What a "to do" over a "to do!"

This photo has nothing to do with this post - other than being a photo of the author. I just hate to post without a photo!!

We are leaving tomorrow early a.m. for Bolivia via Lima, Peru. Since we just finished a wedding here, you can imagine the chaos that surrounded me. Food stuffs, paper goods, missing shoes, toys, dirty laundry, the chaos of living, all needed to be taken care of. And bills had to be paid, a dress had to be returned, notes needed to be written and sent, dry cleaning had to be picked up - it was endless.

So last night I made a list of everything that had to be done and vowed to get up and get right at it.

So I got up in a timely manner and started doing things! I just got dressed - left my shower for later - and didn't even get breakfast until about 9 a.m.

So you can imagine my chagrin when I checked my list after 3 hours of being up and working - and I had nothing to cross off!

I need to take a refresher course in list making - either that or be discouraged!!

Needless to say, it's 10 p.m. and every item on the list is crossed off.

I will have more to say when I return in 18 days.

But it won't be about lists.

When you have to do list a mile long, it must be time to blog!!

When I have lots to do, I tend to do extraneous stuff that really doesn't need to be done - like blogging!! (And you all know what I should be working on these days - although in my defense, much of the wedding stuff can't be done until right before.)

But while getting the house ready for the flood of visitors to arrive, I have been putting over the door hangers on all available doors - to keep stuff up and out of the way - and to keep my stuff that's usually in the room where Theo is sleeping more accessible!! (As in during nap times!)

As you can - or maybe you can't - imagine, it's driving Dad nuts - but he's wisely not saying anything!! It's not like he's not used to it!! I've been an over the door hanger person my whole life I think!

When we were first married, I don't think they had BED,BATH and BEYOND or over the door hangers, so I used to hang stuff up in doorways or on window-curtain rods. That really drove him nuts.

One time I came home and he'd taken all his shirts out of the closet and hung them all over the house - a kind of in-your-face statement about what he thought about my proclivity for using odd places to hang clothes!! To my credit - and his - it turned out to be a great joke and we laughed about it - together!!

But I come by all this honestly. And I have been thinking about it while stashing stuff all over the place in preparation for the descending hordes!!

When I was a young girl growing up, we lived in a small, converted garage - while my dad built the "big house" next door. When he started, it was going to take 6 months. And it ended up taking 6 or more years!

I don't remember feeling deprived at all - there were two bedrooms - one for the girls and one for the boys - my folks slept on a hide-a-bed in the living room. I actually remember sleeping on an overstuffed chair in the living room - I remember hearing a rooster crow in the morning. I must have been 5 or so. It wasn't uncomfortable - it was a big chair - and I was a small girl!

The house had one closet - which was quickly overwhelmed by the needs of the eventually 10 people who lived in the house before the "big house" was done. And so clothes were hung on curtain rods at the windows - and soon the curtains disappeared and the clothes provided all the privacy we needed.

So why should I think it odd - or even not sensible - to hang stuff on over the door hangers??

Besides, it adds texture to the decor - and I don't forget what clothes I have and keep wearing the same ones.

And I have options when I forget to take stuff out of the room before Theo goes down for his nap!

The perks of teaching SPED

So the school year is winding down . Today we had the 8th Grade Awards Assembly - three of my kids pictured here got awards - I am really proud of them. And a half dozen other kids who are on my caseload but not in my classes - some are what we call "watch and consult" so I just do yearly IEP's on them - got awards too. I was the presenter for two of the awards.

Another winner you would have recognized at the 6th and 7th grade awards assembly was Keanna McGlone!!

And Molly got a Science Achievement Award - Ashley said she was texting Robyn throughout - they are long assemblies - about all the people she recognized from high school who were there as teachers and parents!! (Phoebe, do you know Tameika Carter??)

Here we have Harry and Dawn's neighbor Melanie - and her brother got an award too.

You will recognize a Gutierrez family member and Kelly Shaw's niece Bailey - I tried to nab Kelly, but I missed her!

Here's Kelly Synold - to make you old babysitters feel really old!

A set of triplets got Perfect Attendance Awards - and so did two sets of twins!

Here's Ricky with his mom and dad - I will miss Ricky's ready smile and wonderful attitude as he heads off to the high school.

Packing up for the summer!! I am ready!!

You will recognize Scott Card - helping me box up books.

The school year flies by every year - and so does summer - so I'm going to try to enjoy it!!

Locks of Love

Lynnel D. is a teacher at my school. She teaches Social Studies and leads the choir. She's a card-carrying SAG member. I like her and enjoy working with her. She's good about accommodating my kids with disabilities.

So when she decided to finally cut her hair to give it to Locks of Love, she came up with a great plan - students and teachers could buy a raffle ticket for a chance to cut off her pony tail. The money went for ASB activities.

I bought a few tickets - but didn't win. Here she is with her shorn pigtails. She got a free style job at a local salon afterwards.

And who says public education is on the skids??

We aren't a California Distinguished School for nothing!!

"Be of good cheer."

There was a quote in the back of a woman's magazine I perused recently. It said, "Let us be of good cheer, remembering that the misfortunes hardest to bear are those which never happen."


The speaker was American writer and philosopher James Russell Lowell. I don't remember much from that era of literature - I can remember my professor's face, but not his name!! Apparently the material we read was forgettable - I don't remember much of it anyway! And I'm afraid that was the year of Cliff Notes for me - probably why I don't remember much!

But I thought of how my mother used to always say, "Don't borrow trouble." And how I have a tendency to do just that!

I'm the one who says, "What if we encounter traffic?" "What if no one comes?" "What if it rains?" "What if the Internet is down?"

We've been stuck in traffic, sometimes not a whole lot of people have shown up, it has rained, and the Internet is down now and then. And we have survived - we are here to tell about it!

In spite of the traffic we've made it to wherever we were going and usually had a good time. Some of the best events are intimate gatherings. Rain keeps the grass green and my lilies blooming. And when the Internet is down, I seem to get a lot of other stuff done!

Especially with this big upcoming event, I'm trying hard not to borrow trouble. Trying hard to make lists of things to do that are doable. And committing to making lists of things to have other people do when they ask if there is something they can do to help!

And if it rains, I guess we will pack ourselves into the Cultural Hall!!

"What's that you're reading?"

So, Clifton Middle School adopted a "Study Hall" in February. We took 5 minutes from every class period and the previously designated "Sustained Silent Reading" minutes and combined them into a 40 minute Study Hall at the end of each regular class day. (Wednesdays are minimum days, so we don't have it then.)

The motivation for this was the disturbing news that almost 20% of our students were below a 2.0 gpa. We have lots of interventions in place - after school tutoring, study skills classes for struggling students, special counseling sessions to address issues surrounding poor academic progress, remedial classes in math and language arts and regular meetings with parents to update them on what is happening.

We can only do so much - ultimately it is up to the student and their parents to turn things around - but we have to do something. So we started this program. It was the principal's idea - not every teacher was in favor - but it has been used successfully in other places, so she wanted to at least try it.

The way it works is every teacher gets 25 kids - alphabetical by grade level - and those same students will stay with the same teacher for all three years. Students are graded daily on having their reading log correctly filled out, having their Binder Reminder (a planner that each student is required to have) listing all of their assignments, and circling the assignment they plan to work on that day.

Since I teach RSP students all day long, it was certainly different to have a room full of regular ed students - many of whom are also honors students. It was also different to have 25 kids - my biggest class has 12 students in it! Because I usually teach such small classes, my room couldn't accommodate 25 kids - so my aide has half of them in the room next door.

On Friday, it was the Clifton Mile Run for 8th graders. Arvin W. has left Clifton so the Clifton Mile as the Terrill kids remember it is different. For one thing, it's run during the Study Hall period. (The period is also used for assemblies and other events that might disrupt the academic day - which is a plus - any teacher will tell you how disruptive it is to have your classes chopped up by an "assembly schedule.") For another, it's run by grade level on different days.

We had the option of going to the run and sitting on the field while the kids who had signed up ran. It was my day to work in the temple on Friday, and I leave from work so I had to be a little more "dressed up" than usual. Sitting on the field in a dress and pantyhose didn't appeal to me. I also had a significant amount of work to do before the end of the day and had planned to do it during Study Hall (the group I have is good about working independently, so a little bonus for me has been the ability to get work done on the computer during that time.)

The aide next door offered to take the whole group - which was not very large, since about 8 of the kids were running. I offered to stay with those who didn't want to go.

I bustled around getting my classroom ready for Monday morning, and then typed up the pages for the 2 IEP meetings I have on Monday. The 4 girls who had opted to stay sat quietly in their chairs - reading!! I decided to walk around and see what they were reading.

The results - Twilight, The Host - both by Stephanie Meyer, a book called Feast of Fools and I don't remember the author, and the 4th girl was reading her History text book. (apparently Feast is about vampires too though.)

The last few minutes of the period I asked them how they were enjoying the books they were reading. The two Stephanie Meyer girls said they were "loving " the books. I told them I had read Twilight but didn't think it was very well written. Since I never want to discourage reading, I suggested that it all depends on whether you are reading for pleasure or want to identify something as good literature.

We had an interesting discussion. I told them about The Historian and suggested that if they enjoyed the vampire concept, they might enjoy this long, but well-written and critically received novel even more.

I also told them that I had graduated in English from BYU - just like Stephanie Meyer. One girl said, "Then you could write a book." (That would be a whole other post - how often we say, "I could write a better book than that" but we don't! Writing is work - hard work - and even poorly written novels take time and effort.)

But what a treat to discuss books with 4 lovely young ladies. I love my students, but by and large they struggle with reading. And even if they read well, many of them don't like to read - it represents all things difficult to them and they don't like to "go there."

Just letting you know how things are on the literary scene in my little corner of the world. I don't ever recall a teacher talking to me about books he or she had read - do you?