Unakite for Soapstone Carving Day

Written last night, but Blogger was on holiday for a while on Tuesday, October 18: I chose my stone bear earrings this morning, for soapstone carving day. As we continue to study the cultures of the Northwest Indians, we’re exploring some of their crafts, including mask making and soapstone carving.

Even after 7 years of carving soapstone with my students, I still don’t have a pair of soapstone earrings. Maybe next year. So today I wore totem bears carved from the “Virginia State Stone” that I bought at James Madison's home, Montpelier last summer.

I have been carving soapstone, a little each year. I have some tiny turtles, and some bear-like creatures. I’ve been working on this squirrel for a couple of years now. But only while my students are filing their stone-- I like them to see me working, too.

I bought a hunk of soapstone about 7 years ago. About half remains. I saw it up each year into chunks for the children to carve. Soapstone is amazing—so soft that rubbing it with a nail file smoothes rough edges. Metal files can shape the stone into any form the sculptor imagines.

For most of the children, as for me, that is the challenge: creating in 3D what we can imagine in our mind’s eye. But I find that the process of shaping stone is a great activity for my 3^rd graders and their 7^th and 8^th grade mentors to share: hands busy, time to sit and chat, working with an unfamiliar material while working toward a goal. We made a lot of dust in the courtyard outside my classroom on what the weathermen said was our last nice day for a while. Tonight rain will wash the soapstone dust away. Something else to discuss tomorrow.  

Evergreen Earrings, Autumn Leaves

This afternoon I took my students on a leaf collecting walk. We collected samples from each of the 27 trees that members of our class are adopting this year, talking about the unique textures, shapes, and colors of each leaf. They jotted down notes to help identify the leaves later:

• trident-like veins, Max wrote about the Flowering Dogwood
• an angel's dress, Meara noted about the Tulip Poplar

• soft and fuzzy underneath, like shiny plastic on top: Sam's Southern Magnolia

Walking in the perfect fall weather left us with little time to begin to press our leaves. Tomorrow.

I thought when I left home this morning that I'd be teaching a lesson about the Kwakiutl culture of the Pacific Northwest who build massive homes using planks they cut from giant cypress trees, so I wore these conifer trees. I made this pair last spring, in anticipation of fall.

But the schedule changed, the sun was shining, and the autumn leaves were calling. Wednesday's rain may empty many of our trees. With deciduous trees you have to seize the day. Evergreens can wait.

Magnetic poetry, for Noah Webster's Birthday

I love words. I love etymology. I've loved dictionaries all my life. The only Christmas gift that my parents ever gave each other was the massive 1961 Wesbter's New Third International Dictionary that we hauled out during dinner at least once a week to look up the meaning or derivation or pronunciation of a word. "Won't it be funny in 50 years, when that book is old and it still says new?" I can remember my brother asking. I think he might still have it, 50 years later.

Today's Writer's Almanac listed the birthdays of three great writers: Oscar Wilde, Eugene O'Neill, and Gunter Grass. I considered flamboyant and earnest earrings for Wilde, dark and troubled ones for O'Neill, swastikas and tin drums for Grass. I couldn't come up with anything. Then I discovered that Noah Webster, the first great American lexicographer, was also born on October 16th. Word earrings! Perfect.

 Will magnetic poetry adhere to stainless steel earwires, I wondered. Barely. So I drilled a couple of holes and... presto: Earrings.

As I mentioned, I'm a big fan of dictionaries. But I am not a fan of English spelling. I often confide to my 3rd graders that it's too bad the guy who wrote the first dictionary was so bad at using the rules of phonics. We teach kids phonics, then teach them the exceptions to the rules before they can even begin to use the rules!

Is, the, was, come, are, they... just learn them. But do your best to sound out words. Laugh. Awesome. Night. Go ahead, try.

Noah Webster tried. Wikipedia says he Americanized some words, like theater and color and defense. He tried to change tongue to tung, but it didn't stick. But that attempt alone makes him a hero of the American revolution to me, even though he spent the war years at Yale rather than fighting the British.  

Saturday on the Sidelines

Yesterday we drove to Richmond for our daughter Phoebe's Ultimate Frisbee tournament. Phoebe's brother Willem, sister Kathe, and brother-in-law Jim joined us on the sidelines to cheer for the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Such a joy to see the circle of friends that swarm around my youngest child, while chatting with the rest of the family. What more could a mom want on a gorgeous fall day?

Sunscreen. You'd think that after all of the years I've spent on the sidelines of my children's sporting events, I'd remember to pack the sunblock. But I guess I'm out of the habit. That soccer photo is probably from my 6th year as a soccer mom and sometime coach. Countless hours, countless games, countless practices, many, many tournaments, over 18 years. Sunburn. Foolish me.

 

I wore a pair of earrings that I made last summer on the same day I made my Red Hot Chili Pepper earrings. I wore them to help Phoebe move into her college dorm in August, before I knew that I'd be on the sidelines of a game.

I should have saved them! But perhaps those others are more appropriate: a flashy disk, surrounded by a pair of red beads. What Phoebe loves about Ultimate Frisbee and the Red Hots is the unique team dynamic demanded by this sport. She's been a member of many teams, in many sports. She says this is the best team sport ever invented, combined with the best team spirit she's ever experienced.

At this tournament, Richmond  fielded a full Alumnae Team who demonstrated the remarkable sense of community- through-sport that she describes. For the final few points of their tournament scrimmage, the two teams blended, experienced alumae playing alongside freshman newbies.

For these young women, their Ultimate Frisbee team is the star, not the Red Hot players who move the disk around the field. That's what these earrings mean to me.

Those 18 years on the sidelines must have been time well spent!

Happy 85th Birthday, Winnie the Pooh!

On this day in 1926, Winnie-the-Pooh was published. To celebrate, I wore this pair of Shrinky Dink earrings that I made on a snow day last January. 

I have loved the story of Winnie the Pooh and the bee tree since the first time I heard it. When? No idea. This copy of Winnie the Pooh has sat on my bookshelf since before I have memories.
My copy was printed in 1950. I'm guessing that my mother bought this book to use in the elementary school where she taught in the early 1950's. Children's books with her maiden name were books that she purchased to use in her classroom. Every volume in our World Book Encyclopedia contained that same signature.

While Pooh was floating past the honey tree, pretending to be a cloud, Christopher Robin was walking up and down carrying an umbrella, saying, "Tut, tut, looks like rain." One of the most quoted lines in the English language.

I read this morning in The Writer's Almanac that Milne wrote not for children but for whimsical adults. Hmm. I guess that describes me. And perhaps many of the adults who have bought children's books over the years.

The Writer's Almanac goes on to quote Christopher Robin Milne as saying, "My father did not write the books for children. He didn't write for any specific market; he knew nothing about marketing. He knew about me, he knew about himself, he knew about the Garrick Club — he was ignorant about anything else. Except, perhaps, about life."

We whimsical adults, we love Milne's notion of childhood and imagination. Perhaps it's because we treasure the magic we remember in our own childhoods. Alan Alexander Milne wrote, 
"So they went off together. But wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on the top of the forest a little boy and his bear will always be playing."

Maybe that boy was Alan himself, remembering his own magical childhood. I hope that children will continue to explore enchanted outdoor places through this century and those to come.

Remembering my Halloween horse costume

I bought this pair of Austrian coins to wear last year when I created a program about the evolution of horses. But I made a pair of Shrinky Dinks for March 9th, and never wore this pair.

So I wore them today. The honeymoon is over in 3rd grade. As seems to happen every October, social problems are popping up everywhere, like Trick-or-Treaters on Halloween night. Horses, social issues, and Halloween? They're all tied together in this story about my own childhood that I shared in class this morning, as I introduced Personal Narrative writing:

          Even now, 44 years later, I wonder what I should have said when Sally Peterson, pure white from head to toe in her Mummy-Knight on a Horse costume, came trotting up to me, thrusting her broom-handled jousting stick toward me, and snarled, “You stole my idea. I should have won first prize.”

Next to Sally stood a hideous witch, Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle-Dee, and a vampire ballerina, all glaring at me, hissing things like, “Sally’s costume is better anyway!” and “I bet you didn’t make that yourself!” and “People who don’t ride shouldn’t be allowed to wear horse costumes.”

I started to explain that I’d gotten the idea for my Canadian Mounted Policeman over the summer, when my family had taken a trip to Canada and seen a show with a hundred Mounties that looked just like me. But Sally’s group all turned and stormed away, muttering about how I was such a liar. I must have spied on them. They all remembered times I’d been near them when they were talking.

I thought back to that magical spectacle of horses on ice in Ottawa, and how I’d leaned over to my mother and said, “That’s what I want to be for Halloween this year.” I thought about how hard I’d worked to make my tall, black, fuzzy hat stay upright on my head. I looked down at my brother’s old pants that I’d sewed and stuffed to look like legs dangling on the outside of the cardboard box. A whole weekend of sewing, cutting cardboard, trying things on in front of the mirror, and sewing or stuffing or cutting some more.

Paula Rickard, dressed in her paper mini-dress and plastic high heels, and holding a cordless phone, came over to congratulate me for winning first prize. I congratulated her for winning second prize.  “Do you think we’ll wear paper clothes and talk on cordless phones when we grow up?” I asked. We talked about the future for a while, and then I confided, “Lizzy thinks I stole her idea.”

“You’re not a Mummy Knight,” Paula replied. “And you’re not leaving a trail of baby powder and toilet paper wherever you go. I bet she’d like to go home and wash that stuff out of her hair.”

We giggled and wandered off to find Paula’s mother, who drove our carpool on Tuesdays. As we loaded my costume into the back of the station wagon, I told Mrs. Rickard that tonight would be my last time to Trick or Treat, since my mom believed Halloween was for children. Next year, when I would be in 7^th grade, I would hand out the candy.

I was glad my mom wasn’t there right then. When Sally, Kate, Carol, and Sueann walked by, they all turned to glare at me. My mom would have noticed. Mrs. Rickard just prattled on about how she better drive carefully with two prize winning costumes in the car.

When we got to my house, my mom helped me carry my box inside. “First prize! You must be so proud. You worked hard, and it paid off.”

 I tried to smile, but all I could think of was Sally, and what her group would say tomorrow. I headed upstairs, muttering, “I need to do some homework before dark. My last night for Trick or Treating!”

“Is that why you’re glum? Everyone has to grow up. You’ll love handing out the candy next year!” 

At least there won’t be a costume contest at school next year, I thought. Maybe Sally will forget about how I stole first prize. I just wish I could do something right.

My students had lots of questions when I finished my story. Many of them about how I made my costume--was there a motorized vehicle under the box?--and lots about why Sally was so mean. And I asked many questions: "Do you think I handled it well? I felt as if they were so mean. What should you do when someone is mean? But do you think I did anything mean? What should I have done?"

Such a great conversation about speaking up, about trying to work things out, about not letting bad feelings fester. And so many more conversations to have over the next days, weeks, and months.

Whales and Whaling Ships

I wore this amazing pair of Jabebo earrings honor of whales. Many of the Northwestern American cultures we're studying in 3rd grade Social Studies took to the sea in small boats to hunt for whales. Small boats, not at all like the multi-masted sailing vessels of the 18th century Massachusetts whaling industry--like the ship in a bottle on my other earring. 

Small wooden boats, powered by human paddlers. My students and I marveled at the ability of native peoples to survive in harsh climates, hunting animals that were much larger and stronger than they. 

During recess this morning, one of my colleagues spied my other earring and said, "Ships for Columbus Day?"
I'd forgotten that October 12th was the day that Columbus set foot in the New World. And I wouldn't have worn this ship to represent the Nina, the Pinta, or the Santa Maria--it's way too large.

To my way of thinking, Columbus and his crew were just as brave as those Tlingit whalers, when they boarded these tiny sailing vessels for a cross-Atlantic voyage. Today we tend to focus on the disease, cruelty, and destruction that Columbus left in his wake. But I admire his bravery and determination as much as I did when I learned about Columbus as a small child.

This afternoon, my students began to draw their designs on the spirit shields that have been drying since Friday. This Haida drum is one of the designs that I shared to inspire them.

The children's images are pretty amazing, too!