Fat Tuesday Beads

For Mardi Gras, I chose these shiny pink and purple beads. They were a gift from my sister-in-law who bought them from a craftswoman she knew who supported her children by selling these lovely gifts. This linkage of people through giving reminds me of chains of beads.

Happy Fat Tuesday!

Data in the Strata

My students dug through the lowest stratum in their simulated archaeological sites this afternoon. This was their final rotation: one last child being the excavator, one the map maker, one the cataloguer, one the museum curator. In the sandy bottom layer they discovered sharks teeth and shells from a Miocene sea.

"Now I know why you're wearing those earrings!" announced a child in each of my three groups when they uncovered a shark's tooth.

Some of them admired my t-shirt, which I love for its images. The grammar, I find painful: plural subject, singular verb. But what a great illustration of the strata that lie beneath our feet! And of what may come next...

I made these earrings years ago with a class of 7th graders after we returned from a geology/history trip to Stratford Hall on the Northern Neck of Virginia. We spent an hour or two looking for fossils along the Potomac--sharks' teeth, ray dental plates, Miocene whale bones, sand dollars, and scallop shells. Most of us found a few sharks' teeth and brought them home. After identifying them, many of my students strung them on necklaces. I made earrings.

I feel like I've reached a milestone: 66 days of earrings, leaving me with 299 to go. I've broken the 300 barrier!

Snow-covered rain

Rain poured down all day today, as forecast. As soon as I arrived at school, the power went off and on. As soon as I logged onto the computer it flickered off again. Forget the computer. Time to build some horses.

Balancing an umbrella with one hand, I carried loads of paper, PVC pipe, tape, and projection equipment from building to building at school, unlocking and relocking doors at each end. My display showing the evolution of the horse now includes 4 lifesized PVC and paper horses. My projection system can be wheeled from horse to horse.

I returned home in the pouring rain, hoping the power would be on. Yes! So I fixed supper and went to cut my laminated timelines of cenozoic time. I glanced outside and saw that the ground was white. Snow?

A blanket of heavy, wet snow coats the world outside. I had no idea that the day's puddles would freeze and be coated with white. Perhaps my earrings were trying to warn me!

65 days down, 300 to go.

Beads of Summer

I wore these earrings today to remind me that when summer comes, I'll have hours to sit under the white pine stringing beads, reading novels, and watching the clouds scud by.

Today I enjoyed my many projects, but they are work. When I became a teacher, I did it to "make a difference." Once my children entered school, I discovered the blessing of our shared schedules--that we all worked hard together during the school year, and played hard together during our breaks. As winter seems reluctant to give up its grasp, I start to dream of summer.

I dream of summer.
The aroma of pine in our Pinery cabin;
Paddling my kayak upstream against the current;
Riding bikes down River Road to buy Moose Tracks ice cream; 
Hiking into the forest to pick blueberries; 
Roasting marshmallows around the campfire;
And sitting under the white pine stringing beads, reading novels, or just watching the clouds scud by.



Openings and Closings

A triangle is a closed shape with 3 sides and 3 vertices and 3 angles. Today these earrings were "extra credit" on my math groups's geometry assessment. Were my earrings triangles? If so, why? If not, why not?

Just now I'm working to close some openings as I head into my last week of school before Spring Break. We need to finish those archaeological digs in Social Studies. We need to finish the historical fiction stories in Writing Workshop. But most of all, I need to finish preparations for my ecomystery, Tracing the Ancestry of the Spanish Horse, by Wednesday. Maps and timelines and life-size silhouettes of ancestral horses and schedules and pouches and, oh yes, the PowerPoint. But it's the weekend, and I have some time to noodle and tinker, two of my favorite occupations.

At least I have my earrings made for Wednesday! First things first!

Starfish angling

This morning we were working with angles in math. I chose these starfish for their 5 acute angles. My third graders were thrilled to do some "upper level math," measuring angles with protractors and figuring out the measurement of an angle in a triangle when they knew the other two.

It wasn't until I took this picture that I saw that these earrings related to my day in another way: today we watched our sixth, seventh and eighth graders perform their gymnastics routines--some amazing feats of strength and agility! I see cartwheels!

And then there is always the five-pointed nature of our family: two parents, three offspring, reaching out to fill all available space. But now we're back to two of us home alone; Will left for college again tonight, focused on directing a one-act play.

My daughter Käthe bought these earrings for me in Louisiana last year. I wonder what her angle was...

A Magical Birthday for Dr. Seuss

Today is the birthday of Dr. Seuss. So I knew that I wanted to wear this t-shirt.

In honor of Dr. Seuss, we celebrated Read Across America Day. My students have spent the past month thinking, writing, and drawing about their favorite characters, books, and book series in preparation for today's Academy Awards of Books. 

Everyone in our Lower School arrived dressed as a favorite book character today. I chose to be Joanna Cole's Ms. Frizzle. How I would love to drive a magic school bus on field trips to the center of the Earth, through the solar system, and deep under the sea. I wore this Shrinky Dink pin with my name tag.

But it was just part of an ensemble chosen to complement my t-shirt: orange (yarn) hair and a fish attached to my hat; shiny aqua tights; my blue water shoes; and the fishy apron I sewed over the weekend.

"I'm taking a field trip to the river in my magic school bus," I could say. "The fish are swimming today!"

And I wore these wooden fish earrings that I bought long ago in Savannah. They look a bit shocked, as if Ms. Frizzle had just appeared in the river with her magic school bus.

It was a great celebration of literature. I hope that my colleague Janie, who inspired us to add one more project to this busy time, is basking in the glow of a most successful day. Truly magical!