Time Out

Although it doesn't seem like it, we are forty-five days into the school year, and it's time for a time out as it is fall break.  Gnu and I will have two wonderful weeks without anger, ADHD, ODD, and assorted other scholar maladies.  If you haven't already figured it out, it took me a while to get started on the blog.  Well, I farted around long enough so here I am on a beautiful Wednesday afternoon sitting on my screened in porch watching a white breasted nuthatch visit a bird feeder that is about twelve feet away from me and watching my neighbor cut his grass.  I had two thoughts on what to write about today.  One is fun stuff and the other not so fun, in fact it was one of the toughest days emotionally for me.  I'll go with the fun stuff and save the not so fun stuff for the next blog post.

Gnu is slowly transitioned from the Patricia Polacco books to fairy tales.  We finished reading a Polacco book called the Lemonade Club and started reading the fairy tale Cinderella.  In fact, so far, we've read seven different versions of the fairy tale Cinderella.  Before discussing the Cinderella stories I need tell you about the Lemonade Club.  Before reading the Polacco books, Gnu reads them while at home.  When she decided to read the book Junkyard to our scholars she asked me to read the book because she got a little emotional reading the story and didn't want to cry in front of the scholars.  When Gnu moved on to Lemonade Club neither one of us read the book in advance and Gnu again asked me to do the reading so she could work on lesson plans.  When I looked at the cover of the book I was certain this was going to be a story about two girls selling lemonade.  Wrong!  Not even close.  The Lemonade Club is really a club.  The club has three members, two school girls who are best friends, and their teacher who is also a girl.  One of the girls was diagnosed with leukemia and shortly after, in the story, the girls teacher was diagnosed with breast cancer.  The three girls would meet under a tree to discuss how they were feeling when dealing with cancer.  The conversations included chemotherapy, hair loss, weight loss, and the constant thought about dying.  It was a tough read for me.  If my memory serves me correctly, I had to stop four times so I could keep my emotions in check.  Why did I have to stop?  I'm a cancer survivor and I know about chemotherapy, hair loss, weight loss, and the thought of dying and it brought back some tough memories.  The story had a happy ending as both girls were cured of their cancer.  When I finished the book I looked up at Gnu and said to her, "did I ever tell you that I'm a cancer survivor?"  "Oh my God, why didn't you tell me.  I never read the book so I didn't know what it was about.  If I'd known, we would have read a different book."

Ok, on to Cinderella.  By the way, did you know that there are estimates as to how many versions of Cinderella there are throughout the world.  The estimates range from 350 to 1500 versions of the book and Gnu is progressing through them one at a time.  Right now we've gone through seven versions.  We started in France, went to the shores of Lake Ontario, Canada, moved on to the old west in the United States, traveled to Zimbabwe in Africa, then to Egypt in Africa, wandered over to China, and arrived in New York City, New York.  As Gnu moved from story to story, she'd draw a Venn Diagram on the white board.  She uses the Venn Diagram with the scholars to highlight the similarities and differences between stories.  She then pairs the scholars into groups of two, hands them some Post It notes, and working as a team the scholars have to come up with the similarities and differences.  Once they find what is needed, they take their Post It notes up to the whiteboard and place them in the appropriate spot on the Venn Diagram.  Every time she does this I watch in amazement at how well the scholars recall the stories.  I know I've said this numerous times before but I going to say it again.  The best reader in our classroom is maybe an average reader.  However, we do have a classroom of excellent listeners.  One last comment on Cinderella.  Of the seven books we've read, the class favorite is The Rough Faced Girl.  This is an Algonquin Indian version of Cinderella and it takes place near Lake Ontario on, I believe, the Canadian side of the lake. 

Scholar updates

MiniJ is in a downward spiral and it is so frustrating for Gnu and I to watch.  He has gone full circle, from a very angry scholar when he arrived in the second grade, to a scholar who behaved so well in the third grade that he was placed into a general education classroom, to an angry scholar again in the fourth grade.  What caused this change?  Gnu's best guess is a medication change that was required as MiniJ had been on the same medication for a couple years and after a period of time the medication needs to be changed.  Why change something that works is beyond me but I'm not the doctor prescribing the medication.

EM actually made it through the first quarter (forty-five) days of the year in a general education classroom.  Although he struggles regularly, he keeps going back.  Gnu continues to stay after school just about every day to help him with his homework.  A couple days ago I got called to the front office to see if I could convince EM to go to his classroom.  It was a struggle.  When he saw me he knew why I was there so he walked out of the school.  As I pursued him he kept walking away from me.  Eventually he made a full circle of the parking lot and headed back to the front door of the school.  Unfortunately, he had to walk past his parental units car so he climbed inside the car and locked the doors.  As his parental unit tried to persuade him to unlock the doors, I'd had enough and headed back to my classroom.  Eventually, EM made it to his class.

Grr! is going to have a surprise when we return to school after our fall break.  He is going to transition to a general education third grade classroom.  Grr! has had a great first forty-five days so Gnu is somewhat confident that he will make it. 

Last one.  On the last day before fall break Gnu decided to have a fun afternoon.  Johnny Appleseed had a birthday a few days back so Gnu decided to bring apples into the classroom.  I believe she had four different kinds of apples to taste.  She also used one of the apples to make an apple volcano.  But the real reason for the apples was to make apple turnovers.  As all of the scholars gathered at the front table and started the baking process it was fun to watch how Gnu divided the work load so that every scholar had a task.  My task, in case you are wondering was to preheat the oven, bake the apple turnovers, and while everyone was eating the apple turnovers with ice cream on the side, clean up the massive mess the scholars made at the front table, and do the dishes.  When my task was complete I got to sit down and eat the last apple turnover.  As I had the apple turnover in my hand, three scholars asks me if they could have it.  One by one I gave them my, don't come over here and bug me look, and they silently retreated. 

That's it.  There are one hundred and thirty-five school days left this year and I'm sure these days will have there highs and lows and like I have in the past, I'll tell you what my view from the back of the room was like.  Thanks so much for continuing to follow along.