I spend my days practicing to be a housewife, which entails vacuuming, laundry, grocery shopping, meal preparing, playing with the kitties, diddling around on the internets and watching Kathy Griffin on Bravo. Sometimes, I help my sister with her new baby but she’s spending all of August on the Cape (lucky youknowhat).
I also have homework to do for the AP Institute at Manhattan College, which begins on Monday. I’m almost finished.
My birthday was on the 22nd. I didn’t do much, just dinner at Jake’s Steakhouse with my ginormous family (and they weren’t even all in attendance!) and two friends. On August 5th, I’m having a big joint birthday picnic in Van Cortlandt Park (Vannie) with my maid of honor’s little sister. Let me know if you want to join us but you have to bring me a birthday present.
I went to the beach in Dirty Jerz with some nurse friends of mine. I got sunburned on my back and I still can’t get my legs to be as dark as my arms. Crap.
Currently, I am on Cape Cod. We left super early on Friday morning and made it to Eastham in record time with no traffic (that was a first for me!).
Update:
Well, folks…it appears that we are in for another bout of rain
tomorrow which would make a picnic not so fun! In the event that it
does rain, Julie and I have picked a rain location.
The Emerald Inn
205 Columbus Avenue, btw 69th and 70th.
If you get there by 7, you can watch Jeopardy!
Closest train: 1 train to 66th street.
Same time! 6pm! (Even if the rain stops before 6, we can assume the
park will be wet and whatnot…)
See you tomorrow, rain or shine!!!
Kelly’s sojourn in Turkey has come to an end. Currently, she is galivanting around Europe with her boyfriend, then she returns stateside. Julie and I have planned a homecoming picnic for her, which Kelly may or may not know about! We hope you can make it!
Friday, July 13 at 6pm
Central Park, on the Great Lawn, near the Delacorte Theatre
Please bring a dish or snack to share!
I try to stay away from personal stuff on this blog but a new Farm Bill is up for vote soon and I want to get the word out about organics. I don’t know how much you know about organic food but I’ve made a move towards buying organic food as much as possible even though it can get expensive. I’m willing to pay more for food that doesn’t harbor nasty chemicals, that doesn’t warp the body’s natural development, that doesn’t screw with my hormones. I know that when I have kids, they will only be eating organic food. I don’t want my kids hitting puberty early, developing at age 11 or 12 like so many of the kids I teach. There really is a tremendous difference in the way kids look now and the way kids looked even as little as 20 years ago. Have you ever seen a teenager and remarked to yourself, “wow…I didn’t have hips like that when I was 13,” or “wow…I didn’t have muscles like that when I was 12?” It’s because all the chemicals in meat, dairy and produce cause kids to develop earlier and quicker. It’s scary!
In any case, the new Farm Bill has a provision that will make it easier for small organic farms to survive and get their products on the market. On the left is a link to a petition to “Grow Organic,” meaning just organic food itself but to help the organic food industry get a larger share of the market.
My friend Tim has been involved with NYSEC and the Standing Committee on Teacher Inquiry for a while now. The NYSEC conference this year coincides with the NCTE convention being held in New York City in November. Check out NYSEC’s blog, The Teacher Research Blog.
Link: The Teacher Research Blog.
Kelly’s sojourn in Turkey has come to an end. Currently, she is galivanting around Europe with her boyfriend, then she returns stateside. Julie and I have planned a homecoming picnic for her, which Kelly may or may not know about! We hope you can make it!
Friday, July 13 at 6pm
Central Park, on the Great Lawn, near the Delacorte Theatre
Please bring a dish or snack to share!
I finished reading Tovani’s book tonight and I have many pages tabbed for future reference. First, let me say that I was surprised by the last chapter. She closes the book by describing a typical day in her classroom. I was just under the impression that she taught at a “good school.” Don’t ask me why. But in the last chapter, she describes a “urination incident,” a student who has been kicked out of her third foster home and so on. Why is this important, you may ask? It matters to me that she uses her strategies and techniques in a school that is more like mine than some rich, suburban school. She deals with the same distractions, the same constraints on time, the same disciplinary issues. In many ways, it makes her work more valid and relevant, for me, anyway. (It still bugs me though, that she has time to travel all over the place, visiting schools…how does she do that? She is obviously not a regular classroom teacher but she still teaches special reading workshop classes and stuff…)
I think new and veteran teachers alike will find the appendix useful, which contains the various forms that Tovani uses to help her kids practice and use strategies. All in all, it was a great book to read as I think about planning for 9th grade, and 9th grade Ramp-Up. I highly recommend adding it to your professional library.
