Mid winter

Wow. It is so much easier to write about school when I'm on vacation. I just took a hot yoga class at Core Power Yoga and am drinking a cup of super smoky tea in a coffee shop in Denver. Slippery People, by the Talking Heads is playing and the sun is out. Life is good.

We have been in school for 103 days. To celebrate the 100th day of school, my class created a model of the Empire State Building using 100 milk cartons. Though it is not to scale, it was fun to make. In the process, I might have held up my coteacher at hot glue gun-point. Inappropriate? Probably. The kids won't tell though.

Check out the muscles on LeBron.
Muscles, not warts. 

For those of you who don't remember, February is Black History Month. We have been discussing people who inspire us, black leaders, the civil rights movement and the way that the work done by those who came before us have made things possible that we often take for granted. One way that we did this is by creating a time line and looking at the different time periods, the job opportunities, and educational opportunities available for different races and genders.

<3 colored duct tape

"Everyone got an education, they just got it different ways. Like Harriet Tubman had to get hers in secret, and Rosa Parks got hers in a school just for black kids and Michelle Obama got to go to any school she wanted." -student

By starting with the question "Who inspires us?" we worked backward to look at what had to be in place for their success. When we started the unit, my students were not understanding that Beyonce was significant beyond being a superstar with a great voice and great style. She is bagillionaire, a world traveler, a household name and there was a time when her fame and success would not have been possible.

Ben Carson separates conjoined twins. The student
who wrote about him is a twin. The match was perfect.
On a different assignment she wrote, "I want to be a
doctor like Benjamin Carson." YES. It worked!

"Ms. Morrison and Ms. Anderson couldn't work together if they didn't stop the segregation. I am so very glad and proud that ended because if it didn't happen, I couldn't have the most wonderful teachers in the world. I hate segregation." -excerpt from kid's writing notebook :)

They got it. It took awhile, but connections were made. Over the course of the unit, the "people who inspire us" moved from those who simply have fame (Lil' Wayne) to those who have overcome obstacles and have had to work hard for their success (Michelle Obama, Ben Carson). Valuing and admiring hard work. I suppose that is one thing that I attempt to teach my kids ALL YEAR LONG.

Of course, there were some misunderstandings that needed to be cleared up along the way:

"Thurgood Marshall was an NAACP Chef Lawyer." 

Leaving out that "i" makes quite a difference ;)

Kids

(Kids + Language) - brain power = funny

Some snip its from my classroom that made me chuckle:

Uh. Good luck. 

I see where you're going here... good effort 

Apparently my telling time lessons were ineffective.

"I ain't never heard a no color with
a T, an R, a Q and a zero?!"

Baby sout, babing suit, but never a bathing suit.

Diagram of a kid's house. May want to enlarge.
I'm curious first wife lives. Basement maybe?

So you think you're pretty good at cursive, eh?

9 year old girl while digging through her candy bag, "I hope I get a sugar daddy!"

Don't we all, honey. 

Field Trips

I just went on a Field Trip booking Frenzy. Here is whats on our schedule this spring:

March- Sony Wonder Technology Lab
April- NY Botanical Garden, NY Hall of Science
May- California Pizza Kitchen for How To Pizza Lessons, Wave Hill
June- Yankee Stadium, MOMA, Central Park, Possibly the Frying Pan for an end of year party

Field trips rule because many of my kids don't get to see their city. They know their neighborhood and they know New York City rules because I mean really, there are t-shirts that say "New York Fuckin City." How can you not have heard? But they can't tell you the really awesome things to see and do. I like to give them some things that they'll remember for awhile. I mean, in addition to being able to multiply multidigit numbers (ohh yeah)

Science rules!

The Botanical Gardens in the winter. Who knew?

I signed up for 7 science professional development workshops this winter/spring. My motivation for signing up was because they pay. I wasn't exactly psyched to get up at 6:30 on a Saturday am, but did and schlepped up to the middle of the Bronx, dragging my feet through the gray slush that was last week's snow. However, I was pleasantly surprised yesterday, when at 8:30 am I arrived at the Botanical Gardens museum, which is a beautiful, super quiet building. I can't believe I have never been. I think its a kind of, I work in the Bronx, I'm not going there in my free time. I'd rather go explore Brooklyn.

The morning session was a discussion of sunlight, temperature, precipitation and biomes. Everything we did was geared toward 10 year old kids. Except that it was a bunch of teachers doing the simulations and experiments, so we laughed a lot. After a lunch, we headed to the Conservatory. We were just about the only people there (because who goes to the  Botanical Gardens in January? Other than the handful of old people) and it was like being transported to another world. In order to keep the cacti alive, the room has to simulate the appropriate biome. It was sunny, about 60 degrees and like a wonderland of huge, bizarre plants.

The American Desert room. So much sun!

New appreciation for cacti. So many kinds!

Our teacher was enthusiastically spewing information for the next two hours. I wandered in and out of the conversation, exploring corners of the green houses and talking to old people. I almost felt as if I were on a really good museum tour, which is something that I only ever do on vacation in other cities. Even then though, I'm more of a self guided kinda gal. I didn't even notice that it was time to go, which is something that I've never said before about a Professional Development workshop.

This one made me vacation-sick for Hawaii. Something like
this grew all around the volcano. 

I can't wait for the next one :)