3rd Year

It's Saturday evening and I'm sitting in a restaurant called Lindo Mexico with my part time editor, part time consultant, and full time spouse, Big E, and Little E.  We ordered some guacamole and as our hostess was making the guacamole fresh right at our table it popped up in my head that an anniversary was rapidly approaching.  When our drinks arrived, one large Dos Equis Amber, one small Dos Equis Amber, one margarita on the rocks with salt on the rim of the glass, and one sippy cup with water, I mentioned the anniversary date.  Big E was the first to question the anniversary date and asked me what was going on.  I said to her, "let's see if you can figure it out."  My part time editor, part time consultant, and full time spouse remained silent because she new about the anniversary.  Little E also stayed out of the conversation because she was more interested in eating the guacamole plus she can't talk.  One by one Big E was offering ideas on the anniversary.  One by one she was wrong.  Finally, I said to her, "you want a hint?"  "Yes, but don't make it so easy that I guess the answer right away."  As I'm sitting there trying to come up with an appropriate hint my part time editor, part time consultant, and full time spouse says, "he could write a book."  I immediately recognized that this was to easy of a hint and I was correct.  With little thought, Big E said, "it's a blog anniversary."  Correct!  On March 19th, I will celebrate my third year anniversary of writing this blog.

This week was the culmination of the procedural text discussions in our reading bloc.  Gnu spent about six days on the subject with a lot of time spent preparing the scholars to write their own procedural text.  When Gnu finally arrived at that point she asked the scholar to come up with an idea for a procedure they could write.  Below are the scholars ideas.

Knapper, how to operate a toy robot
Huey and MiniJ, how to make a grill cheese sandwich
Uh-Uh-Uh, how to make a cheese cake
Tourette, how to shoot a free throw
S&T, how to play a video game
Grr!, how to feed a T-rex
BigHouse, how to make a pizza on an English Muffin
WLnutt, has been absent most of the week and Gnu and I really don't know where he is.

Each scholar had to list the ingredients or items needed for their idea.  They then had to list correctly the steps needed to perform their task with Gnu diligently questioning them about their steps, especially is she saw they were out of order.  Once the scholars had completed their written procedural text, they had to stand in front of the class and give their presentation.  Knapper was the first scholar to get up in front of the classroom.  When he finished his presentation all the scholar applauded and Knapper started to return to his desk.  After only a couple steps Gnu stopped him.  "You can't sit down yet, people may have questions about your procedure."  Knapper back up a couple steps and then asked if there were any questions.  Hands went up immediately.  I won't go over the questions asked as that is not the important part of the lesson.  What I want to do is remind you of the type of classroom Gnu and I sit in and again mention that she, moving slowly through a lesson plan, did so in a manner that every scholar couldn't wait to get up in front of their classmates to give their presentation. 

This past Friday was the final exam for the lesson on procedural text but before I get to that there is one item I need to share.  I had just finished my lunch and was heading outside for recess.  On my way outside I decided to cut through our administrative offices to use the restroom.  As I opened the door, the BigB2 and Little B were moving quickly in my direction with a young scholar wedged between them.  As the BigB2 approached me, she asked if our timeout room was available.  I told her it was as our class was at recess.  As they moved past me I asked if they needed any assistance and the response was, "no!"  Thinking to myself I say, "good, I know who you are escorting and you need to be careful or you will get hit." 

Twenty five minutes later I returned to the classroom with Gnu and the scholars.  Immediately, as I entered the classroom, I noticed that the door to our timeout room was standing wide open.  I also noticed several pieces of ceiling tile on the floor in the timeout room and no adults were around.  Slightly irritated that our timeout room was a disaster I walked into the room to see what else had been damaged.  Although there was no other damage, the room had a urine smell to it.  No longer slightly irritated but bordering on angry I head to the front office.  I couldn't find the BigB2 but LittleB crossed my path.  Composing myself a little I said, "our timeout room is a disaster.  When I entered the room to begin the cleanup process the room smelled of urine.  Did the scholar you escorted into my time out room urinate on the floor.  I need to know so I can determine what type of personal protective equipment I need to put on to be safe." 

Amateurs, with teaching licenses, were doing a task better suited for instructional assistances that don't have teaching licenses.  Although instructional assistants don't have a teaching license, they do have enough sense to recognize that a scholar is throwing shoes at the ceiling tiles in a time out room.  The instructional assistant would have immediately entered the time out room, at risk of injury, to remove the shoes so that ceiling tiles and possibly light fixtures don't come crashing down on this scholar's head.  Once the angry scholar had de-escalated and vacated the time out room the instructional assistant would have cleaned up the mess rather that just leaving it for someone else to clean up. 

Now for the final exam on procedural text.  It was a two part test.  First was the written exam and all the scholars passed the test.  That was immediately followed by a hands on, let see if you can do this, exam.  Gnu divided the scholars into three groups.  She then gave each group a different recipe for making lemonade.  One group had to squeeze fresh lemons.  The second group had a package of powered lemonade and the third group had a container frozen lemonade.  She then had each group read their individual recipe for the necessary ingredients.  When they had finished reading the ingredients she told all three groups simultaneously that all the ingredients to make lemonade were on her front table.  There was an immediate stampede to the front table.  With the necessary ingredients in hand the scholars returned to their designated work place.  Tourette, S&T, and Whale had the frozen lemonade at my table.  Knapper, MiniJ, and Huey had the packaged lemonade and were at a side table with MJ, our behavior therapist, overseeing them.  Uh-Uh-Uh, Big House, and Grr! were at a counter top with Gnu and HillsGirl, our other behavior therapist, overseeing the group that had the fresh lemons.

The fresh squeezed lemonade group needed the most help as they were clueless as to what to do with the lemons.  Once they got passed that obstacle they were fine.  It was fun to watch the scholars as I'm certain none of them had ever made lemonade before.  They were all so careful as they measured and added the ingredients, especially the water.  When each group was finished, Gnu allowed them to taste their lemonade using small Dixie cups.  She also allowed them to make an adjustment to their lemonade if it didn't taste right by telling them they could either added more water or add more sugar.  After the first taste testing, one group added water and the other two groups added sugar.  When they were satisfied with the taste of their individual lemonade they were allowed to taste the other two lemonades.  To determine the best tasting lemonade, Gnu set up a blind taste test and chose Whale to do the tasting.  After sampling all three lemonades Whale told Gnu they all tasted good.  Gnu responded by telling Whale that he could only chose one lemonade and so he tasted them again and chose the frozen lemonade recipe as best of show.

As I sat in the back of the room watching the final taste test I thought to myself, she did it again.  She managed to put together a project that required the scholars to work as a team and often they don't like that.  She also had a team win the contest that could possibly have resulted in the other teams getting angry and that didn't happened.  She had this wonderful activity and it worked to perfection.  Well, almost to perfection.   

It's around 2:45pm and the scholars just drank a lot of lemonade that contained sugar.  Do you know what happens to scholars, who are often over hyped to start with, when they consume too much sugar?  They go into hyper overload.  They were all over the classroom talking to each other, incapable of sitting still, and making way to much noise.  And then, this happened.  HillsGirl and MJ had purchased cookies (more sugar) for the scholars to celebrate St. Patrick's Day.  The scholars immediately recognized that there were more cookies than scholars and convinced HillsGirl and MJ to give them two sugar cookies with green frosting on them.  We have now gone from hyper overload to wild.  MJ managed to work her way over to my table and sat down.  As she sat down I said to her, "do you think the scholars had enough sugar today?"  She looked at me, laughed and said, "yes, but the school day ends in less that five minutes, the scholars will leave to go home, and their parental units can deal with their sugar overload."  I laughed and said to her, "teachers revenge."

Finally, I can say this, "I'm on spring break for two weeks."  I'd also like to say this.  Today, Sunday, March 19th, is the three year anniversary of this blog.  There have been one hundred and eighty-seven blog posts, nearly ten thousand page views and people from approximately twenty countries that have view my blog at one time or another.  To all of you that follow along I give you a heartfelt thank you. 

PS - in case you are wondering how to feed a T-rex let me tell you what Grr! said.  Items needed, one T-rex, a big enclosure with twenty foot high steel walls, a couple dead cows, and one crane.  I inquired about the crane.  "Mr. Schultz, you use the crane to lift the dead cows into the enclosure.  If you tried to drag the dead cows into the enclosure the T-rex would eat you first and then eat the dead cows."  Well thought out, Mr. Grr!.