Open House Classroom

                                                                         

Student Writing

 Here's the classroom on the morning after Open House.  It doesn't always hardly ever looks this nice.  All the clutter and stacks of paper have been consolidated and tucked out of sight (which means that the room looks great, but I couldn't find anything in it for the rest of the day).

Art

Classroom pets that don't need feeding

More art and classroom pets that do need feeding

Smartboard and lots of ocean books

Our  zones of the ocean pictorial

More student writing and ocean books

Rock Collections

Student desks looking neater than ever before

 And that's pretty much it.  The room already is devolving back to its normal state.  Two more weeks and I'll be able to ream out the whole place.

A Good Friday

Today I feel much better about life in general.  The parent meeting I attended was as long as anticipated, but the feeling in the room by the end was of optimism for the coming year.  Obviously, I'm not able to write about any of this in detail, but it's such a relief for the team when a situation that has been solidly negative for a long time finally becomes brighter.  I'm happy.

Our Open House (almost immediately following the meeting) ended up being great in all the ways a teacher hopes it will:

*A classroom crowded with a mix of interested parents and enthusiastic students, looking at all the projects and papers around the room.

* A slideshow of the overnight ocean trip flashing pictures set to music calculated to put a lump in the throat of any parent of their children looking exquisite as they played in the water, etc.

*Several students from former years stopping by just to give hugs and say hello

I'm going to get to school early this morning to take pix of the classroom so I can show you what my little school portable looks like when it's decked out in its Sunday best.

Off I go!

Crazy Time

The goslings are now gooselings

Two weeks until the end of the school year -- that crazy time.  I think that musically, these last few days would be called a crescendo.  Everything that was ever put off, postponed or forgotten about during the preceeding 98.8% of the school year MUST take place now.  And it is.

This afternoon, right after school, I'll be in a meeting to talk about the progress of a student.  It will probably be a long one.  Right after that, is our Open House where we show off our classrooms and a sampling of everything we've done for the year to everyone who cares to visit.  The problem is that my classroom is far from ready to be presented.  And I just remembered that the students' rock collection for science haven't been graded yet.  I forgot.  I've got to somehow get that done before tomorrow.

And the school psychologist emailed last night asking for all the test scores and grades for the student in today's meeting.  She apologized for the short notice, but I've got to get that done now.

Here I sit doing my blog instead.  Crazy times require occasionally tapping on the brakes and slowing down.

And now I must get ready for school -- foot on accelerator and I'm off, leaving trails of teacher-dust in my wake....

Our Trip to See the Sea

Harbor seals and pups

 Last Thursday/Friday was the long-awaited overnight trip with the 4th graders to the Monterey coast.  I meant to blog about it over the weekend, but what with catching up on my gardening projects, grocery shopping, and a Mother's Day outing listen to a performance of Carmina Burana (plus a Sunday evening dose of the never-ending schoolwork), I had to give it a rest.  Or rather, I had to give myself a rest.

Point Lobos cove and sea caves

51 children and 23 adult chaperones, along with their two teachers, had a wonderful time.  We hiked the trails at Point Lobos, visited two Spanish missions, flew kites on the beach, climbed through tide pools, roasted marshmallows at a campfire, played in the sand and water, and said hello to all the animals at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

Jellies at the Monterey Bay Aquarium

Tidepooling mountain goats  boys

Kite-flying mermaids girls playing in the waves 

As the sun set, we watched a small group of orcas flashing their fins and blowing

Can't figure out why I was so tired when I got home.

Off to the Ocean...

...with 51 children, 23 adults plus their two teachers, luggage, lunch, two kites, and a soccer ball.

There's more, but that's all I can think of at this moment.  Hey ho!

The old rose bush

                                                         Praise be for dappled things.

Larkspur and Thunderstorms

After many weeks of warm weather with dry winds, today lovely grey clouds moved in.  When I got home from school this afternoon it had already rained once (only 0.1", but I prize every drop that patters down on this dry place of ours).  I went out and weeded my friends the thistles for awhile on the hillsides.  Great fun, but after filling three trash bags with them and pulling out numerous stickers from my fingers, it was time for a change of scenery.

  Bruce had told me that the larkspur I'd planted by the baby oaks along the road there were spectacular this spring.  The dogs and I took a walk to see.

The man was right.

They came in every shade of purple, ranging from almost white to almost blue.  I've never had so many.  It's a wonder that they would bloom so extravagently in such a dry spring.

The colors glowed against the drying grasses.

Then, to my delight, a new bank of  rainclouds rolled in.  The lightning flashed, thunder boomed across the hills and finally lovely splooshes of warm rain were released right over us.

Every wildflower on the place gave a sigh of relief.  I sighed with them.

Point Lobos

Well, I don't feel like such a wimp for packing it in and heading for home yesterday -- I checked the weather for Point Lobos and discovered that the wind gusts were up to 41 mph.  Not exactly a gale, but   not picnic-on-the-rocks weather either.  Still, it was lovely.

                                                                                                                                                                             

                                                                                         

I love the little worlds that exist in tide pools.  It occurs to me that although these little crabs can get buffeted by the waves, they weren't at troubled by the wind that was just above the water line.  They did look a little smug as they goggled at poor wind-whipped me from their cozy underwater crevices (no doubt making bets on whether my hat would go flying or not...)

These strange circles are worn, I think, by the waves on the soft sandstone

It will be quite the adventure sharing all of this with my 4th graders next week, although some of the are so rambunctious that I worry about them falling off cliffs or being swept away.  Following directions is not their strong suit.  Well, I 'll think positive -- after all, I've always come home with the same number of students that left.




Today we stayed home, which was nice.  My horse trainer friend, Mary, and her daughter trailered their horses over and we rode in the arena together.  It's been over a month since I rode last and Corny's getting fat again.  Sigh.  Time to literally get back in the saddle again.  Afterwards we cooled out the horses by riding on our neighbor's trails that wind through the oaks on his property.  It was a good day.

Wind and Waves and Wind, Wind, and more Wind

Next week is my 4th graders big overnight field trip to Monterey, so I thought it might be a good idea to scope things out in advance.  Bruce and I were ready for a field trip of our own after several months of his recovering from back surgery while I've been floundering in way to much school work.  A day at the ocean, with a picnic and everything seemed like just the thing.

And it was.  Except that the wind was gusting like crazy and made my hair whip all over my face and my hat repeatedly threaten to fly off my head. Also, for some reason, this was THE weekend for everyone to get out to the ocean -- cars and people were everywhere.  Just as I'd discover a cute little crab hunkering in its tide pool, several other people would hurry over to see what I was looking at.  Everyone was nice, but I was looking to spend more time with sea creatures and less with people creatures.  So, after several hours, we left and came home again.

Not quite the jaunt we were expecting, but still, the outing did us good.  I'll post more pictures tomorrow.  Now it's off to bed -- wind and sea air makes me sleepy in a good way.

More Poom

Bruce took this picture today:

Poom in all his glory -- dirty nose, fang peeking out, poodle tail (with something dangling from it), and the quintessential Poom-grin on his face.

(yes, that is cat food in the dishes on the kitchen counter.  Sigh...)