It's Friday morning and I'm at my desk with my view from the back of the room preparing for the day. The scholars are arriving and when Wide walks in I'm a bit surprised as his Nanna is with him. I'm not quite sure where Nanna fits into Wide's official family but he lives with her and calls her Nanna so I guess she is the parental unit. I like Nanna as she seems to be very involved in keeping Wide on the right track at home plus she has accompanied us on school field trips which is always helpful given the type of scholars we have in our room. When I said good morning to her she said she I have something for you. I responded by saying is this a good something or a bad something. She laughed and said it's a good something. She then handed me a package and ask me to open it. As I was opening it she told me that Wide told her I was a veteran so she thought I'd like what was in the bag. As I pulled the object out of the bag I recognized that is was flag. Not being sure what kind of flag it was I carefully unfurled it and laid in on my desk. There is a picture of the flag on the right side of the blog so you can see it. As I was looking at it Nanna told me that she had friends that work with veterans from the various (and way to many) wars and she asked her friends if she could get a flag for me and they gave her this one. I was quite touched by this and told her that it has been over forty four years since I left Chu Lai, South Vietnam and this was the first time that anyone gave me something to thank me for my service. She then told me the meaning of the flag and I'll share it with you.
The Flag depicts the founding of our nation by the thirteen stars that emanate from the hoist to the large red star that represents our Nation and the five branches of our country's military that defended her. The white star indicates the Veteran's dedication to service. The blue star honors all who serve in the military in the past, present, and future. The gold star memorializes those who fell defending our Nation. The green field represents the hallowed ground where all rest eternally.
With morning announcement about to start Nanna headed to her car and I thanked her again for her gift. As I started to put the flag away EM walked over and asked me if he could help fold the flag. I said sure and we made the first two folds (hot dog folds) and then EM laid his end on my desk. He then started to fold the flag from his end forming the triangle that is the official way to fold a flag. As I'm watching him carefully make the triangles I'm thinking to myself who taught him to do that.
Ok, let's get on to academics. The book is titled "The Little Red Pen" and was written by Janet Stevens and Susan Stevens Crummel. This is a personification book as personification is the next subject matter in our continuing discussion on poetic devices. Before starting to read the book Gnu asked the scholars what they though personification meant. Un-Un-Un was the first to respond by saying it's about a person. Not bad, but not what Gnu was looking for. No other scholars made an attempt at the definition so Gnu began to read the story. By the way, if you don't know what it means pay attention. Also, you see personification in television commercials a lot. The opening dialog in the story has the Little Red Pen speaking to the other characters; Eraser, Scissors, Pushpin, Stapler, Pencil, and Yellow High Liter. "Who will help me?" says the Little Red Pen. Gnu stops reading and says, "can a red pen really talk?" "No!" say the scholars. "Then that's called personification." she tells the scholars. Now they get it and the story continues. The lesson objective was met in a simple story about talking classroom supplies. The fun part, the actual reading of the story, is over so out come the worksheets. The moaning and groaning is almost instant, "do we have to do all this work?" "Yes, because we are going to do a little play about "The Little Red Pen" and you have to practice your part," says Gnu.
One of the things I like most about Gnu is her ability to come up with lesson plans that can keep the scholars focused and in most instances are fun activities. As she hands me my copy of the worksheet she says, "you're going to be the narrator," I'm thinking you are going to try and keep these scholars on task doing live theater. It's time to practice and the roles are assigned as follows; Wide gets the lead part as the Little Red Pen, Un-Un-Uh is the Pushpin which has some Spanish terms that she has to learn, The Collector is the Yellow High Liter, EM is the Eraser, MiniJ is the Pencil, and Leftside is the Scissors. Gnu is the director and the practicing begins. "You need to speak up so people in the back of the room can hear you". "You need to be a little animated with your descriptive terms." "You need to follow along on the script so you know when it is your turn to speak." The first two rehearsals were pretty weak but the scholars were catching on. Voices were getting louder, voice inflection was getting used and the better they got at it the better they felt about their little role. "Ok," says Gnu. "That's enough practice for today, we'll practice again tomorrow."
At one point while Gnu was barking out her orders as the director she said to speak up so the people in the back of the room can hear you. I thought "people" was an interesting word as I'm the only one in the back of the room. Then I realized what was going on. Gnu, IvyL, and Oreo are planning a Parents Day in our room and the scholars will do their little play live in front of their parents and other guests. Now that should be interesting or as Arte Johnson, from the old Laugh In television show would say using his best German accent, "very interesting."
It's the weekend and my part time consultant, part time editor, and full time spouse and I are heading to German Park for the first annual SudsFest. There will be brats, craft beers from four of the local craft brewers, live music and a yodeling contest. So you know, I don't yodel no matter how much beer I consume. I'm out. Thanks for reading the blog.
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