Verbs

Today I...

-rode my bike 11 miles--5.5 out and 5.5 back--all along the riverfront trail.

-smelled cows, horses, hay, stagnant water, and weeds--and loved it.

-wondered why geese not in water always hang out in pairs.

-envied the kids in a house I saw with the coolest tree house ever.

-watched a hawk swooping low over the brush, looking for lunch.

-felt a beautiful March breeze on my skin under a translucent blue sky painted with all shapes and sizes of clouds.

-closed my mouth whenever I saw bugs in the air.

-sneezed my head off... but not until I got home.

-read a chapter of The Clockwork Three on a bench before I headed back (and finished it later this afternoon).

-wobbled into the house at the end of the ride and collapsed on the sofa.

-realized I'm going to need a padded bike seat cover if I'm going to do this again.

*Photo taken today on my phone - a smiley face on C 1/2 Rd.

Christmas Song

This is one of my favorites, though it's not (I don't think) very well known.




I love the harmony and the simple lyrics. And the Irish accents!

Tea Party

I'm going to give my students index cards with the sentences below on them. They'll each have one card, and each card will show up about 3 times in each class since there are multiples. Then they'll mill around and talk to as many people as possible, like you would at a tea party, reading what's on their card out loud and hearing what other people have on their cards. After that, they'll talk at their tables and try and come up with the basic story-line. This is before reading any of the story.

Based on the following snippets, what do you think the story will be about?

One dollar and eighty-seven cents.

Life is made of up sobs, sniffles, and smiles.

Something fine and rare and sterling

“Please, God, make him think I am still pretty.”

just to see him pluck his beard from envy.

her face had lost its color within twenty seconds

“Shall I put the chops on, Jim?”

He simply stared at her fixedly with that peculiar expression on his face.

Well?

...

........

It's "The Gift of the Magi" by O. Henry. Go and read it if you haven't before. It's a lovely Christmas story and definitely a classic!

We'll be talking about theme and doing some other things to understand/comprehend and remember the story. Hopefully it goes over well!

Hello again!

I haven't posted anything for nearly two months, and I can't think of anything much to say right now... so here's a little bit of an update.

There are two weeks left in the quarter. Ten days. Ten days left with a bunch of 13-year-olds who are slowly losing their minds as Christmas break approaches. Pray for us all, that we survive! And, more than that, that we actually learn some things, too.

For a number of reasons, some legitimate and some stupid, our finances are extra tight right now. Therefore, I am going to make most of our Christmas gifts this year. I was going to clean off my sewing/crafting table this weekend, but I watched movies and knit ALL DAY yesterday and ran errands and planned and graded for this week of school today, so it didn't get done. Maybe if I do it incrementally in the evenings this week, it'll be ready for crafting this weekend.

Matt has had a sore throat/sniffly nose/horrible-sounding cough for over a week now. Thank the Lord I haven't caught his cold! (I'll probably get hit the very last week of school.)

Oh, if anyone reads this on Facebook or through an RSS feed or something similar, I have a little widget in my sidebar of my "favorites" on etsy.com. If I see something cute that I like, I add it as a favorite so you, too, can see cute things! It's a fun website where people can sell their handmade items, and it's a lot of fun to poke around on. You can search by craft, key word, or even color! They also have lots of treasuries and collections of similar items (and the collections are put together by sellers, buyers, and people who work there), as well as interviews with artists and articles on a variety of topics. Check it out if you haven't!

It has hardly snowed here at all this winter, and, indeed, has been pretty pleasant all around! During the week of Thanksgiving, we had lows at -3 overnight and highs of about 15, but other than that, it's been sunny or a little cloudy and around 40-50 most days. This is fine with me, since it means I might be slightly less sick of winter than I usually am come February. It is always nice to have a white Christmas, though, and I'd be fine with another snow day this December like we had last year!

I am about to start book 8 of the Anne of Green Gables series. I re-read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows right before we saw the movie. At school, I'm almost done with Inkspell. I'll probably read Voyage of the Dawn Treader for the 234th time before the movie comes out. I just started Edgar Sawtelle, though I might come back to it later as I'm not sure I'm in the mood for it right now. I'm going to start reading a kid-ified version of Treasure Island to my students, and might read the real version of it myself. I'm also thinking a little bit about reading the original Tarzan, just because. Thoughts? Suggestions?

What are your plans over Christmas break, if you get one? (Or even if you don't, you brave souls who are in retail or other professions who have to work Christmas Eve and the day after Christmas, New Year's Day, etc. etc.) I plan to read a LOT, knit almost as much, and hopefully watch as much Doctor Who: Season 5 as possible. Oh, and SLEEP IN!

Drip.

Mini-lesson tomorrow on writing in the second person ("you" instead of "I" or "he"), and general fun creepiness for October and the fast-approaching Halloween. Students will choose a phobia from the sheet they've been working on (using the dictionary and another source to utilize prefixes and roots to find the meanings of phobias!). The following is the model I wrote.

---

Hydrophobia

Drip.

What was that?

Drip.

That sound, that maddening sound.

Drip.

Water. There is water on your floor. Water falling from the ceiling into a puddle on your floor, an ever-growing, slickly wet puddle of water.

Drip.

Each sinister drop adds to the puddle, creeping closer and closer to your safe, warm bed.

Drip.

Your toes curl. You clench your fists in the bedsheets. You squint your eyes shut, but that does not drown out the sound.

Drip.

Frantic, you cover your ears, palms pressed tight, eyes still shut, but you hear it even still.

Drip.

In your brain.

Drip.

Driving you mad.

Drip.

One...

Drip.

drop...

Drip.

at a time....

...

DRIP.