, L was excitedly playing soccer at school. Yet another lesson in letting children grow according to their own pace!

If I were slicing, I’d tell you how every spring, my children go directly to summer games. As soon as it is above 40 degrees, they are ready to play with water. Today was no exception. I would mention in my slice how this is a well known problem with my children, how the neighbors turn their outside faucet off to prevent my children from enticing their children to start water play. I’d tell you how water tables become mud makers and hoses become rain makers. I’d describe how this is such a mixture of endearing and frustrating to me; creative kids, tangled hose, imagination, muddy grass, constant reminders, broken umbrellas…. But laughter and fun makes up for the mud and mess. I guess.

If I were slicing, I’d talk about how amazing it is to make time to throw things away. I’d tell you about the hour my husband and I spent filling hefty bags in our cluttered barn. Who knows how we have accumulated so much stuff… but getting rid of it is our spring priority! I’d ask you if you secretly throw away kid’s old toys too, and if you still hold on to sentimental things like the jewelry box the ring box came in for your engagement ring. (We threw it away. It’s in one of those bags in he picture…)

If only I were slicing! I’d have so much to tell you!