Here’s the twenty-fifth installment of the Boil Your Day Down into One Sentence fun-tacular! Each week I’ll ask for these sentences and each week I’ll post them along with links to the authors’ blogs.
As usual any new authors are added to the blogroll.
First up we have Bonnie, who writes:
Sunday was a perfect day for a guitar recital and then came Monday, and now what? time to pause, sadly and then on to the next event…coming down the pike lots of details before our Hudson Valley Writing Project Summer Institute ‘07 begins…and wait, a trip to China in early May? Life is dynamic, thank God, not much time to feel sad that intense practice for the recital ended..and wait, there’s my letter X is for….hanging over my head for our collaborative ABC movie project.
Holy cow! Sounds like you’ve got a lot on your plate! (Thought I was a busy guy.) Bonnie does have a lot going on, and she’
s been kind enough to post it on her blog blk.
Take, for example — a few photos of that guitar recital; follow that with Bonnie’s first segment in the ABC collaboration with Kevin H (more on him below), H is for the Hudson; and the joy of getting to share those stories with other ABC vodcasters.
Up next is Jody Hayes, who says:
What … the week is over already … autumn sunshine and enthusiastic children, a lovely mix!
You can really see the enthusiasm in Jody’s little voaygers’ eyes, but only if you click on over to their Voyagers Homepage — there you’ll see a photos of the kids taking firts communion, shaping and baking flour thumb-puppets, and remembering Anzac Day.
Down the left side of the page, you can see some student reflections on these topics; at the bottom of the page, you can hear a little podcast from the students about their thoughts on Anzac day; on the right hand side of the page, you can leave your own little message for the Voyagers using their new yackpack voice recorder. I love Jody’s blog because she always lets us see what her kids are doing in class.
aquiram says:
A new endeavor on the horizon, rising ever so slightly, before bursting forth full of promise!
Hey, I’ve got one of those, too! The sense of excitement that happens at the end of the year always amazes me — not the excitement about the year ending, but about the opportunities we missed this past year. We get a whole new perspective on what we’ve done and can envision ways of doing it better. I wonder if aquiram will share her new endeavors with us?
But be sure to head over to aquiram’s blog Teaching in the Twenty-First Century for some deep discussion on some very important topics. For example, there’s an interesting discussion going on about the state of the never-changing classroom, a problem that’s been arouns since…well, forever.
Also, see what teaching tricks Ms. Q works when she’s got kids who are a little stubborn when it comes to learning new concepts.
Newcomer, Jennifer Spates, writes:
I need to work on my self confidence if I want to become a school administrator because it’s hard to lead a cavalry if you think you look funny on a horse!
Jennifer’s blog, Change Agent for Social Justice reflects her journey through a doctoral program at the University of Tennessee in Chattanooga; in her prior life she taught 13 years at inner-city schools.
The blog is filled with powerful reflections, and starts off with a bang: Being a Multicultural Educator — 20 self-critical things I will do to be a better multicultural educator. I say that it starts with a bang because we’re all muticultural educators, and the suggestions in her list are things that I need to remember from day to day in my classroom.
Check out her blog for other interesting topics, such as Not being an ass about someone else’s linguistic choices, using knowledge about code switching, and how this makes life more challenging for students who do it (or need to do it), and more. Check it out!
Kevin says:
I have been subdividing my head into three voices this week — captured in a poetry experiment for multiple voices — and I have to admit, it sounds very strange to my ears to hear myself speaking this way.
Kevin’s been working on the OnPoEvMo — one poem every month (even though he’s been kicking out three or more a week the entire time) — project and he’s always willing to share his poems with his readers. The one he mentions above is fantastic, and is entitled The Creator : a poem for three voices and one person.
Oh, and you’d just be silly if you didn’t listen to the audio version of the poem, where those three voices read the poem aloud.
Another newcomer, Jeri, writes:
School-wide poetry slam this week reminds me just in time of why of I love my students: they’re brave, kind, funny, and surprisingly articulate.
Bummer! I don’t have a blog for Jeri, as I’d love to hear hher story about the slam, and maybe to read some of the students’ work. But you’ve caught the heart of kids there, Jeri. That’s what they are — brave, kind, funny, and most of all, surprising.
nani says:
Feeling funky and not in a James Brown kind of way, but I’ve got tech retreats and camping trips to look forward so I think I’ll be okay!
There are really only two times during the year that teachers begin to get sick — with the onset of winter, and the onset of spring. But, like Nani said, that’s not gonna keep her down. By the end of summer, we’ll be saying of nani, Oh, the places you’ve been.
But there’s more than just those trips in the future — she also picked up a freakin’ three-year pass to more than 20 of NYC’s museums.
And if that’s not enough to make you sick (or angry), keep in mind that, even though we’re coming to the end of the year, Nani’s havin’ a great time. I think you should take the opportunity when she asks us to Kick her. :) (just kidding, nani)
graycie writes:
Chaucer’s “The Pardoner’s Tale” (public houses, gluttony, brothels, drunkenness, The Black Plague, ribaldry, greed, piles of florins, plots & betrayal, rudeness to old people, murder most foul) with remedial seniors; Romeo & Juliet and the Nature of Love & Romance with mostly male goofball freshmen: I think I need to go lie down somewhere cool and quiet and dark.
Um, let’s see: gluttony, ribaldry, greed, plots, rudeness to old people…Yep, that sounds exactly like the students at my school, too.
It seems like we’re all, in one way or another, writing about the end of the school year, and for graycie, it’s getting a little close. Even though they’re nine weeks away, they too know the end of the year is around the corner. State testing is over, and that means nothing else is important for the remainder of the year. So what do the seniors do? Focus on graduation.
Make sure you click through and read through, because the end of thiat post is wonderful.
teachergirl says:
Wonder filled fifth graders wallow in the woods that many had never, ever seen before in their lives; while the field trip is a pain to put together, it is a joy to watch them experience things BrownBear, PrepGirl and I have always taken for granted.
I love field trips. All the work that goes into them always pays off. It’s very rewarding to watch your students experience new things, even if those new things are just a few steps away.
Teachergirl didn’t write much about the field trip on her blog, but she did include a hilarious document of what happens when you change the last letter in the PTA acronym to read: Alcohol.
So there we go! Another Your Day in a Sentence down and yet another week coming up. Expect another call for sentences in a few days.
Thanks again to everyone who participated — you get me out reading your blogs when I otherwise don’t have the time, or when I forget.
Filed under: Education Blogs, Reflection, Teaching, day in a sentence, meme
