Knitting Together

As promised. . . some photos of my after school knitting club at St. Therese Catholic School. Several of my students had been asking me to have a knitting club for several years. When I agreed to offer the after school activity, I did not expect that twenty-five third, fourth, fifth, and sixth graders would sign-up. What is more, sign-up forms keep rolling in as other students see their friends knitting and want to learn.

We have met several times this year, and a few of the students are already able to mentor other students (love that). Thank goodness I now have some help teaching! I was barely able to catch my breath at the first few meetings. I'm also helping students one-on-one or two-on-two in the mornings before school.

One mother has already come to class with her daughter because she wants to learn, too. How cool is that? Another mother asked if she may come next week. Inter-grades and inter-generational (love that, too). Our club has several boys and more who want to join. The school principals want to learn, and I plan to have students teach them. One student has completed her first project-- a headband!

Knitting with students in the morning and after school has been a joyful part of the last few weeks. I am looking forward to their creations and accomplishments. Mostly, I'm looking forward to what we will laugh about and share while we knit, knit, knit, knit.

Maybe we will purl a little, too, in a month or so!

Balance

The beginning of this school year is throwing me curve ball after curve ball (my only excuse for not showing up here very often). I hope I learn how to hit these balls soon. At least I'm showing up every day for practice-- whether it is at work or at the kitchen table for homework each night. I love a challenge, but I haven't quite figured out how to master this school year yet.

Balance is the mantra I try to hold in my mind, and I hope that I am helping my children learn how to balance their interests and obligations, too. My son has three new endeavors: cello, after-school choir, and Taekwando. My daughter is adding Taekwando to her art, piano, and the increasing academic demands of fifth grade. Their schedules impact my schedule and vice-versa.

While I want my children to be academically successful, I also think the expectations of today's schools are sometimes unrealistic and just too much. I don't want my children sacrificing their creativity for worksheets, busy work, or multiple choice tests. I ask myself: "Do I have computers with bodies, or do I have children?" My vocal inflection on asking the previous question might equal Patrick Henry's cry: "Give me liberty or give me death!"

I remind myself that balance is important when I need to check off items on my "to-do list," but I also need to exercise. I may not have photographed or blogged about my newly formed knitting club at school, but I promise photos and a blog post after all twenty plus students get the hang of the basic knit stitch. I may not have a perfectly clean house, but I have found a few creative minutes here and there by sewing some needed p.j. pants, dyeing curtains with turmeric, and making journal covers and pillowcases for gifts.

And, I'm diligently searching for some writing time with that idea that keeps popping into my mind during moments of silence on my way to work and late at night before falling sleep. I have so much to say about education.

School, School, and More School

First grade students enact short slap-stick stories and knock-knock jokes in the style of Jon Scieszka's Cowboy and Octopus with stick puppets of unlikely pairs they made for literature connection class.

Second grade students act out scenes for a book they are writing in the style of David Shannon's No, David! after studying several of Shannon's books. Their book will be called No, Second Grade! They are illustrating it with photographs.

My daughter and I went to a wonderful book-signing/reading on August 25, 2010, at Lemuria Books to meet Deborah Wiles whose newest book is Countdown. We are reading it together before bedtime and loving it!

I have facilitated 3 workshops on learning styles for 2 groups of parents and 1 group of teachers in the past month. I'm so excited that Poplar Springs Elementary in Meridian, MS, has given all of their students a learning styles inventory!

I apologize for not blogging in one month. My only excuse is that almost every ounce of my creative energy (and time) has gone towards school, school, and more school-- both in school, on the road, and at home.

For teachers, the beginning of the school year is super concentrated. There is so much to do, and we want/need to be prepared for anything. I especially want my first interactions with my students (all 100 plus of them) to be positive and engaging. With the addition of 3 year olds to the school where I teach, I have had to re-tool and re-think what works and doesn't work for our youngest students. Teaching students with creative lessons, managing classrooms of students from age 3 to 12, remembering that each student is unique with different learning styles and abilities, and keeping in mind age-appropriate expectations across the board is both challenging and invigorating.

But I am also a parent of students at two other schools and must help them navigate all of the beginning of school issues from the other side of the teaching/learning equation--learning new rules, new teachers, new classmates, and new expectations. Besides helping them with homework (the easy part), I listen to stories about their day, reports on what is happening inside and outside the classroom, and how it makes them feel. I try to give them strategies for dealing with anything that comes their way.

I've been thinking a lot about education. Here is my hope for how I will be a teacher to my students and for how my children's teachers will guide them and their classmates through their days of this school year:

• Be kind, prepared, and ready to work hard every day.
• Respect each child as an individual.
• Never punish a group of children for the actions of one or a few.
• Never make a public example of a child's inappropriate behavior by shaming them.
• Never raise voices or yell when quiet redirection may be used first.
• Teach with a variety of learning styles to meet the learning preferences of all students.
  
• Never punish students multiple times for the same infraction.
• Always remember that we all make mistakes and that mistakes are opportunities for learning and growth.
• Remember that teachers influence the emotional, physical, and social development of children as much as their intellectual development. The whole child must be addressed with dignity.
  
• Remember that engaging lessons will curb behavior problems as much as behavior management systems.
• Increase student freedom as responsibility is accepted and maintained.
  
• Allow free reading choice and opportunities for silent reading during the school day.
• Create assignments and assessments that are meaningful and matched to content objectives.
  
• Encourage questioning, problem solving, and higher order thinking as appropriate to age levels.
  
• Promote a joy of learning always.

There you have it: the past month.

Painting II: Sky Blue Walls

Because I painted my daughter's room, I also painted my son's room. Everything is EQUAL around here. He wanted dark blue instead of light blue walls. We compromised with this in-between color that reminds me of a sunny, cloudless sky. I had a little help with the painting and constant companionship from a varying audience of my son, my daughter and her friend, the cats, and the dog. We listened to my favorite stations on Pandora, NPR programs, and a few chapters about Gregor in the third book of his adventures in the Underworld.

Painting is so satisfying.

And now, he wants curtains. EQUAL!

Painting (and Sewing) I: Lavender

I haven't been around the blog in a few days because I've been busy painting two bedrooms and sewing for one. My 10-year-old daughter needed an update. I had promised to re-do her room at the beginning of the summer, and since I return to work next Tuesday, I had to get busy!

Gone are the green walls, curtains, and rug that we inherited when we moved into this house about 5 years ago. Instead, we painted lavender walls and made curtains and a duvet cover based on patterns and instructions in Meg McElwee's book, Sew Liberated. We still have a few finishing touches-- organizing stuff, cleaning the closet, sewing a new sham & a seat cover for the desk hair, making fabric covered bulletin boards, and re-hanging some artwork.

We love the new look-- perfect for a tween and her dolls.

Next post: Painting II: Sky Blue Walls

Afternoons This Week

Two cups of tea,
two sewing machines,
two sisters,
and two sewing projects.

One cat who does a little of everything:
reclining on the IPad with the instructions for one of the sewing projects,
sniffing the sewing machines,
playing with bits of ribbon and string,
batting bunches of fabric,
fetching a ball,
messing up my applique design.

Two hours of afternoon entertainment. All three of us were purring.

Loving Butterflies

Silver-spotted Skipper(Epargyreus clarus)

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail (Papilio glaucus)

Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta) --orange and black on the
center purple butterfly bush flowers

Black Swallowtail (Papilio polyxenes)

All four of these photos were taken on Monday afternoon when our butterfly garden was buzzing with bees, wasps, and butterflies. At one point, all 4 butterflies were in the same frame of my camera, but the photo didn't come out well. I hope I have identified these correctly. I'm least sure about the Red Admiral, but this photo isn't as close. I used this site to help me discover the names of these creatures.

Because monarchs and swallowtails are so large and beautiful, it is tempting to take all of my photos of them. I'm trying to branch out, however, and see how many different kind of butterflies I can find in my little patch of flowers for the rest of the summer. Late afternoon, if a thunderstorm isn't blowing over, is the best time for butterfly activity.

Do you have a butterfly garden? What are you seeing in yours?