Posts Tagged “Franki”

Show and Tell

With so much discord and craziness occurring in both our schools and the economy I figured we could all use a few giggles to remind of us how blessed we are to work with children.  This past weekend I received a great letter from a fellow teacher that brought back so many crazy memories of show and tell days. You never know what to expect on Show and Tell Day.  With that in mind, I had to share this with you all.   You will soon see what I mean.  Enjoy the following and if anyone knows the marvelous anonymous woman who passed on this story, please give her our thanks. 

The ‘Middle Wife’ by an Anonymous 2nd grade teacher

I’ve been teaching now for about fifteen years. I have two kids myself, but the best birth story I know is the one I saw in my own second grade classroom a few years back. When I was a kid, I loved show-and-tell. So I always have a few sessions with my students. It helps them get over shyness and usually, show-and-tell is pretty tame. Kids bring in pet turtles, model airplanes, pictures of fish they catch, stuff like that.  I never, ever place any boundaries or limitations on them. If they want to lug it in to school and talk about it, they’re welcome. 

Well, one day this little girl, Erica, a very bright, very outgoing kid, takes her turn and waddles up to the front of the class with a pillow stuffed under her sweater. She holds up a snapshot of an infant. ‘This is Luke, my baby brother, and I’m going to tell you about his birthday.’ ‘First, Mom and Dad made him as a symbol of their love, and then Dad put a seed in my Mom’s stomach, and Luke grew in there. He ate for nine months through an umbrella cord.’ She’s standing there with her hands on the pillow, and I’m trying not to laugh and wishing I had my camcorder with me.  The kids are watching her in amazement. ‘Then, about two Saturdays ago, my Mom starts saying and going, ‘Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh!’ Erica puts a hand behind her back and groans. ‘She walked around the house for, like an hour, ‘Oh, oh, oh!’ (Now this kid is doing a hysterical duck walk and groaning..) ‘My Dad called the middle wife. She delivers babies, but she doesn’t have a sign on the car like the Domino’s man. They got my Mom to lie down in bed like this.’ (Then Erica lies down with her back against the wall.) ‘And then, pop! My Mom had this bag of water she kept in there in case he got thirsty, and it just blew up and spilled all over the bed, like psshhheew!’ (This kid has her legs spread with her little hands miming water flowing away. It was too much!)  ‘Then the middle wife starts saying ‘push, push,’ and ‘breathe, breathe. They started counting, but never even got past ten. Then, all of a sudden, out comes my brother. He was covered in yucky stuff that they all said it was from Mom’s play-center, (placenta) so there must be a lot of toys inside there. When he got out, the middle wife spanked him for crawling up in there.’ Then Erica stood up, took a big theatrical bow and returned to her seat. I’m sure I applauded the loudest.  Ever since then, when it’s show-and-tell day, I bring my camcorder, just in case another ‘Middle Wife’ comes along.

Happy 2009! Hopefully all  year-rounders  went back to school with renewed spirit and vitality!

I hope you’re all enjoying this new year so far; so much excitement and changes in our world already.  I found some really neat educational challenges and building tools I can’t wait to share with you. Some of you may have seen these but for those of you who have not…

Google.com is very excited to again be hosting the Doodle 4 Google competition, where K-12 students are invited to play around with the Google homepage logo and see what new designs emerge. This year U.S. kids can join in the fun, to the theme of, “What I Wish for the World.”  These are some exciting times, for the US and the world. Significant changes are on their way. Google believes in thinking big, and dreaming big. I can’t think of anything more important than encouraging students to do the same.  This year, Google is partnering with the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum for the competition as they hope to encourage the next generation of designers and artists.  Registration closes on March 17, 2009 and entries are due by March 31, 2009 at 11:59pm Pacific time. Everything you need to get started can be found at the official website http://www.google.com/doodle4google/.  Only teachers or school employees should register. *Parents or students who are interested should contact their teacher to register them.

Speaking of changes around in the world; when it launched, Google Earth changed the way people everywhere access the world’s geographic information. Since then, Google has added many other useful features like 3D buildings, Street View, Sky in Google Earth, and tons of educational content layers. This week three exciting new features have been added in Google Earth 5.0. Touring in Google Earth… students can record and play back their own tours, complete with voiceovers! Plus, new historical imagery allows you to use a time slider to explore local and global changes over the past few decades. This is too cool!!! But wait, there’s more….you can now dive to the deepest part of the sea with oceans in Google Earth! This new edition allows you to fly beneath the surface to explore underwater canyons, see shipwrecks in 3D, and watch YouTube videos submitted by oceanographers and aquatic experts. Check it out at earth.google.com! So many cool projects; so little time you say. These are great center time, solo or group project building ideas. You can cover just about every subject area using these easy websites.

As a teacher I remember one of the hardest assignments for my class was always writing and following directions. Spice up the normal “write me an essay on how to do blank” by having a student partner follow the directions precisely and see if the blank comes out the way you imagined it to be or if it resembles nothing it was supposed to……

For those 7-12th grades, here’s another idea….How about writing a knol?  Knols are articles written by people who are knowledgeable about specific subjects. Anyone can write one and now Google is giving a little added incentive to show off individuals’ skills.   They’ve teamed up with the people at Dummies.com to give everyone the chance to write a how-to article about something they’re great at and possible become a bit more famous in the process.  Go to the official contest page, have students create their own knol about a subject they feel they know well, and the contest judges will select five finalists who will be eligible to have their knols featured on the Dummies.com site. The best entry overall is being awarded a $1,000 grand prize.  Submissions are open through March 23rd, 2009. If you feel this is a tad above your students levels try making it a class or class level contest instead. It will surely spice up the directions section of the curriculum a tad. As always, keep smiling and have fun. Life it too short for boring assignments. J

 The flu season is here!  Having been sick for the past few weeks with the latest flu bug I was revisited by a funny happening that really helped to change my attitude and that of my students.

How many of you have worked through fevers, colds, aches and pains just because you felt you needed too?  As teachers we have come to accept that catching all of the darlings’ viruses and colds are just part of the job.  Does it have to be?  Is this really the best thing for our own long term health, our students, or even the other teachers around us?  One of my students changed my mind of this perspective.

Last fall about this time the administration had put a notice out to the school explaining how important it was to not come to school sick, always wash our hands, and don’t ever sneeze or cough with out covering ones mouth.  As generally happens most people mention it in passing and let it go.  It just so happened this day our science teacher was out sick so I needed a health lesson and wound up deciding to chat about sicknesses and how easily colds and viruses were passed.  Well this little chat really took on a life of its own……poor Guadalupe…..

As anyone who deals regularly with third graders will testify to the more gross the subject the better and what is more gross than snot and spit?  After completing some free research time on the computer the kids proceeded to explain to me how these germs got spread.   I never knew how many websites there where that deal with the spread of disease.  This 1 period study session apparently wasn’t good enough on the disgusting subject and they requested that we continue our discussion during our weekly class meeting that afternoon.  Somewhere during this day poor Guadalupe started feeling pretty punky and by the end of the day we could all tell that he was not up to par….

Since it was Friday afternoon, it was time for our class meeting.  Prior to class meetings, throughout the day we jot ideas down on the white board of the most important topics to discuss during our session.  That day the overwhelming topic was…you guessed it, sickness.  The kids had decided due to the flu epidemic that was going around the school that we needed to make our room the sick safe house.  I asked how they wanted to do this.  They huddled together in small groups and brain stormed ideas from their earlier internet discoveries.  Some of the ideas were humorous but most were pleasingly relevant.  Taping their hands together so the student couldn’t touch anything and putting tape over a coughing person’s mouth weren’t the best ideas, but I am sure we have all wished we could have done this at some point or another.  Leave it to Sergio, “Hey let’s make coughing kids wear surgical masks while they are sick.”  Now this seems a little crazy but in actuality it wasn’t a bad idea.  The class voted overwhelmingly in favor so what the heck.  This continued for 10 more minutes or so and the class came up with the new sick rules.  They were in order.  1. Do not come to school sick.  If you do, you must sit in the back of the class and let the teacher know right away you are not feeling well.  2. You may not use the computers 3. You may not share food or any items you have touched with other people.  4. You must use the opposite door as the rest of the class and only touch it with your arms not your hands until you have sanitized your hands.  5. Lastly, if you come to school coughing, you will need to wear a surgical mask while you are in class. 

The end of our time for the day was rapidly approaching so I promised I would write up the new rules for the next day, asked them to talk with their parents about what we had discussed in science today, and sent them on their way. 

Next morning, in walks coughing sick Guadalupe with Sergio, the self appointed sick warden with most of the rest of the class following.  The sick rules were up and posted as promised.  Holding Guad by the arm, Sergio stated, “Ms. H. Guad, is coughing so he is going to have to sit in the back of the class and did you get any surgical masks?”  I was a little surprised but thankfully had borrowed one from the nurse the day before for our class discussion.  I asked the class to take their seats and waited until the class had settled down and began their morning routine before asking the question.  “Class are you sure you want to follow such strict guidelines while you are in our portable?”  The class overwhelmingly said yes.  So, I played along with the game.  “Guad according to the rules that you helped create yesterday you are going to need to wear the mask while you are in class.  Is this going to be ok with you? “Guadalupe sheepishly said yes and asked for his mask.   He wore the mask the entire day.  The next day Guadalupe did not come to school.  Thankfully the following day he returned cough free and the rowdy comedian he always was. 

Now some administrators might think that I was a horrible person for allowing this to occur or for encouraging this experiment but I learned something really important from the kids that week.   They were as tired as I was of someone always being sick with that person eventually being them as well.  Our school rewarded classes monthly who had perfect attendance with first cookie parties, than ice cream sandwich parties.  If you made three months sometime throughout the year with perfect attendance the class received a pizza party.  Our class was tired of never having a shot at the festivities because someone was always out ill.  At one point when I was not feeling well, I was “told” I needed to check with the nurse and make sure I was not contagious…which I willingly did.

By following our new sick rules our class attendance rose, productivity was a little better, only two other children ever came to class sick again (and they wore their masks), we did finally win both the cookie and ice cream party, but most importantly they kids learned to take responsibility for their own health.  They realized how important it was not to contaminate other people with their germs.  Nothing is so important that you can’t skip it and make up the time later.  Until this day, I myself had done like we all have and toughed it out.  After this experience with my very cool class, I stopped. 

So, for all you run down teachers out there.  Take a day and rest up.  Yes, it may be hard to catch up but the health of your class and yourself depends on it. 
Take care

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season.

While shopping at the mall just before Christmas, I was utterly disgusted with the behavior of the shopping patrons.  I understand this time of the year can be a bit stressful but if I remember right, the idea of the holiday season is to care about your fellow man, be extra considerate and kind to others.  We shall just say that I had to put on an extra smile and show my kids what the proper shopping behavior should have been (not an easy task under the circumstances).  We decided to make a game of it and see and list what we witnessed.  We saw an older lady almost hit by a car in the cross walk.  We heard people complaining because the lines were too long (imagine that during the last shopping weekend before the holidays), and many people being verrrry rude to the sales people.  With all of this craziness going on it reminded me of a story I once heard…..

A mouse looked through the crack in the wall to see the farmer and his wife open a package.  What food might this contain?” The mouse wondered - he was devastated to discover it was a mousetrap.  Retreating to the farmyard, the mouse proclaimed the warning.  There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!”

The chicken clucked and scratched, raised her head and said, “Mr. Mouse, I can tell this is a grave concern to you, but it is of no consequence to me.   I cannot be bothered by it.”

The mouse turned to the pig and told him, “There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!” The pig sympathized, but said, I am so very sorry, Mr. Mouse, but there is nothing I can do about it but pray. Be assured you are in my thoughts.”    

The mouse turned to the cow and said “There is a mousetrap in the house!  There is a mousetrap in the house!”  The cow said, “Wow, Mr. Mouse. I’m sorry for you, but it’s no skin off my nose.”  

So, the mouse returned to the house, head down and dejected, to face the farmer’s mousetrap alone. That very night a sound was heard throughout the house — like the sound of a mousetrap catching its prey. The farmer’s wife rushed to see what was caught. In the darkness, she did not see the venomous snake whose tail the trap had caught.  The snake bit the farmer’s wife. The farmer rushed her to the hospital, where she was treated and returned home but still with a fever.  

Everyone knows you treat a fever with fresh chicken soup, so the farmer took his hatchet to the farmyard for the soup’s main ingredient.

But his wife’s sickness continued, so friends and neighbors came to sit with her around the clock.   To feed them, the farmer butchered the pig.  The farmer’s wife did not get well; she sadly died.  So many people came for her funeral, that the farmer had the cow slaughtered to provide enough meat for all of them.

The mouse looked upon it all safely from his crack in the wall with great sadness.  So, the next time you hear someone is facing a problem and think it doesn’t concern you, remember — when one of us is threatened, we are all at risk.
The End
Author Unknown

We are all involved in this journey called life. We must keep an eye out for one another and make an extra effort to encourage each other.

With this is mind, try to remember that caring about other people during not just the holidays, but all year long, is more important than long lines, traffic and being in a rush. 

Teach your students that a smile or kind word can go a long way in the face of a frustrating day, their own or someone else’s.

Be kind your fellow man….treat them as you wish to be treated.

Tonight is the first of the local school holiday performances!  It is such hard work practicing and perfecting the show but always such a great joy to see the end result.  The kids always seem to out do themselves.  Just a year ago we had the greatest holiday performance surprise ever!  Our class was having a horrendous time coming up with what we wanted to do to represent the 3rd grade class.  We thought and thought and finally we had a few ideas to vote on.  It was decided that our class would sing and dance to the song Jingle Bell Rock.  Great idea if you were anyone but Juan or Tracy…..

Juan was a very special boy who had led a pretty hard life.  The child had witnessed things that no child should ever have to experience.  Due to his early childhood traumas he had also not learned to speak English and until becoming part of our class family; he had not attempted to.  This lead up is going somewhere, I promise.  Juan was a very shy boy but very emotive and loving.  He was much more physically mature than the other boys as well.   Tracy had been raised in a disadvantaged household. She was a pretty girl with a great deal of potential but had severe anger management issues as did Juan.  Neither child was interested in being part of the performance; or so we thought.

Through the 1st three weeks of December we rushed through our days to get to practice. Neither Juan or Tracy never really showed much interest in the whole thing.  To keep them involved we requested that they be the review team and ensure that we were performance ready.  In exchange they would not have to perform with the class on stage.  They both agreed to this plan.  We worked during lunch break, before and after school, and any chance we had to fit in a few minute review of our song and dance.  With each review our class became a closer knit group.  The students were having a ball.  During these times our non-performers would monitor our mistakes and let us know how we were doing.  Two days before performance time the students were getting the holiday bug and were quite giggly.  We couldn’t get it to flow and this was bothering Juan.  Here comes our holiday miracle.  Juan stood up and yelled across the group in his broken English to get it together, we only have 2 more days to practice.  This shocked all of us, not that Juan had been so vocal because he was known for outbursts but for the fact that he cared.  The class settled down and surprisingly got right to work.  In the dance the kids had a swing style step that was a tad complicated for 9 and 10 year olds.  Most of them were doing pretty well but the step was not tight. 

Upon completion of that review, we stopped, and asked Juan how they had done.  Crossed armed and obviously unhappy, he said NO, NO good!  With this he turned the music back on grabbed Tracy and said this is how you do it.  With that he stepped in to position with Tracy by his side and showed the class how to do the dance the correctly.  It was if Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers had walked into the room.  The grace, the attention to detail in every step, and the snap to their moves was unbelievable.   Mind you neither of them had ever practiced the dance.  Upon completion Juan stated, “That is how you do it.”  He went back to the corner of the room to continue his monitoring job while the class broke into an uproar of applause and shock.  They were amazing.  The entire class begged the pair to be in the performance.  Reluctantly the pair agreed to perform.  After class I asked Juan and Tracy how they knew how to dance like that?  Not surprisingly they both answered, “I don’t know….I just do it.”  I explained to them both that they had done something that no one else in our class had been able to do.   It was at this point that they realized that there was some thing that they could do better than the other children.  They had not thought of it as anything of any great importance.  Out of frustration had come a gift to themselves and to the school as a whole.

Two days later the performance came.  All decked out in their scarves, mittens, and hats we waited for our turn on stage.  The cafeteria was packed with students and parents and the emotions were running high.   Of course, five minutes before performance time Tracy and Juan got into an argument swearing they weren’t going to dance together but by some miracle they agreed to continue the dispute after our performance.  The kids got up on stage, Tracy and Juan in the center of the group and the other couples staggered and surrounding them.  We were all nervous.  The music started, their little voices timidly started to sing.  Out of Tracy’s little soul came this beautiful deep  voice.  Jingle Bell Rock had never sounded so sweet.  With our star performers’ confidence, our room came together as a solid team.  They completed their performance to a rouse of applause.

Where they the best performance that day?  Maybe not in the eyes of a critic, but was the holiday spirit felt in a way none of us had felt before?  Most defiantely! The class hugged, laughed, and congratulated each other all the way back to our portable.  They were so proud of themselves and each other.   A new respect for the “tough kids” was formed that day.  Tracy and Juan had learned they were an important part of our class family and that our show would not have been nearly as good with out them.  The “scholastically more gifted kids” learned that there was a lot more to life than just good grades.  I learned that what I thought of as stress was actually character building school.  Without my challenging kids what kind of teacher would I be?  Thank you Juan and Tracy for our holiday miracle.

Here are a few great deals (freebies!), some interesting & time saving websites, and a great science center that I have run across this week. Just had to share. Some of you may have seen these but thought they were worth bringing to everyone’s attention.

For Educators

12/1/2008
Where is Santa? When will he visit my house? Find out! Google is delighted to once again be the technology partner for NORAD Tracks Santa, enabling kids of all ages to learn about geography as they follow Santa on his Christmas eve journey around the world.
Simply go to www.google.com/educators, a can’t be missed site for the younger set and the kids at heart as well.

Also at Google ……. Computer Science Unplugged [PDF]
An enrichment and extension program for primary-aged children
Tim Bell, Ian H. Witten and Mike Fellows, Teachers

A simple and thorough binary lessons unit with a Holiday exercise as well!!
Weekly Reader, December 2, 2008 Issue has some great science center ideas.  I particularly enjoyed the short demonstration/explanation of sound waves AKA “Now Hear This.”  It has a very simplistic approach yet it hits all the points.
The other topics covered were Sound, Tornadoes, Internal Combustion Systems, DNA, and Electricity.  I was a tad worried that the verbiage might be a little difficult so I tested my question on 3 of my tutoring students who are 11, 13, and 15.  Thankfully they agreed that they were all entertaining yet educational or in their words, “They were pretty tight.”  From the mouths of babes.  Weeklyreader.com Give it a shot and let me know what you think.

Teacherspayteachers.com
An open market place for teachers including but not limited to:

• time savers (always a must),
• speech writing tips for students,
• graphic organizers (of course) for reading instruction,
• critical thinking through graphing, (my personal favorite)
• writing biography tips for students, (this one was very helpful this evening
• while helping a freshman with her first biography)
• multicultural science contributions,
• clock templates,
• adult education materials, (this is a hard one to find-adult & ESL)

For those of us living in the West especially in Nevada and Arizona the Native American and South Western culture is a way of life or at least it was in my family’s life.   My parents were and still are Indian art fiends.  At the time I did not realize the significance that their love for this distinct culture would play in my later life or for my  students. 

Each year in mid to late fall we as a class cover our American Indian unit.  I didn’t realize how excited I was about the subject and how much anticipation I had built for it until my third year of teaching this same unit.  Many of our families have stair-step siblings. With our track scheduling every attempt is made to keep the families on the same track.  Thus the siblings share many of the same teachers and projects over the years.  It wasn’t until my third year with the subject matter that I realized how this little project had become something that was anticipated by the siblings of the following year’s class.  My parents had unknowingly bestowed a bigger gift upon us than I had realized. 

Since living in the Southwest territories we generally stick to studying the Western tribes.  Our unit always covers the basics such as the foods the tribes ate, the homes they built and lived in, the clothing styles they wore, the family unit style (maternal vs. paternal), and what type of tribe they were (hunting, gathering, farming, warring, or fishing).  Of course in whole group during the anticipatory set we cover some of the basic characteristics and qualities of a number of the Southwestern tribes but the fun comes when the students individually choose their desired tribe of study, groups are formed upon these choices. The groups work together to discover more about their tribe and as a group must later share and teach the rest of the class.

The groups must complete a written project board for the class museum walk, teach and demonstrate an art, whether that be a work of printed art, a dance, music, or some type of needlework representative of their tribe, and build an actual example of their tribal housing structure.  It is an involved project but the kids love it.  At the end of the project a test is given covering all of the information that the students have found during their research of their individual tribes.  Each year by the 2nd to 3rd day of whole group instruction the students are asking when they will get to start their group projects.  By the 2nd day of group work they are begging for more time to work and requesting to stay in at lunch and after school to work on their projects.  The first time this happened I thought I was hearing things.  I thought, “Are you crazy?  Its lunch time…go outside and play.  What’s wrong with you guys?” 

The first time I used this format was during my student teaching.  I was simply trying to wow my supervisor and that I did but something else happened as well.  What had started as a way to impress the “boss” wound up teaching me a few lessons.   If I put the effort forward to make the project important to me, it in turn made the project doubly important to the kids.  They took such interest and pride in their projects.  The second lesson I learned was not to make it too entertaining for your supervisor because he will come back every time you are teaching an American Indian lesson.  He only needed to see one lesson and he came back for 4 more!  That will teach me! 

I wish I could share more pictures of the kid’s projects with you all; unfortunately only one picture survived the move. 

One of the groups from my last semester decided they wanted their group to teach the entire class sand painting.  It turned out pretty cool and the class as a whole had a blast. 

Thanks to my mom and dad, thanks to my teaching supervisor, and especially thanks to my very special students who always remind me how much fun learning can be. 

With Thanksgiving only a few days away and the holidays fast approaching I was trying to think of a different but fun experiment to demonstrate how the food we ingest actually assists in repairing and maintaining the health of the human body.

 Where else does one go for fun experiments but to the science wizard?  The prof., who wishes to remain anonymous, sent me this amazing list of healthy hints to the world of dietary needs and challenged myself and our afternoon tutoring group to give it a try and see what we thought.  We conducted this experiment in two days.  I informed the group that each item on the list correlated with a part of the human body and that their job was to match each food item with a part of the human anatomy and then show the group why they felt this way.  The first day we collected all of the food items listed below and discussed what body part each food item might represent.  The second afternoon we verified our hunches, wrote up our, “scientific findings”, and then made a huge salad with our left over materials from out little experiment.  It was a great way to finish off the project and celebrate a different but healthy Thanksgiving feast.

Nature is so amazing!  Too often the clues to our lives and bodies are before our very eyes and somehow we miss them.  Here is a little reminder…..

These are best & more powerful when eaten raw.
Here are some great clues as to what foods help which part of our body!

The Earth’s Pharmacy! Amazing!

A sliced Carrot looks like the human eye.  The pupil, iris and radiating lines look just like the human eye… and YES, science now shows carrots greatly enhance blood flow to and function of the eyes.

A Tomato has four chambers and is red. The heart has four chambers and is red. All of the research shows tomatoes are loaded with lycopine and are indeed pure heart and blood food.

Grapes hang in a cluster that has the shape of the heart.  Each grape looks like a blood cell and all of the research today shows grapes are also profound heart and blood vitalizing food.

A Walnut looks like a little brain, a left and right hemisphere, upper cerebrums and lower cerebellums.  Even the wrinkles or folds on the nut are just like the neo-cortex. We now know walnuts help develop more than three (3) dozen neuron-transmitters for brain function.

Kidney Beans actually heal and help maintain kidney function and yes, they look exactly like the human kidneys.

Celery, Bok Choy, Rhubarb and many more look just like bones. These foods specifically target bone strength. Bones are 23% sodium and these foods are 23% sodium. If you don’t have enough sodium in your diet, the body pulls it from the bones, thus making them weak.  These foods replenish the skeletal needs of the body.

Avocadoes, Eggplant and Pears target the health and function of the womb and cervix of the female - they look just like these organs. Today’s research shows that when a woman eats one avocado a week, it balances hormones, sheds unwanted birth weight, and prevents cervical cancers. And how profound is this?   It takes exactly nine (9) months to grow an avocado from blossom to ripened fruit. There are over 14,000 photolytic chemical constituents of nutrition in each one of these foods (modern science has only studied and named about 141 of them).

Figs are full of seeds and hang in twos when they grow.  Figs increase the mobility of male sperm and increase the numbers of Sperm as well to overcome male sterility.  

Sweet Potatoes look like the pancreas and actually balance the glycemic index of diabetics.

Olives assist in the health and function of the ovaries

Oranges, Grapefruits, and other Citrus fruits look just like the mammary glands of the female and actually assist the health of the breasts and the movement of lymph in and out of the breasts.

Onions look like the body’s cells. Today’s research shows onions help clear waste materials from all of the body cells. They even produce tears which wash the epithelial layers of the eyes.

A working companion, Garlic, also helps eliminate waste materials and dangerous free radicals from the body.

Not only was this experiment educational, it was fun, full of laughs, and after adding some salad dressing and a few crackers to it…..we even got a great meal out of it.  On the experimental scale, our group gave it a very high rating and recommended it as a must do in understanding the correlation between foods and the human anatomy.

Thanks were given to our marvelous science professor and Thanksgiving was shared this afternoon.  May you all have a wonderful and blessed holiday with your family, friends, and remember we are what we eat. 

With the holidays coming, test practice ramping up, and end of the trimester fast approaching I thought we were all in need of a good laugh.  After running into a very harried friend of mine who is completing her student teaching practicum, the thought was verified.  With that being sent I wanted to pass on a great email a music teacher friend had sent me.  Enjoy the laughs and don’t forget to give yourselves a break, after all we can only do so much in a day.  Have a great week!

The Five Stages of Teaching

Phase 1.  You are listening to jazz — Your first day at work is great. Your fellow teachers are wonderful, your classroom is cute, you love your students, and your principal is the best!

Phase 2. You are listening to pop music — After a while you are so busy that you are not sure if you’re coming or going anymore.

Phase 3.You are listening to heavy metal — This is what you feel like after ONE month.

Phase 4. You are listening to hip hop — You become bloated due to stress, you’re gaining weight due to lack of exercise because you are so tired and have so much school work to do when you get home, you feel sluggish and suffer from constipation. Your fellow teachers are too cheerful for your liking and the walls of your classroom are closing in. You have started thinking ‘WHATEVER’ about your principal.

Phase 5. You are listening to GANGSTA RAP — After more time passes, your eyes start to twitch, you forget what a ‘good hair day’ feels like as you just fall out of bed and load up on caffeine.

Phase. 6 You are listening to the voices in your head — You have a lock on your classroom door to keep people out, You wonder WHY you are even here in the first place and WHY did I become a teacher!

Laugh often, long and loud.
Laugh until you gasp for breath.
And if you have a friend who makes you laugh,
spend lots and lots of time with them

Halloween is coming! Here in the Mid-West Halloween or All Hallows Eve is a big holiday. The kids in the neighborhood have been talking about the upcoming festivities for the past two months. Hayrides, corn field mazes, scarecrow making, pumpkin carving contests, pumpkin pie cooking contests, pumpkin crème cakes & pies in the grocery, yard decorating, haunted houses, and of course costume choices for the big day.

All of these festivities may seem common place to you Mid-Westerners or East Coasters but for a California transplant this is all beyond new and exciting. On the West Coast Halloween is really not a big holiday. Of course, the little kids still dress up and go trick-or-treating and there are a few haunted houses and parties but that is about it. October 31st in Nevada is Nevada Day, the day that Nevada became a recognized state in the Union. Thus in Las Vegas, Halloween takes a back seat to Nevada Day. The West has become shall we say, very politically correct; thus many of the joys of childhood as we older adults remember them have been lost. Keeping this in mind, I tell you the following story…..

One afternoon while living in California I was conversing with another teacher about the upcoming holiday and how bummed I was that we weren’t encouraged to celebrate the holiday in our classes. My buddy stated that the school didn‘t sanction it but that we had an East Coast parent, she wouldn’t say who, that was quite fond of the fun loving spirit of the holiday. I asked her what she meant, but she would say nothing more than wait and see. It would be worth it. She said that each year this parent seemed to outdo themselves and that this year was sure to be no different. I must say I was quite intrigued by this at the time but with everything else going on the conversation slipped my mind.

Halloween day arrived a few weeks later however the before mentioned conversation was no longer even a twinkle in my memory. All of my students filed into class, a few with masks and costumes for after school activities, but nothing too outrageous, and  actually not that unusual compared to any other day. We began the school day as any other and headed right into work on arithmetic.  In California it is still quite warm at the end of October so most of us leave our classroom doors open. About half way through the morning we heard what sounded like the cackling laugh of a witch. The students were way ahead of me on this one. We looked at each other and bolted for the doorways to see what in the world was going on. As we did we saw and heard the cackles of a green faced witch, cape billowing from her shoulders, carrying a little black Toto dog in the front basket of her bicycle as she was whooshing down our hallway screaming, “I’ll get you, my pretties! Ha Ha Ha Ha!!” The witch rode from hallway to hallway on the first pass through the school. On the second pass through, to the screams and applause of the children; the witch threw candy into the doorways of the classrooms and yelled “Happy Halloween!” By this point all of the kids were up and cheering the Wicked Witch of the East on. Of course, since one is not supposed to ride bicycles in the hallway, nor were we to be celebrating the holiday security was called to deal with the crazed and costumed bicycle riding witch. Our class was positioned at the end of the hall nearest the gate so we were able to see the Wicked Witch take flight out the gate yelling in a surprisingly deep voice, “Happy Halloween…you’ll never catch me!” and with that the witch was gone. Needless to say, the math lesson went by the way side.  Instead we broke into monster research teams and had a little fun with the rest of the day. My friend had kept her promise, it was a Halloween I will never forget. I hear there has been a different “frightening,“ visitor at the school each Halloween day for the past 5 years.

The crazy witch had disrupted the day but it was then that I remembered that it is up to each of us to keep the childish fun-loving nature of the holidays alive and well. It is part of our culture and past and thus by definition, a perfect history and social studies lesson.

Will there is a will, there is a way.

So go out, be silly. Decorate a pumpkin for your classroom. Have the kids practice their measuring techniques by making an actual pumpkin pie in class. Have them research past customs and “real” monsters of our times for group projects followed up with a museum walk occurring on the big day. Let the kids create scary Halloween stories then darken the room up and let them read them to the class. Study the numerous varieties of bats, their amazing capabilities, the effect they have on our environment, and play games using the facts the students collected and thought were “really cool.” Most of all have fun, enjoy the spirit of the day, and Happy All Hallows Eve to one and all!