i feel like a thundercloud

so today . . . i am feeling whiny and annoyed and not very likable. this makes it difficult to write an entertaining and amusing blog.

some people can probably set aside how they really feel and get into the persona they need, so that they can blog in the voice people are used to hearing. i have found that i am not so successful at that. so while something almost humorous did happen today, and i have been saving up cute kid stories, i just can't do them justice in this frame of mind. i could write them, but they wouldn't have the amusing tone that i like to use. and i hate to waste good stories!

so i am going to bed now, even though it is only 9:20! and with a good night's sleep (i hope!) and only a half day of work tomorrow and no rain in the forecast, i am hopeful that my sunny disposition will return. and with it, my blogging . . .

psychic kindergarteners???

so today . . . there were apparently supernatural powers at work in my classroom . . .

i am still playing catch up from being gone on friday. we are in that time of year when the curriculum gets very busy. so even though i stretched their little brains a bit yesterday, we had to press on today. and today's new concept was--dun, dun, duuuunnnn--"the missing addend."

i hate teaching this. i think it is the dumbest thing to try to teach to five year olds! they have just started adding and are up to sums of 5, and then suddenly we ask them to figure out what you have to add to a given number to get a certain sum? really??

in the past, i have explained this word for word out of the curriculum teaching guide. i have explained it using my own words. i have explained it using math manipulatives and felt cut-outs and cookies. real ones. we have practiced using the pictures provided on their worksheets (which, btw, if you have to give them pictures to help them figure it out, maybe it is too hard for them!!!!!) and have even resorted to having them use their fingers. every year about half the kids figure out how to get the right answer, a few more will get really good at copying the right answer from whoever is sitting next to them, and some kids will try really, really hard and still not have a clue . . .

i would just skip it if i could, but it keeps showing up on their math papers, so their parents kind of expect me to teach it. although why kindergarteners need to know 2 + ? = 5 is beyond me.

but today was the day. and it was a busy one, so i only had about 10 minutes to introduce them to this "important" concept. i got out some math manipulatives and sat down at their table. i handed out the math papers and explained what we were going to learn. before i could even get my manipulatives arranged, edward had his fingers out and was saying the right answer to the first problem. ok, well, that was nice, but i was skeptical. and i was right--it was beginner's luck. so i plowed on through the rest of the lesson, with one eye on the clock. because recess was fast approaching . . .

as we practiced, two of the kids were starting to get it and one was probably thinking about lunch! but i could tell that edward really wanted to give me the right answer! he was working hard each time i gave them a new problem, but he was just enough slower than the others that he could never be the one to give the answer. he was getting a little bit frustrated, and we were running out of time. finally, i told them we were on the last problem. i gave it to them and waited, watching edward and hoping he would be the one to get it this time. they were all working it out in their own way, and when one of the other kids said the right answer first, edward just looked at him.

then he looked at me, shook his head, and said, "he just read my mind!"

:)

when five year olds start thinking . . .

so today . . . i had a speechless moment at school.

i am not usually speechless. i can almost always think of something to say. but today, for just a moment, my mouth opened, but no words came out.

i missed school on friday, and through a set of unfortunate circumstances, the sub for my class didn't make it. so friday's lessons didn't get taught--the result being, i had a lot to teach today.

we started off with some handwriting, just to sort of put some structure into our morning. then i went to the board and taught the "two vowel rule"--you know, "when two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking . . . " we have spent the last several months working with short vowel sounds, but today we added the long vowel sounds to our repertoire--well, sort of added. i introduced it, and they seemed to understand it, but i have every confidence that tomorrow at least half of them will be going "huh?" when we review . . .

that was friday's phonics lesson. but i had to teach it today, because tomorrow it will be incorporated into their seat work. and i also had to squeeze in today's phonics lesson--the sight word "I." and i had to do it fast, because it was almost time for recess. their eyes were already beginning to glaze over, but usually this is a fairly easy lesson--usually they have already figured this out on their own by looking at books. so i wrote the word on the board, explained how sometimes "I" is a word and not just a part of a word, and how you can tell the difference, and that it is a rule-breaker, and so on.

and they just looked at me blankly. so i used it in some sentences, and they started to catch on a bit. then i got the brilliant idea to stand straight and tall with my arms stiffly at my sides so that i looked like the letter "I" and use that as a visual. and that is where the trouble began . . .

. . . because you see, they immediately noticed that while i was straight and tall, i did not have anything across the top or the bottom of my straight, tall body like the letter did. so i tried to use one arm to go across the top of my head and sort of crossed one leg at the knee like the bottom of the upper case I. but that wasn't good enough, because the bottom of my other leg was sticking out past the crossed leg like a flamingo . . .

and then one little boy excitedly raised his hand and said, "if you cut off your head," (making chopping motions with his hand,) "then you would look like a lower case i."

"yeah," another little boy said, "and your floating head could be the dot."

"AND," said a little girl, "you would have to be like this," (and she knelt down on the floor) "so that you would be shorter than the upper case I."

what do you say to that? who even thinks of stuff like that?!? i just stood there, straight and tall, with my head firmly attached, my brain thinking of and eliminating several responses.

"time for recess!" is what finally came out of my mouth.

sigh. tomorrow is another day . . .

don't even get me started on pho!

so today . . . i ate two new things. i can't say it was a totally positive experience.

i am not an adventurous eater. i know what i like, and that is what i choose to eat. we are surrounded by restaurants filled with exotic and unusual foods, but i choose to have my dinner at jack in the box. or sizzler. and on those rare occasions when, through no fault of my own, i find myself in a new restaurant, i always order the chicken. i figure you can't go wrong with chicken, as long as you ask for the sauce on the side . . .

today we went to rubio's for lunch. ( i know, big surprise.) i usually order one of the three things that i like there, but today i happened to look at the specials. actually, i noticed the specials a few days ago and saw that they had a salmon taco. i really like salmon, but i have this pact with my nephew about fish tacos . . .

troy and i have an agreement. we made this pact almost 10 years ago when we were visiting southern california and noticed that some restaurants put fish in their tacos. we discussed how many, many ways it was wrong to put fish in a taco, and agreed that we would never let one pass our lips. (it was much easier to keep this pact when i lived in oregon, where they put real meat in their tacos!)

i don't know about troy, but i have honored our agreement--even when surrounded by fish taco eaters. but today i was just not in the mood for any of the other items on the menu, so i decided to try the salmon taco special. i had no idea what it would be like, so it was a simple order--"i'll have a salmon taco." this is quite a contrast to my usual order--"i'll have a baja grill burrito, with chicken, no fresca sauce, sour cream on the side, and a whole wheat tortilla." next time (if i ever order the salmon taco again,) i will know what to add and what to take off. but the first time is always a gamble . . .

so it came. with a side salad. usually i like side salads, because they tend to be mostly iceberg lettuce which is my favorite lettuce! but not this one. this side salad had fresca sauce (which i do not like) and black beans (which i like, but not on a salad!) so i quickly set the salad aside and moved on to the salmon taco. i could not see the salmon. i opened up the shell, and there was a nice strip of grilled salmon, but it was buried under a mountain of chopped up green vegetables. i couldn't recognize any of the vegetables except the onions, and i am not a fan of onions. so i scraped it all off and just ate the salmon. which worked out really well, because without the tortilla it wasn't a taco, so i didn't break the pact. but while the salmon was good, it was not much of a meal without all the other stuff.

so by dinner time, i was hungry. which was good, because we had a dinner to go to. it was one of those situations where the menu has been pre-selected and you just eat what they bring you. this is usually a nightmare for me, because what usually happens is that the person choosing the food tries to pick something that will be special (meaning different) and you know how i feel about that!

when we got to the restaurant, there were a selection of beverages. which was good. (sometimes at this sort of dinner, all you get is water or coffee.) we sat down at our table, and soon our server came and removed all the salad dressings. ok. it is never a good sign when there isn't any salad dressing on the table. that means we are getting some kind of specialty salad, which usually means full of stuff that i will not like! my ideal side salad is made up of lots of iceberg lettuce with some shredded carrots and maybe a broccoli floret. with ranch dressing, but our server had just whisked the ranch dressing away . . .

the salads came. i looked at them and knew i had to make a decision. i could see lettuce, walnuts, golden raisins, craisins, and something else green that was chopped into little pieces, and it was all covered with some kind of shiny, clear dressing. i was pretty sure i wasn't going to like it. but i didn't know what we were having for dinner yet, and what if i didn't like that?!? i couldn't just sit there all evening and not eat!

so i had to eat it. the question was, should i just eat the parts i knew i liked (the lettuce and walnuts) and try to pick out all the other stuff? or should i just try to choke it all down?

and then, for some reason i thought about diandra.

diandra is a pretty picky eater too--probably because she was raised eating by my standards. but several months ago she told me about going to a mexican restaurant with some friends, and they ordered a bunch of food. and when it came, she looked at it and realized that there was a lot in it that she didn't like. but she decided to try it anyway, without picking it all apart. and she was surprised to find that even though she didn't like the individual foods, when they were all put together, it tasted really good!

so i decided to just eat the salad the way it was. the first few bites were a little hard to get down, but once i got used to the unusual flavor, it wasn't that bad! i was really surprised! so i ate several bites and was feeling pretty good about my personal growth, and then i bit into something gooshy and slimy. i almost gagged. i had no idea what it was!! when i had looked at the salad, i didn't see anything gooshy in it. suddenly all these thoughts started going through my head--could it be a snail? a slimy mushroom?? neither of those things made any sense--this was a kind of sweetly flavored salad. but whatever it was, i knew i didn't want it in my mouth!

so there i was. what to do, what to do. there was too much food in my mouth to just swallow it. we had cloth napkins, so i couldn't really spit it out. but i also really didn't want to chew it anymore either. i started frantically (yet surreptitiously) looking around at other people's salads and digging through my own to try to see what could possibly be squishing about in my mouth.

and then i saw it. in my salad bowl. a mandarin orange.

the mind is a funny thing. i like mandarin oranges, but i have to be prepared for them. finding one in my mouth, out of context, and not knowing what it was, was not a pleasant experience for me. all the emergency lights and sirens in my brain were going off. "eject! eject!" was the message i was getting. thankfully i was able to override what was going on in my brain, and finally swallow what turned out to be the last bite of my salad.

maybe i should just stick to jack in the box. at least when i order a sourdough jack, i know what i'm eating--as long as rollie remembers to order it with no tomato or ketchup and light mayo . . .