a tree grows for h

A brave friend of mine encouraged me to write a bit more about what I've been thinking lately. Many of you know I lost a student in a head-on collision in the spring (which is mainly why I stopped blogging so much -- I had to internalize her death and who can really understand the death of a nine year old?) I grieved with my class, went to the viewing but not the funeral (note: never go to the open-casket viewing of a child), and tried to move on. She was always in the back burner of my mind, which is where I put things when I can't figure them out right away.

The last week of school we planted a tree in her honor -- a magnolia. It was special to her family, and all of them came. Her wonderful mother, her aunt and grandmother, her sister paralyzed from the waist down in the crash that took H's life, her father, and her step-mother -- the one who was driving the car. I felt so especially sorry for her since how can you get over the could have, would have, should have scenarios that must pass through your mind every day after an event so horrific? At least I felt sorry for her until last week, when I found out this woman was high on cocaine, pot, and alcohol at the time of the accident. I just couldn't believe it -- or seem to get over it. How do you do that to a child, much less your children? The thought keeps me awake at night, especially as Tim and I contemplate starting our own family.

I was pulling sweaters out of a drawer tonight trying to find something to wear for school tomorrow. I touched a sleeveless lavender shell, and as I pulled it out I remembered wearing it to H's wake. Every day when I leave school I see the tree we planted for H. I think about her and her wonderful mother. I can't imagine the idea of losing your child so horrifically and on top of that knowing someone you trusted to watch her was in fact responsible for her death. How do you move on after that?

I lost my grandmother three weeks ago. I watched my mother lose her mother, and it was so difficult. Grandmother was 98 years old and lived a full and prosperous life. But it was still sad and heart breaking to watch my mother grieve. The bond between mother and child is so very strong -- I couldn't help but think of H's mother and their bond. How does one move on after such a tragedy? I'm not sure her death will ever move off my mind's back burner because I'm not sure I will ever fully understand.

woo hoo!

Because a teacher at my school is leaving, I got a Smartboard! It's big and bulky, and I have no idea where I am going to put it. But it's mine and I am so excited to finally be able to have interactive web access in my class. I don't know if I'll use it as much for lessons to begin with. But there are SO many websites I've wanted to show my class. I emailed my intern who was just as excited. Neither of us have a lot of experience using one, but lessons are made in a program very similar to Power Point so it can't be too difficult.


*sigh* Now for the sad news. This is my (unfinished) classroom with tile. Yuck. It is white with a blue trim. It has lots of bubbles in the sealer and many unclean-able scratches already. Tim helped me felt the feet of the tables and other major furniture, so I hope the scratches don't get worse and the furniture stops sticking to the floor. We'll see...

june, july, & august

Those are the reason teachers teach, right? Well, here's a sampling of how I spent June, all at home since my classroom floor is being tiled:


These are the binders I've reorganized so I can find math and reading ideas and assignments by topic. When I taught third grade, I just had them grouped by how we taught them. After moving grades again (now I've done 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th) I decided to group them by topic so regardless of what grade I'm teaching (or how many times they adopt new textbooks) I have what I need in a simple to find format. It seems straightforward, but I also had to go through page by page and determine whether the idea/assignment was useful or crappy. I recycled an entire box of papers and this is what I was left with. Of course, every page in these binders is in a protective plastic sleeve with topics divided by cardstock.


Then I created a master list to go inside the front cover of each binder that shows how they are grouped for easy retrieval (not to mention when I need to add to them.) Not bad for two days' work. I completed my spelling, writing, and poetry binders at school before packing up. They will get master lists once I finish unpacking my room next week. My science and Florida units are the BIG job waiting to be dealt with. I am dreading the weeks those will take. Thankfully one of my teammates is joining me in this challenge.


Next up was typing up, printing, cutting, gluing, and laminating all the words for my Word Wall. I love the Nifty Thrifty Fifty words from the 4-Blocks Literacy Model, which I used extensively when I taught primary grades. They focus on root words and affixes, which my kids need a lot of practice with for automaticity. Normally these words come printed in poster form for me to laminate and cut out easily, but I couldn't find them anywhere online. Last year I used markers to write the words on sentence strips, but the markers quickly faded thanks to the bright Florida sunshine. So this is my solution. Fifty words are not enough to get us through the year, so I also added frequently misspelled/misused homophones to the mix for a total of about 80 words. On the back of each I hand wrote the root word, any affix and its meaning, each word's part of speech and the tense or category it falls under (hello, grammar practice!)


I finished hand writing all of my Daily Geography questions onto index cards (96!) for Morning Work and am halfway through Daily Science's 90 cards. These cards get laminated and then placed on different tables once a week for students to answer on small slips of paper. We go over them as a class when we have 5 minutes or so. I teach science for several weeks and then switch back to social studies, so whichever subject I'm currently teaching we use the other subject's daily questions. It's a nice way to keep both social studies and science part of the daily routine. I used to just photocopy the questions, but I am trying to focus on less paper use -- laminated cards last for years and can be reused! My 2nd and 3rd grade sets kept up well, so I figured I ought to bite the bullet and get them done.


But, as you can tell, I'm not done yet! I still have an idioms game to make and vocabulary and language games to glue onto cardstock, laminate, and cut out for reading centers. In an upcoming post I'll share some of the great online resources I've been scouring this summer as well. I do love June, July, and August. Hopefully, if I organize and prepare decently this summer, I'll be able to spread some of that relaxation through the rest of the year.

garden spoils

This is all from the garden (well, the red onions were from the blueberry farmer.) There were 50 ripe tomatoes the last time we harvested, and more on the vines ready to go. We made 2 types of salsa for the party last week and are planning pizza sauce for tonight. I am also kicking around the idea of tomato jam. Tim says it sounds unappetizing, but I think it could be yummy -- for use on bruschetta maybe? We've already done the annual blueberry jam canning, but I'd love another excuse to pull out the canner. Maybe we'll put up some fresh tomato sauce too.

sew it's my birthday

I bought this amazing fabric on a trip to San Francisco in the summer of 2003 from the famed four-story Britex Fabric Store in the middle of Union Square. I only got 3 yards (and kicked myself a thousand times over for not getting more) so I knew that I had to be sure how I was going to use it. I loved this fabric so much that I based my house's main color scheme around it.


When Tim saw it as we were rummaging through the fabric piles, he was insistent that we finally make the pillows I'd been vacillating over for years. We decided to use the pattern for the front only and use black canvas for the backs -- that way we could make more pillows. We ended up with enough fabric for 4 16-inch pillows, 2 large floor-sized pillows, and a new dog bed cover for Madeleine (which she obviously loves.)

We worked in the craft room for a few hours on my birthday trying to get several pillows done in time for our party last Friday. I got through the dog bed and three smaller pillows. The rest will have to wait for craft day this week. I swear the next project in the living room had better involve replacing that couch!

picture post

Some of the hibiscus flowers currently in bloom in our yard.




You probably wouldn't believe me if I told you we currently have a fourth round of blossoms starting on the Meyer lemon tree, but it's true! The baby lemons are currently starring in the banner of this blog and will be our first citrus harvest at this house.

arte de béisbol

I finally got tired of the Rockefeller Center tree pics being up year round but was unsure about what art to use to replace them. Around the same time, Tim found some old Cuban magazines from the 1930s while we were thrifting in Tampa.


Since the covers were all baseball themed, we knew they would be perfect in our living room. We scanned the images into the computer, cleaned them up, printed them for $2 each (!) at the local copy store, and framed them in Ikea frames we found in Orlando. Hung in a straight line on the longest wall of our living room, they really have helped draw the old Florida theme further through the house. Hopefully the next living room project involves replacing the couch!

excuse the dust...

I haven't been here in a while. Well, that's not true. I visit occasionally; usually close to 11pm on a school night exhausted and feeling guilty about not writing. Hmm... let's not think about that since now it's summer and I have plenty of time to do, well, whatever.

While I haven't been busy here, Tim and I have found time for lots of home improvement projects. We've been hard at work on the yard planting veggies, tending citrus, weeding flower beds. We pretty much have things down to a relatively quick daily maintenance. Two sets of hands have made things so much easier. While there are many things we want to do outside, a new grill popped to the top of the list after Tim accidentally shattered the window in our ancient grill while putting out the Great Grill Fire of 2009.


The grill sat lonely and unused for over a month while we went searching for a new one. After 6-7 trips to various stores and countless hours comparing grills online, we finally bought one this past weekend. It took the entire Rays v. Mets game to put together (rain delay included.) It's really quite pretty.


We had my parents over for Father's Day and grilled pork roast, asparagus, and fresh garden tomatoes. The grill performed flawlessly, and Tim is now back to planning dinners outside -- thank goodness. With this horrible heat wave, it seems hot enough to cook outside without the benefit of a grill!


Anyhow, I have lots more projects to share and several ideas in the works for summer sewing. But first up is a refresh of the blog -- if I can figure out how to put up a new banner. Here's to free time!

juicer overload

Our latest stash from Ward's: Navels, blood red oranges, honey tangelos, honey tangerines, and -- of course -- grapefruit. We have been spending our time holed up in our cold house drinking lots of fresh orange juice. This is one of the few things I can say that was good about the cold weather. Maybe our trees will be big enough to produce some fruit of their own next year.

mood: bored

This is how I feel after spending two days curled up on the couch with piles of blankets and warm clothes because it's too cold to do anything else. Is this really how people up north spend their winters?

for shame

It's supposed to be a cold next several days, so I thought I'd spend some time curled up under blankets catching up on my reading. I've had the same book on my nightstand for over 2 years -- The Shame of the Nation by Jonathan Kozol. I read it until find myself getting very, very angry (I made it through Chapter 6 today!), then I put it down and try again several months later once I've calmed down. It's an important book that I need to get through since it's all about the topic I plan to do my PhD work on -- the resegregation of America's schools and the dumbing down of education for our poorest students.

I read about the magnitude of the problem and the "solutions" (which I also see with my own eyes every day) that inevitably make things so much worse for resegregated schools: scripted teaching manuals, non-licensed and under-prepared teachers (my school likes to hire people without teaching degrees to teach the neediest ESE students!), funding cuts for the poorest of schools, parents unsure of their rights regarding their child's education, falling apart buildings, and -- of course -- the latest cure-all, standardized testing. The weight of each of these issues is formidable. Combined, it seems as though there is no way out of the mess state and federal bureaucrats have created for the neediest of our children -- seemingly on purpose!

Kozol's Savage Inequalities got me into teaching. I was so moved by the horror stories outlined in that book that I volunteered immediately in a low-income local public school and have been working there for nine years now. I am frustrated by many things I see every day that I can do nothing about. I know I make a difference in my small corner of the world to the best of my abilities, but I'm ready to do something more. Maybe once I can make it through this book I'll be ready.

it's great

to be a Florida Gator!!

manager gifts?

The message popped up on the marque of the church near our house last week. I'm not really sure what it means, but it seems a little too consumer driven for a church, no?

keeping busy

Even though I spent a good part of my Winter Break sleeping and relaxing, I was somewhat productive. I finished knitting the scarf I started on our summer trip to Ohio while watching the DVR-ed final season of The Shield. The scarf is bright and warm, but I have to say I'm glad I don't have to wear it just yet (this warm weather is so awesome!!)

Tim and I are slowly working our way through The Wire (we're at the beginning of season 2.) I've got another scarf I've been working on while watching that. I'm using the fine Alpaca yarn Dad got me in Peru, so it's a bit slow going. I'm hoping to finish by the time the series is done, but who knows.

We also spent a good part of the break rearranging the house and finishing off projects. My office has become Tim's office, and my craft room has become ... a studio? I'm not sure what it is, but I have stacks of stuff everywhere. And precious little time to organize everything. My goal is to have purged my unused crafting supplies (you know -- that stuff that looks really neat but just sits there gathering dust for years) by the end of the month. I'm looking forward to paring down. Pics to come when it's all finished.

the best-laid plans...

I have been feeling guilty about this space for a while. I always have ideas about things to write, or I see an unusual image and think about taking a quick picture to add to this space. I love having a place to share thoughts and ideas -- this blog has made me stop and think about so many things I wouldn't have otherwise. When I look back on posts I realize that this has become my scrapbook of sorts. I have never been a consistent scrapbooker or photographer, so the fact that I've been intermittent with this is really no surprise. But I'd really like to be better.

So, my resolution for this year -- my only one, mind you -- is to keep writing. I think this little craft blog will end up morphing into a crafting/teaching/other crazy nonsense-ing blog. I know I'd been struggling with its identity since I went back into the classroom. I don't have time to craft that much with 2 jobs and a still-settling-in live-in relationship that takes previously free time away (in a good way, of course.) I'm hoping to just write whatever comes to mind at least several times a week. It feels good and do-able -- and the camera gets to come out again!

Happy New Year everyone.