A Hard Day at Work

Is this You?  You get on the computer with the intent of “working” on something.

A lesson plan.

A letter about an upcoming field trip.

A home budget on Excel.

An update for your teacher webpage.

Just something productive.  Something necessary.  You have the time…the cup of coffee…the ability…the dogs have been out…dinner isn’t for hours…

you get the picture

So here you go.  Open up PowerPoint.  Oops, you need some cute clip art for your lesson plan on PowerPoint.  Open up TpT to look for clip art.  Find a new seller who has the cutest button

Ever

So here is your afternoon: 

Link to her store - find her blog page - read her stuff - link to other products - order a book from Amazon because SHE recommended it.  Buy 8 of her products.  Transfer money to your Paypal.  Check Facebook.  Change your picture on Twitter.  Respond to email.  Pin a couple of pins on Pinterest.  Read another blog.  Decide to start your own blog.  Hire a designer to design your blog.  Love the colors she is using.  Click on Overstock.com to see if you can find a bedspread in the same color your blog designer is using for your new blog.  Make a pot of coffee.  Order the cutest coffee pot from Overstock.com.  Click on bloglovin to see what blogs SHE follows.  Follow all those blogs.  Find her Pinterest board.  Follow all her Pinterest boards.  Start your own “secret” board.  Wonder how to make a Prezi.  YouTube it.  Download Prezi.  Wonder if your school system’s technology can support Prezi.  Click on the technology department for your school system.  No mention of Prezi.  Email somebody.  Respond to all your emails.  Get an email that the bedspread you ordered in the color of your new blog is out of stock.  Contact your blog designer to ask her to change the colors to match your new bedspread.  Go pee.  Realize your baseboards are NASTY.  Fill a bucket with Mr. Clean and go at them.  Come back to computer because you never began the lesson plan.  Check Facebook.  Realize it’s now time to switch to wine.  Youtube is still open.  Click on bloopers of Carol Burnette show and laugh the night away until your husband wants to watch Blue Bloods.  Get another glass of wine.  That’s enough work on the computer today.  There’s always tomorrow. 

That’s a tiny stretch of reality there with a whole boatload of truth sprinkled in. 

The point of this rambling is this - Did you know or AM I THE ONLY HUMAN ON EARTH WHO DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT THIS…….

Did you know….

Were you aware….

Have you researched….

DID YOU KNOW there are software companies, apps, programs, etc.  - who will take your credit card information and charge  you on a monthly basis …..

TO KEEP YOU FROM HAVING THE ABILITY TO DO MOST OF THE ABOVE MENTIONED STUFF?????

You can pay a company and tell them -

I need to make a lesson plan from 10:00 to 11:30.  Please, oh, please, whatever you do…….DON’T LET ME ON THE FOLLOWING WEBSITES UNTIL THE PLAN IS DONE!!!!!!!!!!!

·    Facebook

·    Pinterest

·    Email

·    Twitter

·    Bucket with Mr. Clean

·    Wine bottle

You can pay a company and tell them THIS.  And they will keep you off of most of them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Here’s the kicker though……….There are discussion boards about which ones are UNHACKABLE and which ones you can get around!!!  There are people who have paid these companies so they can work in peace…..then have tried to hack into Facebook……found a way to do it…..then spend time explaining how to get around the software that you just paid to keep you working. 

We’re swimming upstream, folks. 

Just keep swimming. 

It's Poetry Time!!!!!

I haven’t blogged in a long, long time. Actually, that’s not true!!!  I’ve blogged in my local newspaper!!!!!  

Wild Rice with a Wild Side

That’s kept me super busy -

not really the writing….

or the cooking……

or the photos…..

Nope.  What kept me busy was the WORRY!!!!  

But there it is.  It’s out there, so on to something else!

It’s time to teach poetry in my classroom.  Hear the collective sighs of many adolescent boys as they think, “Yippee!”  Here’s what’s going on in class -

·      I’ve jumped onboard with Jeff Anderson’s “Mentor Sentences,” and I LOVE IT!!!!!  I will keep this strategy FOREVER.  Check out his book…..

Mentor Sentences

·      I’ve also jumped onboard with Kelly Gallagher’s thoughts on mentor texts and week-long, current-event texts.  Check out his book……

Readicide

·      I’ve been onboard with interactive notebooks.  I will never get rid of them in my classroom.  I will, however, strive to improve them every year!!!!!

After combining all of these strategies that I’m currently using in my classroom, I’ve created two new products.  One is a week-long study of Emily Dickinson’s poem, “Hope is the Thing with Feathers.”  The other is an updated study of Langston Hughes’ poem, “Mother to Som.”  Here are links to them….just in case you are interested.

Fun and Figurative Language

Well, it’s 7:00am, and I’ve been working since 5:00am.  Time for more coffee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Happy teaching!!!

New Year's Resolution # 1

James has reached the age where he will absolutely refuse to watch “girl” movies with me.  He will run, hide, fake sleep, and downright say “NO” to his precious mama.  Billy, however, owes me about 2,475 movies because I endured his favorite movie, Mars Attacks.    He promised I would roll on the floor laughing.  He swore it was the funniest movie ever made.  He guaranteed tears would roll from my eyes from laughter.  He assured me this movie would forever be in my top five if I would just watch it.  So, I did. 

Cue the crickets chirping

Hands down, the worst movie ever made.  Now, I laugh at everything.  Teachers on the other side of the building make comments about hearing me laugh.  I giggle at my own crummy jokes, for crying out loud!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  However, this movie didn’t even warrant a snigger, snicker, titter, chuckle, laugh, chortle, twitter, or cackle. 

Don’t you just love a thesaurus?

His punishment was fierce and swift.  He was forced to watch The Notebook.

(I know - shocked that he hadn’t seen it yet, right?????)

He was also “allowed” to take me to see The Fault in Our Stars despite my RULE about never, ever, ever, ever, watching a movie until I read the book FIRST!!  Here I blame Jacki and Sithney.  She was taking Sithney to see it, asked how I liked the book, wondered if I thought any scenes might be too risqué, acted mortified that I HADN’T READ IT YET……….so, to save face, I pulled the poor husband to the theater.

I admit……..it was a great story.  Of course, I bawled. 

At this time I will choose to not say if Billy cried or not.  I will never let the public know what a blubberer you are, sweetie!!!  At least there were only two other males in the theater!!!

It was a GREAT MOVIE!   The cast did a great job.  I was moved.  I was inspired.  I simply loved it. 

THEN I READ THE BOOK!!!!!!

Dang, what a difference!!  I know, I know.  All books are better than the movie version.

Well, I won’t say ALL, but I don’t want to start a fight about just how great Gregory Peck portrayed Atticus Finch!!!!!!

The book was absolutely a GAZILLION times better than the movie.  Therefore, I am now declaring this one of my New Year’s Day, 2015 resolutions!!!

I WILL NEVER GO SEE A MOVIE UNTIL I HAVE READ THE BOOK.

Unless, it is date night.  

And he’s found a movie worse than Mars Attacks.  

Procrastination or Celebration?

When is it time to take the Christmas tree and decorations down?  Is there a direct connection to when you take it down to when you choose to put it up? Are you really STILL celebrating the birth or are you procrastinating?   Hmmmmmmmmm.  Let’s ponder that. 

My mother could squeeze a buffalo nickel until he screamed for mercy.  For every dollar my dad made, my mom saved $1.25.  A lot of her talent for saving money had to do with recycling and reusing EVERYTHING.  

Here’s an example.

Every DECEMBER……(note - it wasn’t until DECEMBER!!!!) we would decorate the tree.  We brought out the boxes of decorations wrapped carefully in newspaper.  Breakable ornaments went to the top of the tree - thanks to some silly cats in the house.  Homemade ornaments in the middle and the bottom.  Garland that had been on sale in 1972 at Hills Department Store went on the tree despite the lack of shine.  Then came out the brown paper bag. The paper bag was in itself an antique.  You know when you’ve rolled and unrolled and filled and unfilled a paper bag until it is soft and tender and simply “used?”  That’s the bag I’m talking about.  There are no holes in it.  It still works.  Why get rid of it?   

So here comes the flat bag out of the box of ornaments and tinsel.  The bag is opened to reveal……….the icicles.  The icicles that were in the markdown aisle also at Hills Department Store at the after Christmas sale.  I’m guessing maybe they cost $0.10.   They are glopped together, crinkled like crazy, and flat as a pancake, but here they go on the tree.  My sister and I tried our best to separate them, spread them out, and made that tree the best-looking tree possible.  And guess what?  It was.  There’s nothing like Christmas as a kid. 

So back to my question.  When do you put up the decorations, and when do you take them down?  Here are my thoughts.  I take a lot after my mother.  A lot.  I mean a lot.  However, I buy new icicles every year.  I throw caution to the wind and purchase a new pack.  I love throwing them on the tree.  You can’t place icicles.  They have to be tossed with precision.  You can’t have too many in your hand, and you can’t have too few.  You need just the right amount to toss so that they float down in just the right place.  You know it’s the right place when you finish the decorations, sit down on the couch with your cup of coffee, recline to admire your work, and wait for the heat pump to kick on.  If the tree icicles are in the right spot, the gentle breeze of the heat pump will blow them across the lights.  The reflections on the breakable ornaments, the homemade ornaments, and the antique childhood ornaments will bring tears.  The icicles are important.  They are crucial to the tree…….(so is the heat pump.)  However, this feeling of reminiscing and reflection simply doesn’t happen until AFTER Thanksgiving.

 I don’t like mixing holidays!!!!  Thanksgiving is a time for turkey, stuffing, pumpkins, pilgrims, cornucopias, and football.  Then comes the MEGA-SHOPPING day (which has now been ruined thanks to retailers opening on Thanksgiving Day which is a TOTAL SIN!!!!!)  on Black Friday.  One stop you have to make is Target to stroll through the Christmas decorations………..begin to get the feeling………begin to feel the desire to decorate……..begin to wistfully crave putting up the Christmas tree when you get home.  But first, you must purchase the new pack of icicles.  If Black Friday shopping has not simply KILLED YOU, then I recommend stopping by Kentucky Fried Chicken for the big bucket of Original Recipe with slaw, mashed potatoes, and gravy.  Throw it on the table and tell everyone how lucky they are to have you and then enlist every able body to haul up those totes of decorations and 

GET THIS PARTY STARTED!!!!!  

Yep, that’s right.  The day after Thanksgiving is tree-decorating day!!

Now, when to take it down.  Some people say you MUST leave it up until New Year’s Day.  Here’s my thought about that subject.  Is it truly because you are celebrating the birth of Jesus all the way up to January or is it simply because you can’t bear the thought of taking that mess to the basement?  It is procrastination or continuing the celebration? 

Here’s my guideline.  When the Alpha-male, beastly, gigantic, scary beast of a PIT-BULL named Boscoe seems to have had his fill of icicles……..when he looks at you with the dumb look that he is known WORLD-WIDE for………when he has icicles hanging out of his mouth………

Please look away from the following sentence if you have a weak stomach

- When he has icicles hanging from his butt due to mass consumption……… then it’s time to take the tree down.  Let’s be honest.  After the presents are gone, the trashcan is spilling over, and the wonder and excitement have passed…………everybody goes back to work……life goes back to normal………the decorations need to be packed……and the used icicles need to be thrown away.

And Boscoe’s stomach will begin to get back to normal.

But the outside lights are the husband’s job and might just have to wait till New Year’s Day…….or February 4.  

I Got My Hair Done at the Newspaper Office!

I haven’t blogged in a long time…….for a decent reason.  I have six flash drives, and three of them are full.  Yes, I back them up………occasionally.  Turns out that “occasionally” was three months ago.  I have a favorite flashdrive.  It’s my fave because it’s 

Tennessee arnge!!!!!! 

For you Yanks, that’s “orange” in proper Southern drawl!

Guess what?  It crashed.  We are talking the red, flashing light of death.  So……..for a week or so, I’ve felt hopeless, helpless, and downright upset.   But I’ve worked hard, ranted, gave it my best, cussed, and finally settled down enough and realized I’m going to be BUSY over Christmas break trying to redo some stuff.  Anyway…….on to my hair appointment…

As I said earlier on Facebook, I’m now a food blogger for the Kingsport Times News - OMG!!!!  I’m so excited and scared and worried and thrilled and just tickled pink!!!!  I was scheduled this afternoon to go to the Times News office and let Matthew take my picture.  Lipstick was on.  OF COURSE I WAS WEARING BLACK 

 “It makes you look thinner!”

 Now, let’s talk about the hair……..Just to be clear, I had this hair at conception.  I came out with a head full of curls……. I still have a head full of curls!!!!   This is a current picture of me.  

It is curly.  Very curly.  Which worked in the 80s but not so much now.  Yeah, I’ve ironed it, straightened it, put chemicals on it that should have made it fall out, curled it on rollers, slept in rollers, and prayed to the hair gods that I would one day wake up and be a gorgeous blonde with straight hair and bangs.  However, I am and always will be ………A Big Haired Child of the 1980s. 

So I walk in for the picture and asked him to use the camera lens that knocks 30 years and 100 pounds off.  He was a good sport about a comment he’s probably heard no less than a gazillion times.  Then he takes the test shot.  One curl out of whack.  He moves it.  He pushes it down.  It springs back up.  Katina comes over and helps push it down.  Two more spring up.  They tuck.  They twirl. They twist it.  Then he takes two shots.  Oh, my…….it looked bad.  So I fluff.  He fluffs.  She fluffs.  We all fluff.  We arrange and rearrange this mess of hair o’mine until we get a decent shot.  I’m more worried about how many chins were peeking out of the collar…..but, it’s done.  Now onward and upward……..Coming soon to a Wednesday newspaper near you!!!!!

FREE FOLDABLE!!!

Have you jumped on the foldable bandwagon yet?  I tied myself to its backboard last year……..and got drug to the halfway point.  In other words, I learned a lot of what I needed to change for THIS YEAR~

Now, to this year.  I’m again learning what I need to change for next year, but it has been SOOOOOOOO much more successful this year.  One of the reasons is because I’m actually watching my students USING and REUSING and REUSING it.  They know they can……

CHEAT

on any work I give them (other than district tests) by using their NOTEBOOK. 

So, here’s the most important part.  When we are reading a brand spankin’ new informational text and learning all new stuff about this text, I always throw in a question from their notebook from THE FIRST WEEK OR TWO OF SCHOOL.  I’m not going to review it.  I’m not going to reteach it - I did that already, geez!!!!  Nope.  I’m telling them to turn to that Table of Contents, find it, relearn it, reread it, grasp it again, and give it back to me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So in honor of my thankfulness during Thanksgiving weekend, I’m offering my current foldable for literary terms as a freebie.  It includes flashback, foreshadowing, irony, symbolism, mood, and tone.  Click here to get your free download. 

 CLICK HERE 

  Have a great year!!!!

Complaining Parents and Upset Students......All In A Day's Work!!!

Every teacher knows the feeling.

When that email pops up from a parent…….no subject line…….no reason in your mind for the contact!!!!!!

You check the calendar.  Nothing coming up soon to warrant communication.  No payments due.  No picture day in the horizon. 

Check the gradebook.  Grades are good…..up-to-date…..

No bad behavior.  No negativity floating around like a bad aura.

THEN WHY ARE THEY EMAILING ME?????????   What is wrong?

What have I done?

What have I NOT done?

What have I said?

Every teacher KNOWS this feeling!!  There is NO WAY there is anything good coming from opening that email!!!!

You put it off for that Loooonnnnngggg  22 seconds, but that’s as long as you can wait………..

And then you open it.  You read it once……twice…..three times.

Your smile begins at the corners of your mouth -------you know the smile------the one that only Jim Carrey makes------no teeth but the mouth muscles are performing acrobatics like Mary Lou Retton.

You are beaming.  You are blushing.  You are preparing your speech and making a mental note to thank the Academy…….

You…………(ME!!!!)  have received an email to compliment you!!!!  Thanking you for getting their child to READ so much!!! 

But wait……….the day gets better. 

THE SAME DAY!!!!

It’s the end of the day.   The very, very end.  A student comes up and hands you a well-worn, folded piece of notebook paper.  It’s been through a lot. 

They hand it to you and inform you that you CANNOT read it till they leave.  Pleading eyes.  Please don’t read it in front of me.

Ok, teachers, back to the opening of this particular blog…….

“Every teacher knows the feeling.”

You are holding one of the following:

1.  Well-worded hate mail complete with advanced vocabulary and superlative adjectives.

2.  Confessional meant for their clergy  teacher.

3.  The beginning of tomorrow’s conversation with the student about the confusion of the opposite sex and how they just don’t understand them!!!

4.  Other.  (Read the word “other” with a negative tone.)

So…….here I go.  Unfold it.  Realize it is TWO PAGES!!!! which means SEVERE ALERT!!!.  It’s even STAPLED for goodness sakes!!!!

We shall repeat the above steps. 

And then you open it.  You read it once……twice…..three times.

Your smile begins at the corners of your mouth -------you know the smile------the one that only Jim Carrey makes------no teeth but the mouth muscles are performing acrobatics like Mary Lou Retton.

You are beaming.  You are blushing.  You are preparing your speech and making a mental note to thank the Academy…….

Ladies and gentleman……..I received a two-page letter from a student CITING EVIDENCE of how happy they are that I’m getting them to READ.

 On the same day as the email from a parent saying basically the same thing.