Baby Steps

Thank you everyone for your kind words and wishes for Bess. She's keeping food down and she still hasn't had any seizures. Neither the vet nor the online sources we used were exaggerating when they said to start her back on tiny amounts of food and increase what she's getting by tiny amounts very slowly.

I've been thinking about other things that work better when you take very tiny, very slow baby steps:

• moving a child from habitual disruptive behaviors to more cooperative, socially acceptable behaviors
• convincing a beginning reader to believe in himself
• teaching 10 year-olds to make a bibliography, do long division, or use a protractor
• teaching my mother to send an email attachment
• losing weight after 40
• adding weight to the machines after back surgery
• learning to ask for help
• learning to say no to one more committee

Pet Stories

This week Kelly wrote about her book-shredding cat, Lois Lowry wrote about a coyote sighting (and gave equal photo time to Alfie), and Neil Gaiman rescued a white German Shepherd.

Now it's my turn.

It's been the week from gastonomic hell for our dog, Bess. She started throwing up last Sunday morning, and she didn't really stop until Thursday. She kept food down from Friday night until Sunday morning, and we're pretty sure that one was our fault for optimistically increasing the amount of food she was getting at too rapid a rate. (We went from 1/8 c. dog food with her chicken and rice to 1/4 c. dog food with her chicken and rice.) You wouldn't fault us if you could see how weak she is. She can barely stand.

No, this isn't related to all of the pet food recalls, no, she doesn't have have any intestinal blockages, and no, she doesn't have any indicator of organ failure due to her epilepsy meds.

The silver lining in all is, in fact, related to her epilepsy. She was having rounds of seizures every 19 days before all this. She has now gone 24 days seizure free. Could the food she had been fed since puppyhood be the cause of her seizures? Now is our chance to start from scratch with a new brand of food. We're trying one that is high protein, all natural, wheat free, and of course, made in the U.S.

Needless to say, between clean-ups at all hours of the day and night, time spent fretting, and time spent researching possible causes and new food options, very little reading and blogging got done this week.

Here's hoping for a more normal week.

Previewing HUGO CABRET

The class was VERY excited when I pulled out THE INVENTION OF HUGO CABRET. The whole idea of it intrigued them as it did me when I first saw it. They can't wait to start on Monday. Friday, we previewed. Before each read aloud, we preview by reading the back, the blurb, the first page, the author flap, etc. Then we think about the kinds of things we might think about as we read the book. We just brainstorm all of the things that might be worth holding on to as we read-things that will be important in the books. Kids keep reading notebooks--nothing that I check or is graded but a place of them to jot down thinking during read aloud--thinking that they can go back to to comprehend the text more deeply. It is a tool that works for lots of them because it is totally up to them on how they use it.

So Friday, after our preview, we charted all of the things kids planned to think about as we read. Here are the questions/thoughts they had before we started--ways they will be using their notebooks.

What's the invention?
What do the pictures tell us beyond the words?
How does the invention change his life?
How does the drawing connect to the invention?
Mark important pictures
2 columns to keep track of predictions and reasons I predict.
Characteristics about Hugo
Words author uses to describe Hugo
How does the mysterious drawing affect anyone?
He has a lot of secrets--what are they?
How does Hugo change?
What are the other characters like?
His father's secret notebook--why is it important?
Why the setting--why did the author choose it?
Discoveries and Secrets
Why is he stealing? Does he have a good reason?

Hopefully the books will be in before read aloud time tomorrow! I'll keep you posted. This should definitely be an adventure:-)

Testing Week in Ohio

An article from our local paper: Child Denied Bathroom During Test

Poetry Friday to Celebrate the End of TESTING WEEK!

It's not really a poem, it's a song, but that still counts, doesn't it?!?

Everybody sing and dance along:





And for a good laugh (we need one about now) here's a joke that circulated in 1996 (still does to this day) after the death of man who wrote the Hokey Pokey:

Sad News
With all the sadness and trauma going on in the world at the moment, it is worth reflecting on the death of a very important person, which almost went unnoticed last week.

Larry LaPrise, the man that wrote "The Hokey Pokey" died peacefully at the age of 83. The most traumatic part for his family was getting him into the coffin. They put his left leg in. And then the trouble started.

HUGO CABRET As A Read Aloud

I have been trying to figure out how to read aloud THE INVENTION OF HUGO CABRET by Brian Selznick to my class. I had lots of options. I was going to use the projector at school each day but it would be hard to sign it out and get it to the room for 1/2 hour of read aloud each day. I was going to get the Audio CD that comes with a DVD. Then I found out that it had sound effects for the pictures. Sounded too much like animation to me. I want to be able to talk about what the picture tells us without the sounds that someone else put to the pictures. I thought about purchasing hundreds of transparencies and running a transparency of each page. Then, I remembered that at our local grocery store, we have a machine that counts our change and you can trade your coins in for......amazon gift certificates. I remembered we had a pretty full jar of change upstairs. So, I went to the grocery store, turned in my change and ordered 10 copies of HUGO CABRET. Kids can share in groups of 2 or 3. It was like they were free--okay, kind of anyway. (I could have been smart and organized and ordered 12 from the public library and waited, but I am not so organized and since we only have 5 weeks of school yet, I knew I had to act fast.) I love sharing things that are in the world of literacy chit-chat with kids. Since Al Roker just named THE INVENTION OF HUGO CABRET as his first book club book (kids 9-11), I thought we'd jump in and be part of the fun. So, we finish reading aloud HOW TO STEAL A DOG tomorrow or Friday (more on this later--it has been a great read!). We'll preview HUGO on Monday and we'll have about 4 weeks to read and discuss it. I am VERY excited. (And, I was smart enough to get the books delivered directly to school rather than carry 10 copies of the giant book from my house to school.) So, I'll keep you posted. I think it is going to be a great end-of-the-year read aloud! Can't wait! Check out the great HUGO CABRET website if you haven't seen it yet.

Email Inbox

The newest Fwd:Fwd:Fwd:Fwd that showed up in my email today is the one about the new version of Survivor: 3 businessmen and 3 businesswomen are each dropped into a 5th grade classroom for six weeks. Each business person will be provided with a copy of his/her state standards, and a class of 25 students.

Each class will have two learning-disabled children, three with A.D.D., three gifted children, and two who speak limited English. Two will be labeled with severe behavior problems. Eleven of the 25 will be eligible for Title One Math and four will be eligible to receive reading services...if the district can afford to offer them.

Each business person must complete lesson plans at least 3 days in advance with annotations for curriculum objectives and modify, organize, or create materials according to the needs of their students (differentiating for the gifted students as well as for the lower achieving students). They will be required to teach students, handle misconduct, implement technology, document attendance, write referrals, correct homework, make bulletin boards, compute grades, complete report cards, document benchmarks, communicate with parents, and arrange parent conferences. They must also supervise recess and monitor the hallways and serve on at least one building committee.

In addition, they will complete drills for fire, tornadoes, and lock downs. They must attend workshops, faculty meetings, union meetings, and curriculum development meetings. They must also tutor those students who are behind and strive to get their 2 non-English speaking children proficient enough to take the state tests (as per NCLB). If they are sick or having a bad day, they must not let it show (or spend three hours the night before writing sub plans). Each day they must incorporate reading, writing, math, science, and social studies into the program. They must maintain discipline and provide an educationally stimulating environment at all times.

The business people will only have access to the golf course on the weekends, but on their new salary they will not be able to afford it anyway. There will be no access to vendors who want to take them out to lunch, and lunch will be limited to 30 minutes. On days when they do not have recess duty, the business people will be permitted to use the staff restroom as long as another survival candidate is supervising their class.

They will be provided with a 50-minute planning period daily while their students are at specials. If the copier is operable, and paper is not being rationed, they may make copies of necessary materials at this time. The business people must continually advance their education on their own time and pay for this advanced training themselves. This can be accomplished by moonlighting at a second job or marrying someone with money.

The winner will be allowed to return to his or her job.

* * * * *

Also in my email was the weekly electronic newsletter from NCTE. There were these news articles: Why Educators Quit: Lack of Support, Too Much Paperwork (duh) and How to Gauge a School's Progress ("Some educators and other advocates say that comparing one year’s third graders with the following year’s third graders doesn’t reflect individual progress or take into account changing demographics." DUH!!)

Let's take a moment to meditate on the meaning of the word IRONIC.

A Fun Summer Book

Okay, so this is an old book, but a new-to-me book. I don't usually miss a book like this one, but I did---for years it seems. BEACH IS TO FUN: A BOOK OF RELATIONSHIPS is by Pat Brisson. She is one of my favorites because of her books THE SUMMER MY FATHER WAS TEN, WANDA'S ROSES, MELISSA PARKINGTON'S BEAUTIFUL, BEAUTIFUL HAIR and . This is a totally different kind of book--it is great rhyming analogies put into picture book form. I can see lots of fun reasons to share this one with kids--fun with words, thinking about words in different ways, celebrating summer. Can't wait to get my own copy since I happened to see this one at my daughter's school library. (Yes, I was at a PTO meeting and saw this book across the room....)

The Mistress's Daughter by A.M. Homes

I had some time to do some adult reading this weekend. I finished THE MISTRESS'S DAUGHTER by A.M. Homes. This is Homes' memoir revolving around her adoption, the relationship she has with her birthparents in her 30's and her feelings during the time. It is a powerful book. I have not read anything else by Homes but was drawn to this one from a review in an adoption magazine. Although the focus is on adoption, it is bigger than that. It is a book about a 30/40 something woman finding out who she is. Something very universal. I highly recommend it as a great memoir for adults. A.M. Homes has some great lines of hope throughout the book. She seems like an amazing person who has a great sense of who she is. The story is not really a happy one--it is a journey filled with lots of struggles. The honesty with which she tells her personal story makes it a great read. I have just recently started to read memoir. I plan to read lots more. There is an interview with the author on her website--about the struggles in writing a book that was not easy to write.

Fun Finds

Daemon roundup is at Wands and Worlds. 17 Kidlitosphere Daemons gathered in one spot. Some have not settled down yet. Mine has. If only her name was Charlotte, she might not seem so creepy. Go here if you don't have one yet. What are you waiting for?

Cool time coming up: At three minutes and four seconds after 2 a.m. on the 6th of May this year, the time and date will be 02:03:04 05/06/07. This will never happen again.

At Worldometers you can see world statistics updated in real time. Watch the tickers spin on how many calories have been consumed this year and the dollars spent on dieting in the U.S. Change your computer's clock to some year in the future (they suggest 2050) and check out the projected statistics.

' “Your IQ has really no relationship to your wealth,” says Jay Zagorsky of Ohio State University...' Anybody want to try to answer this one: "If you're so smart, why aren't you rich?" Maybe this graph from Indexed holds part of the answer.