Happy Veteran’s Day

We are celebrating Veterans in our school today! They will have a parade in our halls and then join classes to have more cozy settings. Every teacher is doing something a little bit different to honor our men and women. Here is a picture of the mini posters that Mrs. Leonard’s class did…why they’d be excellent presidential choices! These are the hands-on learning that are authentic and build lasting memories. They did a beautiful job in making the USA Flag, Old Glory, and they learned about the stars and stripes!

Wish

I wish everyone would take a step back and consider what they DID learn beginning in Kindergarten for most…we take turns, we do not shout at each other, we do not take things away from someone, we talk politely, we help, we are respectful, we collaborate and do our best, we are quick to say “sorry”, we are quick to say “that is OK, please don’t do that again”, we invite others to play with us, we do not lie, we tell the truth, we care about each other because we are a family for the year and we want to take care of each other.  I am not a deplorable or a _______, or a ________, or a _______, or a _______, or a ________, or a ________. Please do not call me names because that is not nice. It is hurtful. Please be kind to me. I have a culture. I have dreams. I have aspirations. I believe in God. I celebrate Christmas and Easter and Memorial Day and Veteran’s Day and St. Patrick’s Day and I read the Bible and I believe that I am to take the high road no matter what befalls me. I give the benefit of the doubt that people aren’t trying to be mean to me. I greet students and faculty and families and strangers with hellos and how are you. I listen and I care because way back when, I learned from my family and from my teachers to be a kind and caring person.

OM Gosh! I love working with students!

Check it out…what we like about our journal with Mrs. Leonard’s class

JOURNALING OUR LEARNING

This makes my heart happy! 🙂

on Passwords

Learning by the seat of your pants can be rewarding, but it can also be exasperating. I am going to go with the exasperating for now, particularly passwords. On the culminating months of my CU Denver INTE trek I am STILL looking up and asking for and getting texted codes when I cannot remember or find my passwords. I used to have an email, bank and school password. At present, I must have more than 20 passwords what with all of the technology that I’ve come to use throughout my coursework.

AAAUUUGGGHHHHH is my cry. I have been elaborate so NO ONE could get into my “stuff”. I ask my kids and they have passwords like “pancake”. Dear Heaven above, why do I complicate my life so much?

Here is a sampling: 10K-A-Day, 470 Tollway, Adobe ID, Amazon Smile, Apple ID, Beach Club Rubios, Blubrry, Bluehost, Boulder Dinner Theater,Bubble Run, Canvas, Caring Bridge,CDE, Cherry Creek ERO, Class Badges, CO Dept of Revenue, Colorado Symphony, Comcast, CU Denver, EBSCOhost, edWeb.net, Evite, ExpressToll, Facebook, FAFSA, Feedly, Flickr, Fitbit, Gif, Golden Music Store, Google Mail, Gravatar, Grooveshark, Hilton Rewards, Hootsuite, Instagram, Imgur, King Soopers, Lakewood Cultural Center, Lino, Lone Tree Arts Center, Macbook Pro, Marriott Rewards, Mindomo, Lino, PACE Center, Padlet, Pandora, Piktochart, Pottermore, PowToon, Qzzr, SMART Technologies, Samaritan Ministries, Soundcloud, Starbucks, Spotify, Textbooks.com, TubePress, Tumblr, Twitter, Verizon, Vialog, Vimeo, Voicethreads, Voki, WordPress, Xcel, Yahoo, and Zunal!

OK, so I lied…I have MORE than 20!

REMEMBERING PASSWORDS IS SO…

 

aaauuugggHHHHH

My life with technology! I posted a HUGE I guess rant…about passwords…I think I did not press “Publish” therefore I think I did not save it! I’ll come back!

 

Well, well, well…turns out there is a clever person who understands people like me that design for WordPress, as I discovered the DRAFT button! There was my work…waiting for me…to catch up once again with technology! Technology is not my inborn nature, but I am learning. 😉

Happy Halloween

…at a friend’s home so she can go Trick o’ Treating with girls…I am here with her daughter who has autism…my friend has to be 24/7/365 available with her family, so helping here and there is good for both of us…like she says…autism sucks…ahhh life…she also lost her husband—37 yrs. young of a massive stroke…he kissed her on a Wednesday morning, left for work, and never came home…we have cried and laughed and repeated both of those…I think a positive attribute of me is that I realize none of us has a clue as to what our future will hold, not even tomorrow…I am thankful for today, for right now…

OM GOSH

The U$A educational system has MUCH to correct. Those of us in the trenches feel as though our hands are tied, like we’ve taken an oath to seed out creativity and allow mundane to surface, spilling over into all content areas. If you are unfortunately reading below grade level then you are awarded extra attention in specialized classes that are drowning in mountains of printed documents about your untimely mishap with education.

Even my question b/f we became a Title I school…resonated with ‘stupid’. “What is the data for schools that have become Title I schools over the years? What is their success rate for students attaining grade level or rising above while attending a Title I school?” I ask. The answer: “There is no data.” Well how convenient…spend more money adding more personnel to engage in teaching habits that do not propel any student toward proficiency. THAT’S PRECISELY WHAT I WANT FOR MY CHILDREN! RIGHT? HOW ‘BOUT THE REST OF YOU?

Below is my colleague’s thoughts about the RTI process, and on the beautiful blue background is the lame statement from our illustrious U$A government. Crumble within…it’s where we’re headed unless common sense  can come to rule once more. I don’t advise you hold your breath, I’m not.

Father’s Day

Reaching the LORD through prayer 

Earnestly asking God to preserve you & company 

Jostling, turning in sleep, waking @ 4AM to continue prayers

Openly knowing God’s reality is not mine I persevere in prayer

In Christ we are united, you are my brother, dearly loved

Continue to pray, regardless of what the mountains stats say

Incredible is the spirit of man, a Godly man knows his home

News in Sunday School, you are rescued, applause erupts

God is to be praised this Father’s Day for you are here, alive

My heart was heavy upon hearing the news of your summit and then…your need for help b/c something had gone wrong. I forwarded the notice to Drew. My prayers went up asking the Lord to preserve you, to enfold you, to guard over you, to keep your spirits alive, to keep your minds on survival, to not give up. We prayed before bed and I woke in the night knowing you all were still in some -39 below zero weather, on a summit that swallows many. I prayed, I saw the clock; 4AM; I prayed the above all over again. Getting ready for church I looked for news. I thought of the VanDeWalkers and let them know on Father’s Day what you all were facing. Praise God you are alive. We are rejoicing for you, our beloved brother! 

May the LORD’s blessings be forever enfolding you, Becky and your children. 

Love, 

Diane

On Reading

My family LOVES to read! My summer CU Denver course/project centers on “learning sight words”. I found this article about r-e-a-d-i-n-g, the ultimate goal; I’m hoping to enlighten educators and more…perhaps nationwide…on better ways to learn to read! ….this thought is from the article, “Can Reading Make You Happier” linked below…So even if you don’t agree that reading fiction makes us treat others better, it is a way of treating ourselves better. Reading has been shown to put our brains into a pleasurable trance-like state, similar to meditation, and it brings the same health benefits of deep relaxation and inner calm. Regular readers sleep better, have lower stress levels, higher self-esteem, and lower rates of depression than non-readers. “Fiction and poetry are doses, medicines,” the author Jeanette Winterson has written. “What they heal is the rupture reality makes on the imagination.”

http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/can-reading-make-you-happier

Seeing and Saying

…because writing sight words bigger on cards will help the learner to know, pronounce, and use them…that’s like speaking louder to someone who does not speak English

…because making Bingo cards with sight words will help the learner to know, pronounce, and use them…that’s like lining up hair and body products and thinking the customer will know what each one is for

Being a mom b/f being ‘schooled’ in how to teach reading is a tremendous proving ground for language. We did not hold up parts of words, i.e. syllables for our 3 children to learn words. We spoke to them, we pointed to the people, the things, the sounds and we shared the information as we were pointing. They were receptive. They knew our voices and they tracked with their eyes as we pointed or acted out what we were saying or pointing to. We read to our children. We read to them as babies and we continued reading as a family on through the years, including ALL of the Harry Potter books as they came out, no matter our kids were in Jr. High and High School.

Their oral language developed fine, they were talking and speaking in complete sentences before the age of 2. Their jibberish became words. When they said any sound, I repeated to them the sound they made. If they said “babababa” we said “babababa” if they blew raspberries, we blew raspberries. If they croaked, we croaked. Guess what, they reciprocated. When we said the words or phrases or sentences, they began to say the words or phrases or sentences.

Language happened with meaning, in context and virtually ALL day long if they were not sleeping. It is like tending a garden. You have to do your part for the garden to thrive. It is not difficult, but it does take time + consistency.

My next challenge is to use the LMS, Canvas, to create an online eLearning module. The course will be learning about and how to know, pronounce and use the Dolch Sight Words.

Most districts have taken the Dolch lists and have revamped them to be “special” for their district. I find that ridiculous, but…I find MANY things in education ridiculous! Imagine–the original noun list had the words…..yes…..the words….Christmas and Santa Claus. I’m a fan of Edward William Dolch.