SCHOOL JOURNAL 2015-16

snippets, slices, slabs of moments and doings in 3rd grade & Kindergarten

irregular, infrequent, and incomplete thoughts & lists on learning, education, play. or sometimes just snippets of conversation with our kids amidst life, which is one of the most beautiful and wonderful ways of learning. I will possibly include older snippets and slices involving work of the past; many of which now degree hold some level of humor or eye-rolling, as many examinations or remembrances of the past tend to do. 

April 26

What kind of clown would you be? That is the question. This is what a 3rd grader said:

I would have blue blue hair and an orange nose. I would have green suspenders. I would pretend to cut someone in half.

In response to a prompt about using sunscreen:

Be sure to use our ultraviolet rays prevention sunscreen! It prevents skin cancer and keeps you cooler!

In response to a question about what you like to collect:

“I like colecting (sp) rocks. Some I buy, and some I find. Sometimes people give me rocks that belong to them.”

I am fascinated by the present and by the future and by the bands between them; the continuum where you don’t see things change. They just change.

Will there suddenly be a day where she longer thinks of rock collecting as a desirable activity, or as something important to her? Maybe. Maybe not. But it probably won’t be a sudden shift or abrupt decision. It will be like so many things: a slow change. Those slow changes are a big reason I write and journal and document.

You can’t see or identify those changes unless you have some markers down for tracking beginnings and ends and middles. And keeping track of those things, of some of those things in balance is a big thing that helps me to remember and therefore to understand better - and perhaps as important as anything, to not mourn change or fight it, but to embrace the bittersweet beauty of what was, what is, and what will be. I loved our daughter then, I love her now, I love her always. The variables may change, the interests and hobbies and many things may change. But there are also constants.

April 12, 2016

A 3rd grader reviews vocabulary, proofreading, syntax, and endings, e.g. how final consonants are added before different types of endings such as -ed, -ing, and -er.

I learn that her favorite sport is basketball because she “…likes the setting and shooting hoops.”

Me too.

She also responded to a question about speaking or reading in front of people. This is what she said:

“I like reading to the class. It makes me feel good.”

Cool. Cool cool.

February 22, 2016

A sunshiny February Monday. Narnia spring feels here. Becca to work, them up north to the school we formally engage with a couple times a week. My 5-year old and I stopped at Steamboat Landing for what was supposed to be a short bit…but then ended up spending two hours fort-building. He was in bliss and…his father (yeah, me) enjoyed it also, a little.

A lot.

His excitement and zest for living, building, inventing, discovering…I love so much.
Home for G.I. Joes (his obsession du jour), leftover spaghetti, BH Photo live chat, and Chemical Brothers and Vivaldi listening.

Back up to school, piano in Ridgefield, couple hours of skate park, where we biked, scootered, and basketballed.

She’s been working so hard at basketball. I just love her conscientiousness. and dedication to improving and learning.

February 17 : still nacht

The night before taxes. Quickbooks just crashed. Another blankety-blank cluster-blankety blank before taxman meet.

Got a solid day at home with the kids doing at lots of school. Maths, photography, history, basketball, essay writing, G.I. Joes. I’ll feel good at that.

November 17, 2015 - What kind?

Third grade spelling, vocabulary, proofing, etc, in the form of complete-the-word, crosswords, puzzles, and so forth.

Q: Write a brief news report about what you just saw at a race.

“Today at Swamp Buggy Days, a buggy steered into a strawberry patch and squished all the strawberries. This is Katu 2 news. It’s 8:01…the news is next.”

Note: those last four words…sniff. Any idea what public radio station we might listen to for an ad-free, listener-supported, non-partisan source of news?

You just discovered Bigfoot. Write about it.

I found a Bigfoot! First, I saw it’s (sp) footprints. Then I saw the Bigfoot. It was awsome! (sp)

We all phone it in sometimes. That’s the power of review and accountability in enabling steady growth and lifelong learning.

October 20, 2015

Spelling workout. What is the role of workbooks? What is the connection between the word tourist and the phrase busy work? My take: people almost never see themselves as relevant with either.

If it’s you, you’re not a tourist, you’re a visitor or a traveler or an adventurer, and of course you’re not going to do ‘the tourist thing,’ except for that yeah, you’re going to visit those places, but with a degree of irony and/or self-awareness and/or denial of learning or comfort that may imply you’re a…tourist. Because of course you’re not. Other people are.

And a teacher is almost never going to say: I’m assigning you busy work. Because any work they assign is, of course, relevant, important, and integral to their students’ academic development. That’s the deal.

But here’s the thing: so much of learning is not necessarily fresh information or knowledge. It’s reminding, reviewing, responding, and…repetition. Yeah, repetition. I guess the key is how to make the repetition not mundane and wear students down. But the fact is, there’s no getting around the importance of nailing down fundamentals in any discipline. I repeat: in any discipline.

So where do workbooks fit it in? I’ll be wisely self-knowing like Socrates and say I don’t know. One little tip or trick I’ve borrowed from other earlier developmental stages is a hint of reverse psychology coupled with the timeless principle of scarcity: make something less available and it becomes more wanted.

Our 3rd grade daughter likes doing these workbooks. So sometimes it’s finding and fine-tuning the right amount in a particular workbook that we’ll let her do. In other words, you can do this much and definitely not any more. And then we get to that point and well…maybe one more page. Or two max.

We have a daughter who a) enjoys academics, including workbook work, and b) is deeply, deeply suspicious and (rightly) paranoid about being played, about manipulated, or about any psychological tricks being used to get her to do something. So, I don’t know. We just keep going. And then stop. And keep going. Repeat.

Q: What is something you might choose to use instead of money?

I think my money would be bracelets because I have a lot and I think people would like them. I could also buy more things.

Q: What’s a food made with rice that you like?

One of my favorite rice foods is rice cereal. I like when I hear it crackle and it tastes good.

Write a secret message.

Phone school Purple the wrap cough wreck sign yellow wren rough wrote track graph turquoise is knee knew Red pretty writer laugh knife yellow and elephant sign wrong knots green cute.

(you use every word after the color)

October 6

Our 3rd grader practices vocabulary and spelling, including y words with the long e sound. Angry, lady, very, empty. We review syllables - I am a big, big fan of phonics and beginning with syllabic breakdowns of words has been a favorite learning pastime of ours, with both ours, since they were little:

How many syllables in ‘Washington?’ How many syllables in ‘Darth Vader?’ How many syllables in ‘Age of Ultron?’ Et cetera.

More proofreading and writing descriptions:

Write a description of where you live:

I live at a place with a lot of trees and I have 5 acres with a big pasture. I also have plenty of blackberry bushes. We also have four playful alpacas.

All of the above is true.

We also reviewed long vowel sounds such as ea (read), ee (seen), eo (people), e_e (even).

I love her love of learning and the way she immerses herself, sometimes with a slight smile, always with intent focus, in what she’s studying or working on. That is what I want to help, however I can, not only preserve, but to grow and keep growing always.

September 2015

A 3rd grader works on spelling, including words with consonant blends like s and l. Smile, smart, frowning, free, glue, slumber. She unscrambles letters, finds missing words, proofreads poorly-written sentences, and writes a description of laughing. This is her:

I like laughing. It makes laugh when Anonymous Person burps. Laughing makes me feel good.

I suppose the world could use more laughing, so perhaps a greater frequency of loud bodily noises would benefit humanity at large?

She writes a poem:

I love my Dad when I am not mad.
I love my Dad when I am not sad.
I love my Dad when I am not bad.

I’m sure she’ll write many poems and stories about me over the course of her life, but this will likely be one of my favorites for a long time.

August 08 (beginning of 3rd grade and Kindergarten)

As we prepare for school to start up again, a great quote by one of my favourite cantankerous and opinionated literary figures:

"Education is the period during which you are being instructed by somebody you do not know, about something you do not want to know."

- G.K. Chesterton

Happy Thorsday, all! Learn something about something that interests you today.