Halloweenisms

"Kids say the darnedest things!" goes the old phrase. And Halloween night is a good time to hear some real funnies. Add having Lisa invite her students to drop by, and that created opportunities for some real zingers.

I opened the door for our very first trick or treater. A boy and a girl stood there, the boy looking especially surprised. I tucked some candy into their bags and wished them a happy Halloween, but my gut feeling told me that these two had been expecting a different person to dole out the treats.  So I asked, "Were you expecting someone else to answer the door?"

The relief on their faces was evident, and they quickly nodded assent. Hearing the exchange, Lisa popped into the foyer. Their faces lit up when they spied her, (they were the twins she has mentioned that are in her classroom) and they trooped into the house to pet Millie and chat for a bit.

Craig took a turn to answer the door while Lisa and I sat in the living room. There was a pause, and a little girl's voice quavered, "Um... Um... Is there someone who lives here with the last name 'Isenbarger?'"

Yep, another of Lisa's kiddos! She had "rock star moments" many times as neighborhood children not in her class but attending her school were startled to see her and exclaimed that they knew her or had seen her at their school.

Several children saw fit to compliment us on our house.  And we had a LOT of polite kiddos, even the very little ones, thanking us for the treats. (Determined not to run out of candy like we did last year, Craig bought fourteen bags! We live in a neighborhood chock full of children!)

As the evening wore on and it grew dark, the doorbell chimed less and less.

Lisa answered the door one final time to find one of her students on the doorstep. Behind him were a couple more trick or treaters, one of whom was dressed very realistically as Purdue's head football coach, Darrell Hazell.

"Nice Darrell Hazell costume!" Lisa said approvingly.

The kids all laughed, and then one piped up, "Yeah, that's 'cause his dad IS Darrell Hazell!"

Happy Halloween! And let the holiday season begin!

Peace, Gentleness, and Love

Once in a while, I see a photo of a family member that takes my breath away. This is the most recent.

(Photo by Andrew.)

While certainly Cambria is a cutie, it is Jessica who gave me pause. Mary, the mother of the Savior, came to mind when I saw this one.

Peace.

Gentleness.

Love.

There are lots of adjectives to describe this photo of her.

Love you, Jessie.

Harvest Time in Indiana

 Such a beautiful Fall we've had! Although there has been more rain than usual, the temperatures have been mild, and when it's been sunny, it's been gorgeous!

The rain has impeded the harvest a bit, but the farmers have been busy recently bringing in the beans and corn.

 A recent drive via 600 out to the barn showed that the farmers' progress ranges from

 untouched

to partially done

to completed!

Forecasts for what will happen this winter weather-wise vary from just as harsh as last year to mild, warmer, and dry. Regardless of what will come, the horses are ready. Here's the old barn where the herd chooses to stay during harsh weather.

 There are two large stalls that the horses can go in and out of at will. 

 The mares usually choose the larger left side, while the geldings choose the smaller right side.

Freedom to roam at will!

I love that they get a choice as to where they wish to be and don't have to be stalled all day (although Tim also has another barn with stalls and an indoor arena. If a horse was ill or needed to be brought in for some reason, we do have the option.)

Abby is in good flesh, happy, and healthy. Bring on winter!

The Find of a Lifetime

Those who know me well know I collect model horses. My very first came in 1963 as a gift from Santa, and it's been full steam ahead ever since.

Since I have been collecting so long, I have had the opportunity to buy pieces new that are now quite collectible or to find others on the secondary market (antique shops, bartering with another hobbyist, etc.) It is a medium sized collection, but it is high quality. I love my collection and sure hope there is collecting in the next life!!

My biggest hope over the years has been to score a decorator. Decorators were produced in the 1950s/early 1960s and did not sell well. Who wanted a blue or gold horse? Now they're VERY valuable.

I did find a decorator once. Kathy Bateman, a lady living in the low-income apartments where I delivered newspapers in the 1990s, had one that I spied one day while delivering her newspaper. I knew she could get more than the $75 I had to spend, so I put her in touch with a collector with deeper pockets than mine. She got $1500 for that piece! (I may have lost the model, but I made a life long friend - Kathy and I are still in touch.)

I've kept my eyes peeled for a decorator for decades and still have none. I always thought a decorator would be the most exciting thing I could find and add to my collection. 

Until Tuesday when I made the biggest collecting find of my life.

Tuesday I popped into Sell It Here, a place I have found some nice pieces at good prices in the past. As I poked around, across an aisle and past two booths I spied a Breyer Boxer - a dog that the company has produced since its earliest days and is fairly easy to find. (I have two.)

It had the original studded vinyl collar, marking it as from the earliest days of production. Mine don't have the collars, so I walked over to take a look. But there was more to this dog than first appeared.

 It was attached to a wooden plinth and had a clock.

I paused. Breyer made clocks in their earliest days in conjunction with Mastercraft. They, too, are highly collectible. This looked a lot like the clocks I had seen in pictures.

A Breyer Davy Crocket clock. (Picture by Sande Schneider.)

But never, ever had I heard of a Boxer clock. I'd not seen any at shows where Breyer clocks were featured or in any of the reference books I have. And at $45, I hesitated to take something home I strongly suspected might be a fake.

I left it at the shop. 

I went home and emailed my friend, Sande Schneider, about it. Sande is also a long time collector, and she has file cabinet upon file cabinet of Breyer history documentation. She is the guru of Breyer collecting history - if anyone could tell me if the Boxer clock was real or a fake, it was Sande. (Breyer has even come to her to get documentation as they did not keep good records in the early days of the company.)

Sande said that she did not know of any Breyer Boxer clocks, but would do some research. In her archives is the material Nancy Atkinson Young collected when she wrote the definitive collectors book on the company.

And in going through Nancy's archives, Sande found this:

A picture of a Breyer Boxer clock. Same studded vinyl collar, same wooden plinth, same clock housing, but a different clock face.

The only other Breyer Boxer clock known. (No wonder I'd never seen any at shows!)

Wow. I had just come across quite a valuable piece - and I'd left it behind! 

The next day I left Hershey as soon as school was over, hoping against hope that the clock would still be at Sell It Here.

It was. And it was on sake for $38, a nice plus!

I could hardly believe my good fortune as I paid for the clock and headed home. It's sitting on my bedroom dresser right now, but I will soon take it upstairs to my office and display it there. I still find it hard to believe that I found something so rare.

Now there are TWO Breyer Boxer clocks in the hands of hobbyists. I wonder if any more will surface?

(Sande put me in touch with the owner of that clock, Jo Kulwicki. I am looking forward to hearing about her clock, where she found it, and any history she can shed on it.)

Takin' Notes

The children jot down lot of notes at home for all those classics connections they find.

Some children grab any paper available...

I about choked when I looked at HS's desk and saw what he had used!

The Frankenstein Effect

I have created a monster, just as Dr. Frankenstein did when he crafted his. While that sad creature wreaked havoc on the doctor and his friends in a cycle of revenge and a search for love, my "monster" isn't out for revenge. (And, I do love those who are part of it.)

Still...

Children's classic literature is a focus in my classroom. The more books the children read, the more they see classic books reflected in our culture. (For example, the phrase, "We aren't in Kansas any more.") Every Wednesday, I give the children an opportunity to share any classic connections they have discovered over the past week, and afterward they write those down and staple their connection to a bulletin board specifically set aside for this project.

(Not everything up there is actually written down. I do have a baby's swim diaper, unused, of course, that a girl brought in. It has Winnie the Pooh on it, and so yes, that IS a classic connection and we stapled it up. I am probably the ONLY teacher in America with a diaper stapled to her bulletin board.)

Today the children had so many classic connections that it took an HOUR to share - and only half the children got to come up front with their connections! The other half will have to go tomorrow. We simply ran out of time.

The children track the number we have, and every 100, they make a sign featuring the classic connection that hit the number. Today MCM was the lucky gal to share our 600th connection, with LW and KR making the commemorative sign.

I am amazed at how much they are seeing - on TV, billboards, in games, other books, movies... EVERYWHERE. And that's the point I was originally hoping to make - how classic literature endures and becomes embedded in our culture.

But I certainly have created a monster here!

I'm Stuck

I have a student who (LONG story short) struggles to complete and hand in homework. He is absolutely brilliant, but school is a real challenge for him.

Gifted children often have odd quirks or mannerisms so their social skills can need a lot of work. Add that to this child's issues - only he has more than the usual gifted child's share of oddities to deal with.

Having said that, I am very fond of him and enjoy having him in my class. We have connected well, and he does try to do what he should. He really does. There's just so much going on in that little head that he often fails to get done what he should.

Yesterday was not a high point for him. Assignment after assignment was not completed, things were not at school that needed to be, etc. This was a worsening situation, so I called him over to my desk and had a pretty stern chat about the missing work, its importance, why he needed to get it done, etc. (Cue the teacher in the Charlie Brown specials - never seen, but you hear, "wah WAH wah Wah wah WAHHHHH" when she speaks.)

He listened quite solemnly, agreed he needed to change (for the umpteenth time, I might add), and then with a sudden change of subject, said he had something to run by me. I agreed to hear it.

"You know how my sister was Hershey's Student of the Week? And she gets to do something fun as a result?"

I nodded assent.

"Well, she asked what I thought about this. I said I'd ask, and that I thought you would, but she didn't think you would be able to."

"Sure, what is it?"

"She wants to have lunch at school with you one day. I know it's a problem because she eats at a different time, but I have talked so much about you and she knows you're the nicest teacher in the world." A pause.

 "I know I have problems, but I told her you were the best teacher ever," he finished frankly.

Oh, brother. He wasn't playing me or trying to get on my good side - that's not this boy's style at all. He was absolutely sincere. And I'd just been pretty tough with him.

I told him I would be happy to eat lunch with his sister, and have been musing over what he said ever since. Those words speak volumes. Despite the hard chats he and I frequently have, he knows I care. That's the first step in teaching - personal connections with your students so they know you care about them. As researcher Nel Noddings discovered, children learn best when that happens.

But how do I take the next step, the one where I help him get on track and complete his work? Or remember to bring it back to school?

I am stuck.

Pink Princess Popcorn

"Would you like some Pink Princess Popcorn?"

Addie asked this question in one form or another again and again today during our video chat.

(Photo by Vanessa/Pearl Photo & Design)

 I'd gotten her this cookbook from the Hershey Book Fair and sent it to her as part of the Halloween care package I sent her family.

I knew she liked the book, but she's had it for a few days and is still carrying it around and reading the recipes! And Pink Princess Popcorn seems to be her favorite (along with Sea Turtle Cupcakes.)

Makes my heart swell to know she likes my gift so much. And I can't WAIT to try Pink Princess Popcorn!

Ew!! The Taste!

Millie loves "her baby," Ian. She is very gentle with him, and cannot resist giving him doggy kisses if he is within reach. I had to laugh at this recent exchange between the two of them.

"It's my baby! I will kiss your sweet little face yet another time."

"Wait a minute..."

"Eeeeeww!! He tastes terrible!!"

Celebrating National Down Syndrome Day

Today Hershey recognized National Down Syndrome Day by wearing blue and gold. My student, TM, has a sister with Down Syndrome, and she made a sign that she wore taped to her back all day.

"My sister Sydnie rocks her extra chromosome!"

I know Sydnie, and she sure does!

Parent/Teacher Conferences

I just wrapped up a week of parent/teacher conferences. I always, always enjoy meeting with parents and celebrating their children, but it is also a very wearing, exhausting week. After all, you have to teach all day, with conferences both before and after school, and then grade papers and prepare for the next day after that. I put in several ten and eleven hour days this week!

(As you might imagine, I am glad it is Friday and am very much looking forward to the weekend.)

There are always those who show they care or are extra thoughtful to teachers this very busy week. Our PTA provides a simple buffet dinner on Tuesday and Thursday nights for us (the official conference nights. However, the Hershey teachers conference all week long, and some into the next week!) The PTA also had finger foods in the office for us during the day to grab during your prep time.

Heartland Church, a non-denominational church out near Hershey, adopted Hershey School a couple of years ago. They mentor children for us and do other nice things all year to help the school.  Monday when I arrived at work, I found a plastic pencil box with my name on it. It was chock full of things to help me during conference week - a red pen, tissues, breath mints, some snacks, and a card thanking me for my service to children. What a nice surprise!

 A plate of cookies and the Heartland Church care package.

Mrs. M., mom of one of my fourth graders, brought me a plate of cookies and other goodies along with a note thanking me for being her daughter's teacher.

And Mrs. J. brought me the mega-pack of Expo markers! I was so excited about that - I'd seen it on sale and nearly bought it myself, but it was still a lot of money so I'd left it behind. (You know you're a teacher when you get excited about new dry erase markers!)

As I said, it's been a long week, but those gifts, big and small, make me feel as though the long hours I spend planning, preparing, and teaching are valued and appreciated.

I'm Dreaming of...

... the Purdue basketball team??

I think it must be due to the fact that it is Parent/Teacher Conference week and I have Purdue's head coach's child in my classroom. My basketball dreams were the night before his child's conference.

I've had some odd dreams before, but this certainly is a first. Sure hope he smiles at my Illini orange and blue classroom!

Well... Hello!

Last week, Erin Smith, a former student, emailed me and asked if she could come to my class and do a couple of things with my students as part of a technology project in conjunction with her participation in Lego League.

I responded and gave her a couple of dates and times that would work for me. To my surprise, she and her team showed up this afternoon right after lunch! (I was expecting her tomorrow.)

Fortunately, I was able to adjust my schedule to accommodate them.

Marlin, me, Naveen, and Erin. Naveen Chana was also in my class.

It's always nice to see former students!

Chops Printing

The final step for our Gyotaku prints was adding our chops to the prints. In some Asian cultures, men and women had their own chop (similar to a seal) which they used to identify artwork they owned (sort of like how we put our names on our assignments!)

When the piece was sold or given away, the new owner would add his or her chop to the art. That's why, when you look at Asian art in museums, you will often see a vertical line of red printed symbols. Those are chops and a history of who has owned that particular piece of art.

We made our chops in the classroom using squares cut from egg cartons. We had to remember to make a mirror image of what we wanted the chop to look like.

BW holds up her finished chop, all ready to use for printing.

Mrs. Ryan demonstrates how to add the chop to our artwork.

Rolling the red ink out on the plexiglass with the brayer.

GCD makes a practice print - perfect!

More practice - we want them to look beautiful!

EP seems to have the printing process perfected.

Time for the real printing - we were a little nervous. AM, GH, EP, and JB.

JS and PH do one more practice print.

JR, who is studying Mandarin Chinese, made his name in Chinese characters. Here he shows off the final product - Gyotaku with a personal chop applied.

Octopus Dissection

"It's now octopus dissection time!" There's a phrase guaranteed to grab the kids' attention! 

On Tuesday, after a discussion on the differences between dissection and mutilation, and the reason we would be treating these animals that had been caught for food with respect at all times, the children got to work.

Each table group was given an octopus and diagrams of the internal anatomy of an octopus. (Photo by Sue Scott.)

MM, EK, JB, and HS (hidden behind JB) dove right in.

SY found the smell a bit much, but AH, FR, EW, AM, and SJ were riveted.

Using the diagrams of the internal anatomy of an octopus, the kids were to try and identify and then dissect out as many internal organs as they could. EP, MCM, NM, PH, TM, and BW.

Now FR is finding the odor a bit much!

KR, LW, LT, GH, and JR are working hard - you can see they have removed some parts from their octopus and set them on a white sheet of paper for identification.

GH, LT, ZH (hidden behind LT), LW, and KR. (Photo by Sue Scott.)

A close up of the kids and the animal. (Photo by Sue Scott.)

MM, JB, HS, and EK asked me to help them clip some tissue. (Photo by Sue Scott.)

ZH, JS, SS, AY, and GCD cut carefully with their scissors. We also used toothpicks to tease tissues apart.

Sue Scott, formerly a news anchor for WLFI and now TSC's publicist, took some shots of our activity for the Hershey web site. She turned them into banners for the Hershey web site.

Although one or two students needed to step out into the hallway for fresh air, the worst problem we had was an eyeball that was dropped on the floor and lost. (We looked, but finding a tiny brown eyeball on a brown carpet is like finding the proverbial needle in a haystack!)

The dissection took almost an hour and a half and wrapped up just before lunch. Believe it or not, all the children reported that they'd eaten lunch as usual!

The Teacher Photobombs the Kids!

During Classics presentations, I allow my students to use my phone to take pictures of the presentations to use on our blog.  Once in a while, the photographers get a bit goofy and take some selfies, and I have discovered some pretty funny pictures as I scroll through the day's photos, looking for ones to put on our classroom blog.

Last week, I got a chance to turn the tables. In the spirit of the current fad for photobombing, I snuck up behind KR and TM just as they snapped!

A teacher-photobomb!!

The Power of a Teacher

I first met Chris Northrup when I was considering becoming a teacher. I subbed for her aides a few times in her special ed classroom at Prairie Elementary in Urbana and was impressed by her skills as a teacher in the severely/profoundly handicapped class.

Fast forward five years or so, and she transferred over to Yankee Ridge where I had been teaching a couple of years. I had a special needs child in my class, and Chris helped me wade through the hoops to get the child some help, hoops her predecessor had not wanted to tackle. We worked together for three or four years and she was top notch, a real asset to the school, and a help to the children. She also became a very dear friend.

Chris left Yankee Ridge in 2004 to become a principal in Mahomet and is now that school district's Special Education Director.

Every teacher has their 'beginning," that reason, that incident or experience, that inspired them to become a teacher. I did not know Chris's until she wrote this tribute this morning on her Facebook page. It speaks to the power a teacher, just one person, can have for good.

A great man and teacher, Kent LeFever, passed away this week. It's taken me several days to process because of the impact he has had on so many of his students. His impact on me was profound and lifelong. It did not stem from school but rather his second job, as the manager of the Bement Pool. Mr. LeFever needed a lifeguard for some folks from the nursing home who wanted to swim, before the pool opened, a few days a week. He said these were special people, they would look and act different but he really wanted them to swim and said he thought I was mature enough to handle the job. I said yes, not really understanding. The folks that came to swim were young, too young for the nursing home. They had multiple physical and cognitive disabilities and were non-verbal. I was a bit unsure but Mr. LeFever put his hand on my shoulder, walked me forward and said "let's go welcome them". Throughout that summer, I guarded and sometimes assisted in the water when they came. I forged a wonderful friendship with a young man named Charlie, who could not talk, but his eyes told me everything I needed to know. Charlie and I had a lot of great laughs over two summers at the pool, often with Mr. LeFever laughing right along with us. I owe Kent Lefever, a great teacher and an even better human being, for showing me the path I'm on today. It was through his guidance and support that I went on to coach Special Olympics and became a special educator teacher. Thanks, Mr. LeFever, for your confidence in me, all those summer pep talks at the pool, for helping me find a great friend in Charlie, and most of all, for starting me down a path I never even knew existed but was the just right one for me. You may be gone but the many ways you added to and changed the world, one small bit at a time, ensures your impact will be everlasting. I wish your family peace and comfort in their memories and for you.... Godspeed!

Gyotaku - Octopus Printing

Yesterday was the day we did our Gyotaku - an ancient scientific method of preserving specimens for study and, more recently, a Japanese art  form. We had six octopus from an Asian grocery to use for our printing project.

At first, the kids were a bit hesitant to touch their animals.

But they soon warmed up and were grabbing their octopi out of the bags and preparing for the inking process.

We carefully laid our animals out on paper and dried them with paper towels.

Tentacles needed to be untwisted and artfully arranged.

JS discovered that the suckers on the tentacles still had suction!

After carefully arranging the octopi, we used brayers (and fingers!) to ink the animals' bodies.

Brayers worked best on the larger parts of the octopi.

Mrs. Ryan, our Art teacher, helped us with the project by loaning us her room and supplies. She even got to help with the printmaking, too!

The children worked in groups of four and five.

When the inking was done, we had to put tiny bits of paper over any stray ink marks so that they did not transfer to the rice paper during the printing process.

A close up of an inked octopus and the small bits of paper covering the stray marks.

After each octopus was thoroughly inked from head to tentacle tip, we laid rice paper over it and patted gently to transfer the ink from the animal to the paper.

It took two people to lift the completed print off the octopus - this helped prevent smearing the inked picture.

JB and AH hold up their finished print and are ready to take it to the drying tables.

We will let our Gyotaku dry over night and then add our chops tomorrow. These will be displayed for Parent/Teacher Conferences - they'll be mounted on rail board and hanging in the hallways!