A few years back, I taught at an alternative school (for behaviors). It was so very difficult at times, but extremely rewarding. I truly enjoyed working with my students and I miss them.
Most had horrific home lives that could turn anyone’s stomach. And it was hard to not dwell on it outside of school hours when I was safe at home in a cozy, warm house with my two well-fed boys. And that’s why when I was there with them for the few hours I had them, I gave them everything I had. I just wanted them to know that they mattered and that they were beautiful and smart in so many ways.
Many days it felt like an uphill battle but I hope that I made some kind of positive impact on their lives and not just academically.
Several came to me either as non-readers or just barely reading and that’s difficult for an upper elementary boy (or girl) to admit. Sometimes it seemed easier to disrupt than to admit they didn’t understand. Many had experienced very little success and were starved in more ways than one. One of my many goals was to build their confidence.
A friend introduced me to fry words/phrases. Those partnered with repeated readings, I was able to see great gains in many of my students. And as soon as the students started seeing these gains too, they actually started trying harder and slowly believing in themselves.
I’m always trying to find resources for teachers that are quick and “easy”. I know how hard it is in the classroom to address the needs of 20+ students. Since I’ve seen the positive results of using Fry words/phrases, I thought the idea of having the words/phrases on bookmarks might just qualify as quick and “easy”.
Many reluctant readers feel discouraged when presented with a passage/book but a bookmark’s not so scary. And I thought there were so many possibilities of how to actually incorporate them into the classroom. Homework. Partner/buddy reading in class. Independent reading. Small group. Teachers can stamp, sticker, initial, hole-punch, etc. as they become fluent in each section. Students can track their progress through the words/phrases. Many possibilities but all require very little time. Which is a must these days in education.
As always, so thankful for all the educators out there! Happy Thanksgiving!
What do Christmas Eve and the night before school starts back after summer break have in common? All teachers around the world can NOT SLEEP! Well, okay, maybe it is just me… I can’t sleep on Christmas Eve because it doesn’t matter how old I get, I just get too darn excited! And I can’t sleep the night before school starts back because no matter how old I get, I just get too darn excited I want to drain every single last drop of my summer vacation…and not waste a drop!! And if I go to sleep, I’m admitting that it is over. I don’t want it to be over! I know, I know, I should be happy I even have a summer break at all, right? Yeah, yeah, I can only hold on to that thought for a second before I want to lie down in the floor, hold my breath, stomp my feet and throw an Opie Taylor fit.
Actually, I’ve been back to work for weeks but tomorrow is the first “official” day back. Sigh. I actually worked all day today training teachers on a new assessment (fun!) but there’s just something different when it is “official.” Of course, it is not that I dislike my job. That’s not it AT ALL. I just really LOVE summer! 🙂 Summer time with my boys makes me one happy momma. Time flies when you’re having fun.
And I promise no Opie Taylor fits tomorrow…at least not in public.
(The Opie Taylor fit starts around 2:13 and lasts until 2:45 if you need a visual.)
I have two days left of summer and I’m soaking up as much lovin’ as possible. Even though I’ve worked WAY more than I wanted to this summer, I’ve cherished every single second with my boys. As much as I enjoy my job, I still would choose to stay home with my boys in a heartbeat if I could.
See how sweet they are!
Ok, let’s be real too. They bicker…a lot. They’re 15 months apart so I guess that should be expected. But they play nicely too. Quite often actually. And sometimes, they’ll even let their momma sleep late ’cause they know how much I LOVE to sleep. Sometimes, they’ll even bring me breakfast in bed… (see pic) Sweet boys! Sometimes, my heart feels so full, I think it might just burst. Actually, that’s most of the time!
I can’t believe how fast time goes. My babies aren’t babies anymore. I get scared that I won’t remember how these days feel. I worry that I’ll forget those little things that make my heart happy. The way their hand fits just perfectly in mine. The way my youngest combs his fingers through my hair when I’m telling him goodnight. The way my oldest can talk nonstop to me about absolutely nothing at all. The way my youngest will yell “momma” through the house and when I answer, he just says he’s checking on me. The way that they’re truly happy to see me when I get home from work. The way they hug me so tightly each and every time. And I could go on and on, just as every parent could.
So, how do I preserve these memories? How do I not let them slip away right along with the years that pass us by so quickly. That’s always been my question…
I’m not a good scrapbooker. I tried a few times but pretty much failed. I envy all those out there that do this so beautifully and timely. But it wasn’t for me. Finally, I’ve found a couple ways that work for me and my family. My husband even gets credit for one! 🙂
Calendars
Every year, I make a calendar (we use snapfish.com). I use all photos from the previous year. I try to keep the photos in the same month. For example, all Halloween photos from the year before I include in the October pics. And all year long, I write all over the calendar. I have it hanging in our kitchen so it is easy to jot something down quick. I try to write everyday but that doesn’t happen…at least a couple times a week though. I include things that the kids say/do, events, trips, etc. (see pic) I pulled out my calendars from years past and read through them one evening last week. I laughed, smiled, and even cried. There were so many things that I had already forgotten!
A good idea would be to create a “calendar” folder on your desktop and drop pics in it throughout the year then it wouldn’t take so long to create your calendar in December. (I really need to take my own advice!)
Email
My husband actually came up with this fabulous idea! First, we set up email accounts for our boys. The husband and I email them pics/videos, stories, etc. as often as possible. Of course, the boys have no idea we’re doing this. One day, not sure when yet…when they graduate or when they leave the “nest” or when they have kids…but one day, we’ll let them know they have an email account chock-FULL of memories. We also cc’ed ourselves on all the emails and created a folder for them so we’ll have those memories too. I try to email often but what usually happens is I get stuck somewhere waiting on something with down time so I just go through all my pics/videos on my phone and email them individually to the boys with captions and sometimes an entire story. I try to add the date (or close to it) in the email since a lot of times when I actually get around to sending the email isn’t the same time as the pic/video. Also, I attempt to be very specific in the emails since they won’t be reading them for another 15-20 years. I’m soooo very excited to share this with the boys one day…
Photo Books
And last, I create photo books. Not scrapbooks. Remember, no good at that. Photobooks are much more my style. Upload photos to site, drag and drop on page. Add captions if desirable. And then place my order. 🙂 Yay!
More specifically, I’m organizing my photo books by their school years (Kindergarten Year, First Grade Year, etc.). So in the end, the boys will have 13 each (at least). I include all photos from that time period, not just school stuff. I also save their work, projects, etc. from the entire year. At the end of the school year, I photograph it all in sections so that we’ll always have the keepsake but not all the clutter. (I do hand-select a few items to keep.)
I still worry that I’ll forget but at least I know that I’ve preserved quite a few memories.
One of my absolute favorite songs, “Photographs and Memories,” written by my husband, Daniel Justin Smith, seems to go perfectly with this post.
Yesterday, I was a reference for yet another colleague/friend that is leaving the state. In the past 10 years, I have watched quality teachers of all ages either leave the state or leave the profession of education all together. The reason? Lack of respect, lack of pay… It is a sad day when our educators are flocking to other states and/or seeking employment outside of their called profession.
What does this mean for our students? What does this mean for the future of North Carolina? Unfortunately, the legislators don’t seem to take this into consideration. The latest budget is sickening. Over the past week, I’ve wondered many things but most of all I’ve wondered why anyone would think this budget is acceptable at any level. I know money is tight and I know public education is a huge portion of NC’s bottom line. However, shouldn’t it be?! Shouldn’t we invest in our children, in our future in a big way?
I’ve been puzzled as to how this could be happening but then I realized something. Those creating this budget, how many of their children/grandchildren actually attend(ed) public schools? Very few, I’m sure. Very few. So I’m speculating that this is the grand scheme…to slowly dismantle the public schools system of North Carolina. And they’re doing it in such a sly manner. First, they set the bar so incredibly high, that it will appear that we’re failing even when we’re not. It will appear that we, as educators, are not doing our jobs, that we, as educators, are failing our children, our future. But in fact, it is not the educators at all. In fact, educators are staying even when they’re underpaid and underappreciated. In fact, educators are spending more and more of their own personal money for supplies, materials, subscriptions, texts, books, etc. so that they can continue to deliver the best education possible even when they are not supported by their state. In fact, educators continue to spend less and less time with their family in order to master/complete the ridiculous requirements and new mandates continually dumped on them. Year after year. Month after month. Week after week. Day after day.
Educators continue to be the door mat. Educators continue to be the scapegoat for all that’s wrong. When in fact, educators are one of the few reasons we’re not in worse shape than we’re in now.
But now, legislators will be able to say that public schools are failing so we’re not supporting them. We’ll not give them a raise. We’ll pull all assistants out of the classrooms. We’ll cram as many kids as possible in a room. We’ll not give teachers any compensation for completing graduate degrees. And when asked why, legislators can simply answer with, they failed to perform. Which in fact, it is quite the opposite. The only ones failing to perform are those that voted to pass this budget in the first place. The only ones failing are the ones that aren’t thinking of our children in public schools. The only ones failing are the ones that aren’t thinking of the future of North Carolina. And that is unbeliveably sad.
My husband, Daniel Justin Smith, wrote “Unsung” years ago. However, his lyrics still ring true today. Educators are real heroes. Unsung heroes. And, I for one am beyond ready to hear their song. I’m ready to see them dance.
Chorus:
These are my tools, this is my trade.
It’s how I make a living, but I don’t do it for the pay.
My musician husband often takes on jobs that have nothing to do with music. And as his wife, I usually somehow end up helping him complete these jobs. He accepted a job to help remodel a cabin about two hours from our house. The main task being painting the outside of the cabin. He first enlists a friend to help and tells me they’ll be able to knock everything out in two days. When they come back home, he tells me they didn’t even get started on the painting. He convinces me that it will be fun for the two of us to go for the weekend and work. It’d be good for us to spend some time together. We drive two hours to drop the kids with their grandparents, drive four hours to the cabin, and cannot paint because it rains the ENTIRE weekend. We drive four hours to get the kids and two hours back home. And by the time we crawl into bed Sunday night, we realized we really didn’t need to spend any time together.
Unfortunately, the cabin still needed to be painted. Yet again, my husband convinces me that it’d be fun to take the family up there for a few days. We could enjoy the serenity of the mountains. So my second week of summer “vacation”, I end up painting a cabin in the middle of nowhere. Monday and Tuesday, he and I paint all day. The kids join in at various times. Usually just long enough for me to have to redo something. We encouraged them to entertain instead (see below). We drive home late Tuesday night because he and I both have meetings the next day. My one hour meeting turned into 7. Sigh. After the meetings, we take the increasingly familiar trek back up the mountain. We arrive at dark. The husband paints until after midnight while the boys and I snooze. One way the husband convinced me that it would be fun was to tell me we’d take some time to do something fun.
Child Labor
We decided to raft the Tuckaseegee. We stopped painting in the early afternoon on Thursday and loaded up to raft. We rented two duckies. My mom had sent me several text messages warning me of the incoming storms but I was pretty sure it wasn’t going to be as bad where we were at. I even called my dad to see what he thought. All clear. The staff at the rental company even showed us the radar. Well, apparently, the husband and I are not trained at reading a radar. We hadn’t been in the water 5 minutes before it started to rain. But it wasn’t pouring. It was just a steady rain. Not that bad. Just paddling down the river with the family. Today’s going to be a good day. We hit a few rapids. Fun. I was going to have fun. Who cares if it is raining just a little. And then…the flood gates opened.
It started to pour and I mean pour. And in the words of my screaming 6 year old that was riding in my duckie, “Momma, it feels like nails!”. It was raining so hard that I couldn’t keep my eyes open to see where we were going and it was very difficult to catch my breath. And of course, there was thunder and lightening. And little did I know, the “big” rapids were fast approaching. I kept seeing all these signs but I couldn’t make out what they said. I pass my husband and other son in their duckie. They were stuck on a rock which probably wasn’t a bad place to be in all that mess. My duckie, on the other hand, was heading straight for the biggest rapids of the entire run and I couldn’t see a thing! And not to mention, I always prefer my husband go first so he can scope out the best route and then I just simply follow. So now, not only am I leading but I am leading blindly with a screaming kid in the front in the middle of a thunderstorm! After feeling sorry for myself for about 3 seconds (any longer and we would have been in the water, out of the boat), I put on my big girl panties and nailed those rapids. My husband and the other kid were close behind. He had spotted a place to beach the duckies. Of course I’m in the middle of the river and had quite a difficult time getting our duckie to the side in the pouring rain and wind but finally made it. And when I get out of the raft , I see my two boys heading up to some stranger’s house. I yell for them to wait on me! We run underneath the porch and wait on Dad to get the duckies out of the water. The kind people that were staying at this cabin invited us on the porch and brought my shivering boys towels. As soon as we got on the porch, it started to hail. Thank goodness we were not stuck in that! Turns out the people that were staying at the cabin were from the town we live in. Thankful for good neighbors!
After sitting on the porch for about 10-15 minutes waiting on the storm to pass, the rain started to slow and we decided it’d be safe to finish our trip down the river. We hop in our duckies and all seems to be clearing up. And it did for about 20 minutes. The boys were still a little traumatized so they kept going back and forth between, “this is fun!” and “is it over yet?”. We finally see where we to get out. The guy is standing there waiting on us. He looked a bit relieved we were okay. And when we’re about 10 yards from getting out of the river, the skies open up again. In the pouring rain, the boys and I run to the truck for shelter. While the husband helps tie on the duckies, I sigh a big sigh of relief once in the truck safe with the boys. What I didn’t realize is that I would be much more terrified on the way back to our car because the college kid didn’t slow down at all in the hellacious storm! I kept thinking, we made it through the horrible storms on the river, now we’re all going to die because this kid won’t slow down (or turn on the flipping defrost so he could see out the windshield)!! Geez, I was so relieved when we pulled in the parking lot safely.
By the time we get back to the cabin, we look (and feel) like wet rats just washed ashore. And it is still rainy so we forego painting. Friday, the husband lets me sleep in while he paints. We have to leave by 2 to get home for my nephew’s birthday party. And FINALLY, the first coat is complete!
As I type this, I’m waiting on the musician husband to get home (he was up at 5:30 to mow) so we can take the familiar roads up to the cabin that I’m beginning to think is my second home. Oh, and did I mention the cabin is unfurnished. Working vacations. Love/Hate kind of thing.
So, I bit the bullet…bought tickets to Carowinds. I decided about 10pm the night before. Bought the tickets online and started planning/packing. I knew we needed to go this week because many schools were still in session and I was hoping it wouldn’t be crowded yet. I packed clothes, sunscreen, meds, etc. I assigned the hubby lunch and snack duty. He’s awesome like that. 😉
The park opened at 10am. We headed out right on schedule at 8:00am. Arrived at 9:30am. Waiting in line for the gate to open for us to park made us feel a little Griswaldish. The gates open, we park, sunscreen up and head to the ticket gate. Actually we pass the ticket gate since I had already printed them AND no bags to check. You see, we had a plan. Roller coasters and any non-wet rides first. Then we’d head back to the car for lunch, rest, and change into our water gear. Water park after lunch. Good plan, huh? Well, believe it or not, it actually all went incredibly according as planned. Unusual!? I know!
The weather was absolutely perfect as well! Overcast all day! But no storms and maybe 2 minutes worth of rain. And it wasn’t crowded just as we hoped. We had to wait in line for one ride and that was it! Yay to an incredible day!
A few things I hadn’t anticipated though…
1) the day after would be a completely and utterly wasted day. Well, for the adults anyway. The hubby and I were so incredibly exhausted we accomplished very little. Anything we did accomplish took an amazing amount of effort and concentration. The kids were fed, though. I call that an accomplishment. We won’t mention that they might have had cereal for breakfast…and lunch! And for supper, we managed to make it to my parents house. 😉
2) the kids getting up before 7am the next morning! Once again, I am reminded of the resiliency of children. We got home after 10pm but yet they’re up with the birds the next morning.
3) my oldest being terrified after about the third roller coaster. I have the most hilarious yet pitiful video of him on a coaster. My husband took video of the ones that didn’t go upside down. I haven’t taken the time to get the video off of his phone yet but when I do, I’ll add to this post. (*Added) So pitiful yet hysterical at the same time!
And today I opened up an etsy store! So far, I have custom digital birthday invitations for sale. Check them out… http://www.etsy.com/shop/RedFernDesign
Happy summer y’all! Looking forward to a weekend of shows (http://www.danieljustinsmith.com) with the husband (and kids), then we’re headed to the beach! Can’t wait!!
First Day of Summer!! I always feel like a kid again on those last days of the school year! Love it!
As for my first day of summer, I spent…working! Apparently, that’s what all school teachers are doing these days! Boo for summer jobs! 46th in the nation! Come on NC!??
And tomorrow, I have training at the county office. But only for a half day and after that I’m all free! Well, as free as one can be, I suppose. I am going to the grocery store directly after training with no kids in tow. I guess that is kind of like a vacation.
So, Wednesday, I actually am all free. My kiddos (ages 5 and 6) have never been to Carowinds. I never wanted to pay money for the ticket unless they could do most of the rides. They are now both 48 inches or taller so here we come Carowinds! Well, maybe. I thought we should go as early in the summer as possible because I know some counties are still in school (so sorry for all you that are still in school!) and I was hoping it would be less crowded. Plan in place. Right? Well, not exactly. So I look up the ticket prices online. Wow!! I’m not even sure with my summer job we can afford to go to Carowinds! So I hunt for coupons. The best deal I could find was to order online…39.99 each. So 39.99 x 4 = 159.96. That’s just the tickets to get in the place. Not to mention gas to get there and FOOD!!! Needless to say, I’m on the fence about the whole Carowinds trip. If we do go, my kids will be eating pb & j sandwiches in the parking lot.
The kids always seem to come home with a cute booklet or craft for Mom so here’s to all the Dads out there! I know I’m incredibly thankful for the father of my two boys and my own father.
I absolutely cannot believe that it is the LAST week of school! I know I say that every year but it really seems different this year…(I think I say that every year too)!
It doesn’t help that I’m out of my schools for two days this week working at the county office. I feel so far behind! But just like everyone else, I’m very excited for SUMMER!
When I was in the classroom, I always loved to get feedback from parents (some parents more than others). 😉 I sent home surveys often and welcomed suggestions/comments/concerns. I’m always looking to improve. Click here for a FREE pdf of an end of the year survey that I would send home.
Good luck to all as the school year winds down. Here’s to a refreshing summer!
Red Fern Teacher 