Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Monkey Envy! and miscellaneous musings from the playground

I have a bad case of Monkey envy going on. Everytime I go take a gander at her blog and see the beautiful pictures, I want to go to that spot! I want to read Celestine Sibley! I want to sit on a front porch and take in the beauty!

Monkey isn't feeling well either. I think we have both caught it from the munchkins! I feel a little better today. I just wished there was more time in my day.

I am doing eyeq with a child after school (one that I suspect has a visual tracking issue). Today we started out at 58 words per minute, after exercises we moved to 81 wpm. I was impressed, we did another fluency trick up my sleeve and read 83 wpm in 54 seconds before stopping. I followed this up with some cause and effect activities and all went well. Sadly, my Clarence isn't enrolled in this program yet!

Today, I had fun with my kids at school. I love discussions that make them think and use their heads. D. didn't want to write today and decided to kick desks and carry on. In my calmest voice I said, "Well that's okay, but you can't read another book today until I have a good paragraph from you." More carrying on from D. so I walked to my desk and pulled out a 15 minutes of library time pass. I said, "This is simple, you can have 15 minutes of free time to stay in the QUIET library if you do my paragraph. But remember no paragraph, no more reading today." It only took two hours to get my paper, but I got a pretty good paragraph!
This afternoon he didn't like all the screaming going on with the DARE officer, so I said we will go inside. He and I went inside and he took AR test and talked to me about books. It was all good! Personally, I like the kid even with all his quirks.

I had another kid on the playground say a cuss word today. Two girls came to tattle. I called him over and in perfect innocence he looks at me and says, "I didn't mean to say f---." Well I looked at him and said, "Your honesty in this matter is refreshing. Do you understand why we don't talk like that." We discussed the reasons why we should use good speech and the fact that it would be horrible to have your mouth washed out with soap. Then I let him go! That's right no fence time, no yelling. Hey, we all slip up sometime! It was nice to have someone be honest about it!

2 comments:

Monkey said...

Sometimes saying a bad word just makes you feel better about what you wanted to say...I say this from personal experience and ask for forgiveness for all the bad words I used on my blog post this evening. It happens. :) However, I think you should have a college degree and a paying job before you are allowed to say certain words. ;) It's been an interesting week at NMES...one I will be glad when its over. Anytime you want a lift to Sweetwater Creek, let us know! I'm sorta glad that our pretty pictures
invoked some envy--maybe we can get you to take a trip with us there one day!

K2daK said...

Oh the f-bomb, gotta love them...that used to be my favorite word in the whole world, I used it all the time for about 5-7 years. It is amazing what a kid can do to change your ways! I think you handled that great. Now come to my room and deal with my 2 four year olds that think EVERYTHING is so funny when even when you are getting on to them...I am thinking that maybe the Ms. E that is a little smart might come out.