2010

2012

2012-01-02T20:47:00.001-07:00

http://threesixtysix2012.blogspot.com/

2011

2011-01-04T01:48:00.002-07:00

Round 3 of my yearly blog is up and beautiful.

Join me again, and this time, talk back. Silent readership is like no readership.

http://threesixtyfive2011.blogspot.com/

July 27, 2010

2010-07-27T20:38:00.001-06:00

Reading (Link) of the Day:
The System
Being Productive

Daily Rituals.

Make a pot of coffee.
Pour coffee into cup.
Set cup of coffee down.
Refill cup with coffee.
Write for 8 hours interrupted with various clients and preparation for clients.
Make another pot of coffee.
Read email & drink coffee.
Gloss RSS feeds.
Read comics.
Read to the children.
Watch old Top Gear episodes.
Fall asleep holding coffee.

June 30 2010

2010-06-30T23:38:00.002-06:00

Word of the Day:
Coffee.

My pot of coffee was postponed by my son dumping Biology Day all over the kitchen floor when he tipped the shelf over.
The coffee grinder dial refused to stay put. I need a new coffee grinder.
Making coffee made me late to work.
I won a coffee-flavored contest.
It smelled like coffee when we left the programming room at the library. My student and I said so at the same time.
Coffee house for knit night tonight.

June 7 2010

2010-06-07T16:49:00.004-06:00

Teaching Link of the Day:

Biology Day

Adventure of the Day:

First day of Summer School with my One-Room Schoolhouse:

1 kindergarten girl, 2 boys, 2 3rd grade girls, 2 4th grade boys, 1 5th grade boy, 1 6th grade girl, 1 8th grade girl.

Thoughts of the Day:

Some supplies are better off distributed at the time of the activity and not in individual's boxes.

Boxes should be better labeled with names and such.

I burned my hand on a pan on the stove cooking the agar for the bacteria cultures. Review kitchen safety with students doing kitchen projects.

4 cups of water to 4 tbs agar is WAY too much for 14 petri dishes. I recommend 1/2 cup to 1/2 tbs per 10 dishes. I put cherries and apples from lunch into the remaining gelling agar and it's kind of bland--much better with lime juice or something under it. Texture is better than Jello.

Room fans and paper do not mix.

Long rolls of paper across the table are awesome for students to do group projects.

Cheek cultures are best taken when kids are in a line and things are prelabeled.

Prelabel stuff. It may get the younger kids to learn how to spell their name, but reduce their workload on the other end, then.

Have lots and lots of water available. Juice is nice but not as effective as water. Set your own cup somewhere where you will remember its location, and somewhere between workplaces so you can grab a drink as you go by.

Letting the older kids debate something as simple as "What makes it alive?" is good enough to keep them busy while you work with the littlest ones on name writing, and giving the littlest ones some rulers and having them trace the rulers and "measure" things is enough to keep them busy while you join the discussion.

If you have a one-room schoolhouse planned for any reason, do not expect to stop moving for the duration.

Remember to ask the quieter kids to answer specific questions sometimes instead of just throw questions out there.

I do not want to run a classroom for a living.

I had fun. I can't wait until next week.

June 4 2010

2010-06-06T23:45:00.002-06:00

Teaching Link of the Day
Scripps Spelling Bee

As we have no television, we went to a family member's house for the Spelling Bee. My daughter--an avid reader reading at 2x her age level--is a mediocre speller. She doesn't find it interesting, or particularly useful. She did not want to watch the Bee. Then the ten kids walked on stage--kids! She was intrigued. The live show and the profiles of the spellers kept her spellbound for the entirety. She was breathless as the timer counted down, and when they got it right (she read the letters at the bottom of the screen) she jumped and clapped and sighed in relief, and when they got it wrong, she was bummed. Maybe she will want to study for Spelling Bee 2016 after all.

June 2 2010

2010-06-02T13:30:00.002-06:00

Thought of the Day

The following is an article I wrote for the personal finance blog right about the time I stopped writing for them. I never submitted it and it's never been published. I've been hoarding this article for a year, and it's time to let it out into the world. Unfortunately, the topic of the post is as relevant today as it was a whole year ago. Oy!

It's a monster out there. I have created a monster, just for the sake of frugality, of keeping a few extra dollars in my own pocket, I now have something I can barely face. When I must, and I know that day will come, I will dread it.

The story goes something like this: My husband hates recycling. I've been trying for years to turn recycling into something that is natural not only for me but for him. Different bins, different locations, different methods. Certain things we recycle and certain things we don't. I manage to keep up after him, but it's still an ever-present thing.

About a year ago a coupon book came in the mail advertising five cents more a pound for aluminum. This peaked his interest and gave us some direction. It's pretty easy to drive some aluminum cans to a place not a whole mile away. We started saving our aluminum. Instead of hauling it to the curb with the recycling we have to pay to have picked up, we figured we could offset that cost by taking the aluminum downtown. It turns out, we are not very prompt people. Our pile grew. We added to that the full bag of crushed cans my mother-in-law accumulates in a month. And our aunt's aluminum. Bags came home and overflowed a box. A big, wooden box.

One day I loaded up the car to take them down to the metal recycling place. Before I took off, I decided to call around and make sure the coupon which came in every coupon book was the best deal. It wasn't, and the recycling place with the best deal wasn't open that day. So I waited. The next day was not convenient. Nor the next. Then the kids and I went (in the car without the aluminum, the seats in that car were all taken) to the recycling center for a field trip. I learned that the aluminum prices are greater during the winter. I came home and removed the cans so we could use the car again, and waited for winter.

Unfortunately, with winter came snow, and buried my bags of cans. As spring approached, I was faced with a big, wet pile of aluminum cans. All for a few cents a pound more, I'll have to spend several hours of a day to rebag, dump, and reload all my cans.

Is it really a small price to pay? Is it worth it?

I start to wonder --as the idea of going out there and "taking care" of my aluminum recycling haunts me-- if there are more things I am doing for the sake of saving money that are really just causing me stress and extra work. It is not pleasant to hoard. What is it? My quiet desperation to revive my xeriscape and kill my weeds every summer? The piano that isn't tuned because I don't own the tools? The sacks of things to fix in my basement because throwing them away and replacing them is out of the question?

It would not cost me any more to put the cans on the curb with the rest of the recycling, but it will cost me time and gas to load them up and drive them down.

Tomorrow is recycling day. I can't...let...go...

June 1 2010

2010-06-01T00:15:00.000-06:00

Teaching Link of the Day: National Summer Learning Association (formerly, National Center for Summer Learning, of John Hopkins University)

From the site:

A recent Johns Hopkins study found that 65 percent of the achievement gap in reading between poor and more advantaged ninth-graders is due to unequal summer learning experiences during elementary school years. That gap makes a difference in whether students decide to drop out or go on to college.

Adventure of the Season:
Summer has arrived!

Time for new students, a new schedule, and faster progress.

I am hosting a Summer School for 10 family and friends. It is a one-room schoolhouse, K-8th grade, cross-curriculum, immersive design. It is 3 hours one day a week. Each week's day has a theme, with each day contributing to the development of the others as well as proving independent development. (It's also free!)

The 10 week curriculum looks something like this:
Biology Day
Hammer Day
Park Physics Day
Magnetism and Electricity
Water Day
Fire Day
Rock Day
Lego Day
Paper Day
Uncle Remus Day

For details on the curriculum for each day, tune in every Monday starting June 7 through August 16. I'm not sure if I'll post on the day of school, the day before, or the day after, but I'll include assessments of the activities and the experience of the schoolhouse design, which I've never done before.

In addition, I have six signed contracts, three pending contracts, two potential contracts, and three potential call-backs. That makes 14 potential students by the end of the summer. I expect to be quite busy!

Plus:
10-15 hours/ week on medical advertising copy writing/editing
Homeschooling my own children, the kindergartner learning to read, write, and perform sums and the elder learning American History and multiple-digit sums and preparing her end-of-year train project.

Random Fact of the Day:
National Summer Learning Day is Monday, June 21. This is Park Physics Day. I'll be registering this event, and any additional attendees are welcome. Contact me for details.

May 31 2010

2010-05-31T16:51:00.000-06:00

Thought of the Day
Courtesy of XKCD

(Hover over pic for original title text)

My definition?: A nerd is a well-rounded geek. A geek is someone versed in a particular field or set of related fields.

Hence, I was always a band geek, a lit geek, a math geek, an internet geek, a grammar geek, a chemistry geek, a biology geek, and I always ended up at a table alone because of it, being that I never shut up about anything because there wasn't a topic I could stay on for long or that would stump me, making me Queen Nerd, as my mother called me, or "The Biggest Purple One In The Box" as my sister called me, or "The Annoying One" as everyone else called me.

I'm careful to distinguish between Geek and Nerd. Geeks don't know as much, but are invaluable in furthering my own knowledge.

May 28 2010

2010-05-28T14:10:00.000-06:00

Thought of the Day

The interwebs are buzzing about Facebook: May 31 is Quit Facebook Day, apparently.

A few thoughts:

Being On Facebook:
If you spend more time on Facebook than you do in front of the TV, kudos. You have more of a social life than the couch-potato generation. I like to see social web-works grow and TV shows get the boot. People talking to people is awesome.

Facebook Privacy:
If you think Facebook has privacy issues, maybe it's you. You choose what you post on Facebook. If it's private, keep it to an email. If it's okay to be public, list it. Just because Facebook asks you to fill out a field does not mean you have to type something into it.

If you are worried about Applications sharing your information, don't use the applications. How many people have the Snowball Fight app still? It's the middle of May, and Snowball Fight is using your information for whatever it wants, because you said it could. Weigh fun against privacy, please.

If you insist on listing things and using applications, learn to adjust your privacy settings. Who cares what the default is? I don't even know any more. Every time I log in I check the privacy settings to make sure it is doing what I want it to be doing. If you're a parent of a minor, do it for your kids.

Photographs and Privacy:
Speaking of parents of minors, why post pictures of your children on Facebook? (or MySpace, or anywhere?) Every picture of my children I have is locked up for limited visibility, or of the back of their heads. Don't jeopardize your children's future privacy for your own fun and entertainment. If a friend of mine posts a picture of my kids, I make sure I'm not tagged on the photo, so that no one can see that monster belongs to me anyway.

Most people don't look at pictures of your kids, anyway. Or of your drunk nights out. People look at what their interested in: If they haven't seen you in ages, they want to see how wealthy you are, what's your car? your house? the interior of your house? your job? Sometimes people respond to shock value, like "That's a BIG dog!" or "You let your kids do WHAT?" They also like to reminisce, "That picture was 20 years ago! I can't believe you still have that!" (which I'm not sure why that is so unbelievable. People are pack rats.)
The Internet and Privacy:
When was the last time you did a websearch for yourself? What information about you is available from other sources? Did you set up a Yahoo! profile page some time ago and have forgotten? Did you know that anybody can look at county records of your house? How about online newspapers: have you ever been quoted, have a marriage, birth, or death listing for you or your family? Had a picture printed? All that is available online, too. And in libraries. Ever have a landline? Most landline numbers and their owners from the past 10 years or so can be found online.

And all of that is for free. If I really wanted to, I could find out much, much more about you by dropping a bit of cash.

And that's only just the start of a search. If someone were after your children, they could use county records of where you live to determine where your child goes to school, and then the school website to find out when school is in session. They could even find out what the names of the teachers your children have, having found their birth announcements in the newspaper online and knowing their likely age and grade.

Are you afraid?
Are you afraid of what people can find out about you from your Facebook page? I've determined a girlfriend of a friend had still been talking to her ex fiance. I've determined where's she'd likely to be on a Thursday night between 6 and 10. I knew what income bracket her family was in, her graduation year, the school she was attending and a narrow field of likely classes she'd be in. And that was before I ever met her. How? Because she didn't take control of her own information. She let it all hang out.

Are you afraid of what people can find out about you from the Internet? I've found a friend I haven't seen in 12 years, know when he got married, that his wife won the raffle at a church, and that he works somewhere that gave him an employer-based email account. I know where he lives, what his phone number is, his wife's name, and his email address. He has no internet presence, no social networking. It wouldn't be his thing.

I don't hack, I just search savvy. The internet makes the world a small, small place, and all your friends a little creepier.

Some Links:
Get your Facebook Privacy Back: ReclaimPrivacy.org
The Mesa County Assessor's Office webpage: Online search for properties and their owners
Simple place to type your name and see what comes up: Search
Mesa County School District: Listings of all the schools, hours of operation, and links to teacher pages
Mesa State College Student Directory: Search
Simple phone book search: SuperPages

May 26 2010

2010-05-26T23:25:00.000-06:00

Show of the Day:
*Caution Spoilers*

It's over, and it was a bit odd, kinda hokey, but I loved the montages. They made me tear up. If anyone wants a synopsis of LOST, they could watch this one episode. It said everything.

Anyway. Another good show bites the dust and I'll have no more story to look forward to. Where did the pilot end up? What happened when the plane got off the island? What did Hurly and Ben have to face? Who was next? Why did Desmond know? Why did Juliet say that the bomb worked, that they got off the island? And what was ABC thinking when they let this be the last season? Eh, at least it wasn't another Firefly.

Also, I want to make thorough fun of everyone who watched this show one week at a time. What were you THINKING? Suck it up for a summer and get the DVD so you can watch every episode commercial free and in marathon until your brain turns to mush. In short, I am very happy never to have seen an episode of LOST at its original airdate. We watched this last season on Hulu to avoid being spoiled on accident.

May 22 2010

2010-05-22T23:00:00.001-06:00

Thought of the Day:
"The Pledge of Allegiance, a debate in small bites."

Pledge History: Written by the NEA's* chairman for the 400-ennial celebration of Columbus Day 1892.
I say: For the nation's schoolkids to feel patriotic for the European's hostile takeover of the continent. Great note for the pledge to start on.

*NEA: National Educational Association

Part 2 Pledge History: The original 1892 wording was "I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." Oct 1892 "to" was added between "to my Flag and ^ the Republic."
I say: I'm a linguist, and I can't find purpose for that second "to," unless we're trying to separate the Flag from the Republic.

Part 3 Pledge History: "My" changed to "To" and "Of the United States of America" in 1924 because the American Legion and the DAR* thought it was better.
I say: I like to think of it as MY flag. Personally patriotic. But being specific of which flag is good. Specificity is good.

*Daughters of the American Revolution

Part 4 Pledge History:The Knights of Columbus, a Catholic fraternal benefit society, campaigned for the 'under God' addition to the pledge, with no comma separation from the 'one nation', making our patriotic symbol a prayer. This passed in 1952, during the Cold War, the same year we exploded our first H-bomb.
I say: Congress in 1952 must have thought God likes H-bombs.

Part 5 Pledge History: The current pledge is recited "I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands: one Nation under God, indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all."
I say: Do we really need to be redundant naming the country of the flag and then again our allegiance to the Republic? And do we really need to continue to suggest our nation can (could, tried to) disband by saying it is "indivisible?"

Part 6 Pledge History: A Republic is generally defined as "not a monarchy," or more specifically, "governed by the impact of (at least some) of the people."
I say: How many people who recite this pledge can name the congressperson partly responsible for 1 of 3 parts of every national law's passage? How many people vote for anything other than President, such as those people who govern us? Why is the President treated as a king?

Part 7 Pledge History: "I pledge allegiance to the Flag..."
I say: Why are we allies with a FLAG, a symbol, an inanimate object, something that is not immutable, as we've seen over the past 234 years, where we've added 37 more stars to it? What if they've added a star to the flag since the last time I said the pledge? (ask people since Utah, 1896) Do I suddenly become UNallegiant? What is it really that deserves my allegiance?

Part 8 Pledge History: Prior to 1892, a philosopher argued that American political tradition was built on 'equality, liberty and justice for all'. The word "equality" was left out of the pledge because some NEA members were against equality for women and African-Americans.
I say: Every day our pledge stands by that bigotry.

Part 9 Pledge History:The pledge has changed. The pledge is likely to change again.
I say: "I pledge allegiance to the United States of America and to the servicemembers who fight beneath its Flag for Equality, Liberty, and Justice for all." I left out God re: equality for religious choice. I left out Republic and Nation re: no need to be redundant (USA). I left out indivisible re: again, redundant (United). I added equality. I added mention of those people that keep this a Republic. I shifted allegiance to the Nation, not a symbol. I expanded the realm of "for all." I am an ally of my nation and of the people fighting for which it stands. That is what I pledge.

What is your suggested modern pledge?

Questions View Results

May 14 2010

2010-05-14T15:34:00.000-06:00

Garden of the Day:

More on rescuing your plants from pests: ReNest

We had four freezing days in two weeks after we put our garden in.
We used bed sheets (vegetable bed--ha ha!) and luminaries to keep them warm enough to survive.

May 10 2010

2010-05-10T22:59:00.000-06:00

When really bad things happen to my friends
people who are close to me
I feel really, really terrible.

Everyone is a piece of me
and their pain is my pain
and it's weird.

People are used to living isolated
with their pain and their fears
while the world spins around them.

I am not that way.
I am not much without my friends.
I am just a bit. A little bit.

May 9 2010

2010-05-09T23:04:00.000-06:00

I want to share all the things about today
But I don't have pictures so you will just have to imagine it all with me:

I hosted Mother's Day here at my house,
with 10 people I re-arranged the tables and chairs in my house to fit everyone
with the kids they sorted the rest of the toys I found hiding behind the bed
with Flyin' Roosters or Hooters as previous suggestions I had Husband barbecue up some wings
and concoct some buffalo sauces
with his delight in all things hot sauce, he barbecued up some crab legs
I sliced the rabbit food
I served on my purple place mats from our wedding
with red napkins from christmas, or maroon napkins from the matching set that was GiGi's (another mother we miss)
and on yellow plates handed down from Granny
The salad was fruit: strawberry, banana, orange, pear and mango. I chopped up what I had around.
I set out chips and salsa while we were waiting. We decided the salsa was not spicy.
We ate so much food
The buffalo sauce was decided to also be not hot
but it burned my lips and made my nose run and definitely made me happy
Everyone was stuffed
Only the kids and I ate the ice cream cake leftover from my birthday for dessert. Everyone else stayed stuffed.
My son got in trouble for throwing things.
My daughter got in trouble for not minding her own business.
My nephew decided a dark, long-sleeved shirt would suffice in the heat of the afternoon, in the sun.
My niece played guitar. And got antsy. And played guitar some more.
My husband cooked food and I prepped the other dishes and the table.
My mother-in-law brought me a hen-and-chicks.
My sister-in-law made that ice cream cake, which is the most awesome ice-cream cake ever imagined.
My brother-in-law wore a shirt that was not black.
My aunt-in-law gave out hugs from her daughter on the East Coast who called during dinner.

When things wound down the kids and I ended with a game of bingo and the adults discussed music and parts of music.
Then I sat down and uploaded pictures for my own mom.

As lemons for the crab dripped down my scraped knuckles and cracked calluses and scratched hands
and as oranges refused to be removed from their peels so I ate them
and as the knife sliced through banana in a mocking "this is overkill" kind of way
and the pit of the mango proved a formidable foe

the one person I was not prepping for was my own mom
I only get one, I only have one, and whether or not anyone actually remembers Mother's Day for anything other than florists' deliveries and stamped and wrapped card stock from Hallmark, she has made all the difference

and as I caption all the pictures as I upload them and after I load them and send her the email, after she has gone to bed, I'm sure
I see the faces of the creatures that gave me that title, the name "Mom"
as they evolve over the course of a year in one slideshow
and know that I am the only mom they get, too
their own mom
and whether anyone remembers Mother's Day as something more than giving mom a nap or a pedicure,
I get to make a difference

April 29 2010

2010-04-29T04:38:00.000-06:00

Thought of the Day:

For a restful night's sleep, don't break this rule

A) never accept a client you had a hard time working with before because they complained about your rates, back when your rates were half what they are now, even for barter

B) especially if they expect you to cut your old rate in half for one of their own clients which you will be working for at the complaining client's house
C) instead, refer them to someone who either doesn't know what their work is worth, someone whose work is worth a quarter of your rate, someone so starved for work they don't care what they get paid, or someone who doesn't do this for a living.

posted after 2 hours and 40 minutes of lying awake in bed agonizing over how the meeting with my complaining client's client will go as they learn that there is no way I am improving the quality of life for less than what they pay for childcare. I am not a babysitter. Why do people think they can pay tutors what I pay my niece to watch my kids?!

April 18 2010

2010-04-26T09:41:00.000-06:00

According to all my lovable Facebook friends, this is the weekend for bubbles. An extraordinary number of friends have chosen to update about bubbles this week, friends that don't know each other and live on opposite sides of the continent, friends of different backgrounds and with different life paths. Today I celebrate the universality of bubbles.

April 16 2010

2010-04-16T17:03:00.000-06:00

Teaching Link of the Day: Crossword Puzzle Generator

April 8 2010

2010-04-08T17:58:00.000-06:00

Thursday Bus
5 am
Drive to airport in Nashville after eating a muffin and drinking a coffee and an orange juice.
Missed the car return lane (who can read at that time of morning? Use pictures! Graphics! Logos!)
Got it the second time around
Infernal beeping at the gate: 45 minutes of 2-toned beeps even the security guards couldn't turn off--another airline guy did it.
Load the plane, sitting next to a candidate for a job at the Christian Sports Camp in Durango
She didn't like sitting in front of toddlers so she moved.
I didn't mind, but I didn't sleep much, either.
Landed early, and waited on the tarmac.
I couldn't wait to get off the plane. I started to ache.
Off the plane and down to baggage claim
where I was the baggage, since I hadn't brought any and that was where my ride was claiming me
--my scrubby ride, with his pseudo daughter, his girlfriend's (I guess she's his girlfriend) daughter
Through Denver to the bus station
And a lovely walk with language of social mischief (like mooning the camera at a model's shoot in the park) after I bought my ticket
My seat on the bus was next to a baggageless, pistachio eating gentleman with a t-shirt over his long-sleeved shirt and a scrubby days-on-the-road face topped with a ball cap.
He was on his way to San Bernardino.
We looked at the bus station in Idaho Springs where no one got on.
Stops like that slow us down.
Then the bus broke down.
Proper woosh and more infernal beeping.
The driver pulled over and got out.
And in. And out. And in.
And turned the bus off. And on. And off.
At least when he turned the bus off, the beeping stopped, and when he decided he was having a smoke, he left the bus and the beeping off.
Then he told us we would be there a while and we could get off it we wanted.
I wanted.
I had wanted to make a snowman since we'd stopped.
I had wanted to throw snowballs since I started aching from all the sitting.
So I went.
And I built a snowball but all my fight offers were declined.
So I built a snowman.
I put a chain belt on him.
I put a chunk of wood as his arm, and a plastic, ridged tube as the other arm.
I hunted for a hat.
I found a newspaper to fold into a hat.
But by then he was wearing a hubcap. The gentleman in the baseball cap going to San Bernardino had helped.
My snowman was cheerful.
I marked his location on my garmin.
I followed the footprints across the field and up the hill to watch the interstate traffic with the others who had preceded me.
One man had lost his phone tromping through the snow.
He found it on his way back to look for it. Just *plop* in the snow. He must have just dropped it.
The snow had made my fingers cold. I kept rubbing my hands together.
Someone headed down the hill with a guitar. He had been odd. He was still odd. He had bemoaned not getting off at that stop that was useless. He should have gotten off there.
Some others took their luggage off the truck. They headed up hill. Hitchhiking. To the nearest ski town.
Some others took their luggage off the truck. A friend came to get them. For skiing.
The rest of us took our luggage off the truck after the mechanic (who finally arrived) said he couldn't guarantee the air brakes would work for the rest of the trip.
A new bus came. The hitchhiking passengers left us with more sitting room.
We didn't need to stop in Frisco for a smoke break. We were 5 hours behind schedule.
The boy behind me would get to his destination just before 9 am if there were no more delays, said my garmin.
He said good, he was getting off leave from the navy base where he worked on a nuclear reactor. He would get in trouble if he wasn't there by 9.
I said good, because nuclear reactors aren't something you should be willing to allow people to be late to work for.
(Then I thought of the price for Maggie Simpson, and the corresponding beep.)
In Glenwood Canyon we passed the hole in the highway where the rockslide took out a chunk of asphalt the size of my living room. We could see in it while they worked on it. Buses are tall that way.
We stopped for food in Glenwood Springs where no one saw the fast food place but me, and no one listened while I announced it, and everyone complained that I had a burger and they had convenience store food.
Then I ate my burger and wished I had potato chips.
Then it got dark. I told the girl sitting across from me who I gave my apple to that I would wake her in Clifton to call her ride.
Then I tried to sleep. Then we got to Clifton. Then woke her. Then I called my ride.
Then I got off the bus and was picked up and then I picked up my kids and went home to bed with a kid nestled on each shoulder.
I had been gone a long time.

April 7 2010

2010-04-07T17:58:00.000-06:00

Word of the Day:
Irony of Fate - The concept that the Gods, Fates, etc. are toying with humans for amusement by using irony.

I promise, I was amused.

I know you don't know the story, but I'm writing it and if it publishes--when it publishes (staying optimistic) I'll publish it for you. I fully went looking for a good story, but the story couldn't have been more perfect if I had fictionalized the entire event. It just happened as a good story.

March 21 2010

2010-03-21T23:43:00.000-06:00

Garden of the Day:

Worms!
Weeded these out of my garden, using a shovel:
And found so many of these! The best year of worms in my garden--ever.

Game of the Day:

Kid Quote of the Day:

My five-year-old, covered in dirt from playing outside, comes in and sits down next to me and waits for a break in the conversation. When addressed, he didn't even stall or stutter:

"What is the name of a six-cornered shape?"

March 19 2010

2010-03-19T12:44:00.000-06:00

Yay gardening!

New label:
Garden of the Day (to include my myriad adventures in gardening)
How to Start a Garden in Western Colorado

Choosing land and plants
First, you call 811 and have them mark where the gas lines or anything else are so you don't dig into them on accident.

Then pick a plot of land. Watch your yard and potential land plots over the course of the day and determine sunlight patterns.

Design the garden, thinking of what you'd like to grow. EVERYTHING grows here, except citrus, so you can have a good variety. For ideas, go to the nursery--my favorite is Bookcliff Gardens. As you design, stand at your plot of land and say, "here we'll put this, and here and here" and walk between your plants as if you are harvesting. This way, you can visualize how close your plants need to be practically, and how many plants and of what types you'll want. Include in your design pathways for harvest.

Some things we've learned about plants:
Tomatoes are great volunteers. If you let what grows late freeze and rot in the ground over winter, you will get tomatoes the next year and will not need to buy. However, they are unpredictable in location, so either transplant after they start sprouting, or maintain a corner for perpetual tomatoes.

One brussels sprout plant is enough. It grows a kabillion and two sprouts. Harvest often.

One artichoke plant will yield four or five flowers to eat, and you may get more than one at once, so love artichokes.

Bell peppers are very happy here. I recommend several colors.

Spicy pepper plants grow peppers abundantly. They get spicier in hotter, drier environments. Choose carefully, or have lots of spicy-loving friends. Also, keep the pets away.

Tomatillos will strangle your other plants, so prune early. Also, without pruning they don't produce much.

A young cherry tree will yield a couple of cherries a year the first few years.

Mint is not as robust as it has been touted when a dog gets after it shortly after planting.

Lemon oregano is very very hardy, likes harsh sunlight, and is a perennial.

Potatoes need no special dirt. Just put them under.

Dirt, Rock, and Water

Dirt is infertile, mostly mineral content, but finer than sand. Topsoil is decomposed organic matter and minerals. You can get mulches which are all decomposed organic matter, but I stick with manure because it both fertilizes and provides additional decomposed organics.

Dig the dirt/soil out of the plot, about 8 to 12 inches. Line the bottom of the plot with rock. Cover with a mix of dirt, topsoil, and manure. Since this is the first gardening, you won't need to till. Next year, you'll weed and till because your dirt is where you want it. If you are going to line/rock your walkways, now is the time. Do not put rocks over your good soil, but instead fill your walkways with infertile dirt or rock. That way you're not wasting your grow dirt and you don't grow where you want to be walking.

All that rock in your garden is essential in this climate. Water will puddle in the walkways and seep into the soil as the soil dries out. It will also puddle in the rock at the bottom. You can encourage water retention by lining under the bedrock with landscaping fabric, or putting landscaping fabric on the top with holes for the plants. I do not put fabric on the top because weeds grow through it (anyway) and when I try to remove them, the fabric pulls on the plants I want to keep.

When you water, soak low and at night, especially if it is a high sunlight area. Watering the leaves during the sunny hours will keep them from frying, and they'll continue to shield your fruit. Misters work best for the daytime water, using less water and encouraging the cooling effects of evaporation.

Putting the Plants in the Ground

Plant anywhere between March and July, though giving the orchards a call and finding out if they expect an early winter will help you decide to plant or not to plant later in the summer. In a normal year, the growing season lasts until Halloween, and even later for hardy, frost-proof plants. (A brussels sprout will withstand a mild freeze that will kill most everything else.)

It is better to underbuy than to have too many plants, so buy the minimum number of plants you think will fit in your garden. Put them in the ground the day you buy them, or the next morning if it is early spring (give them a bit to get used to the ground before shocking them with a colder night).

You can read the tags about optimum spacing, but in this climate, closer is better. I have also reduced the height of the mounds I put my plants atop of: drainage away from the stems is still important, but most plants don't have the root network to reach where the water does end up draining to.

Leaving your plants unattended

If you go out of town, or on vacation, your plants will need some love. Timer sprinklers are okay, but they will water even if it rains, and can freeze if we get a freak temperature drop, which is not totally impossible in this climate. I recommend getting two or three neighbors, friends, or family and arrange they drop by and mist in the hottest weather or soak in the evening, and divvy up the responsibility so that if one becomes unreliable, your plants are still getting the love they need.

If it is harvest season and you go out of town, have someone pick stuff they want. A quick lesson is in order if they have no experience: things like twisting tomatoes instead of pulling straight down, and that artichokes need scissors. There are also people out there that don't know what an ear of corn looks like on the plant, though you will likely not find them in this community. The point is, being obvious never killed a garden.

Bugs and other Pests

Ladybugs love marigolds and eat aphids, so plant marigolds near your tomatoes. It is not an option. Your tomatoes will love you. Dispensing with aphids is a horrid matter.

Some plants will get bugs you will need to wash off, so use a mild soap like Ivory with water, about a 2% solution, and spray them down. A Miracle-Gro mixing bottle that fits on the hose works well because you have pressure, or a plain spray bottle, like those for cleaners. The dead bugs may remain, just hose them off or wipe down the plant.

Rabbits, deer, dogs, cats, and other creatures like gardens because they are cool and have tasty things. A small fence is in order, and maybe a pellet gun depending on the attitude of the cat you're trying to repel. (That part was a joke.) I have no idea how to keep cats out, except with my dog, who digs holes in my garden. Maybe turning on the mister might scare the crud out of them. I would actually love to see a deer in my yard, so I haven't tried to repel them specifically. If you get mice, don't worry: the owls will come after them.

Bees! If you are putting in flowering plants, you will need bees, and will invariably get them. Check with your neighbors if they are not obviously attracting the creatures themselves because they will need to know you are inviting bees into the neighborhood, especially if they are allergic.

Wasps will also come. Keep an eye on any posts, rails, decks, overhangs, garages, and chairs in the vicinity because they will set up housekeeping near your garden. It is, again, a cool supply of water and food.

Molds: If you notice your watering cycle keeps your garden from drying out ever, you will need to inspect your plants and the surface of the dirt around them for molds. If you get them, wash them with your soap solution and let the garden dry out as best you can. You can also dig them up and move them. Molds are the reason I do not use wood mulches in my vegetables, and have a fair amount of infertile dirt mixed in.

Black ants can be ecologically removed with Borax: like a seagull eating alka-seltzer, the Borax expands, and any that is left will not harm your plants.

Things you will need

A hose that will reach your garden from your spigot.
A mister head and a soaker head, or one that does both, and does it unattended (no squeeze handles)
A small shovel for the more wicked weeds
A large shovel for dirt moving
Pruning shears or scissors

rock
manure
dirt
topsoil
(*you don't have to buy each of these, use what you have and buy to supplement. You'll want about a 1-1-1 ratio of the grow stuff and whatever rock fits your design.)

If necessary:
Soap solution
Borax
Marigolds

optional:
landscape fabric
something to keep the dog out (or rabbits, or cats, or whatever)

Interesting...
If you have grass growing somewhere you're going to plant, and you push under the grass and plant, and water as if it were a flower bed, you'd get fruit yield. Not as good, not as long, and not as much, but you'll get food.

---------------------------
P.S. Where are the rest of my "-a-day" from March? They're on ice. I'm slowly drooling things out, as opposed to spitting it out, or even chewing it thoughtfully. It's an interesting method, not really efficient, but it is definitely How it is coming out, and when Ever

March 2 2010

2010-03-02T18:45:00.000-07:00

Reading of the Day:

Here's the challenge--my daughter reads at a soaring level above her maturity. Harry Potter, not yet. More like Hardy Boys. So...into the past where books for children were more innocent--well, not as far as the Brother's Grimm, not much innocence there-- I mean the fifties.

Random Fact of the Day:
Today's advertising work was all about the excrement. See, there's this enzyme that helps people with Cystic Fibrosis to absorb more of the fats in their diet--an essential change for their development. They can measure the fat absorption by, uh, evaluating their stools. And then there's this treatment for women with SUI: Stress Urinary Incontinence. (Oh, the google searches that will turn up my blog!) See, you don't have to live wearing pads advertised with lovely pinkness and radiant, petally pink flowers. No, you can try this treatment that will keep you from--uh--peeing a little when they laugh--a phrase that is now okay in some circles to express a level of LOL. It just disturbs me. Get fixed, girl, then you can laugh so hard your face hurts instead of peeing first. Remember when that happened? I should work in advertising. Oh wait...

March 1 2010

2010-03-01T19:17:00.000-07:00

Teaching Link of the Day:
Sketching Lego Creations

I wrote about a Lego(R) and sketching exercise that we did last year, and this year the lego construction projects have become exponentially more complex. I've been encouraging one model a day become sketched, which increases difficulty to 3D, 2D, rounded bricks and bricks of odd shapes, internal perspectives for things like houses and drawing without grids. It's like jumping jacks for the brain.

Development of the Day:
I spent my afternoon filtering through all my pictures, downloading the newest version of Picasa, running AdAware because Picasa kept crashing, just to get an online album created with photos of the kids for the grandparents.

It took forever ...forever ...forever ...forever

But I don't have to do it again. Re: just upload them to the album when I upload them to my computer.

February 28 2010

2010-02-28T19:14:00.000-07:00

Teaching Link of the Day:
ASVAB testing
Story problems...chess timers... finding out I score off the charts... I love my job...

Food of the Day:
Fondue, with the homemade bread from the other night.

Show of the Day:
Olympic Games Closing Ceremonies

February 27 2010

2010-02-27T19:13:00.000-07:00

Craft of the Day
Today I did nothing but create...a MONSTER

Also, new tag because I make lots of different kinds of things. I'm surprised it took till now to get this tag.

February 26 2010

2010-02-26T20:37:00.000-07:00

Teaching Link of the Day
Circle the command words when you read instructions
A bit down in the instruction is a powerpoint presentation after a discussion of CUBE the question.
Sometimes it's interesting that there are actual people actually teaching the strategies that I always thought I developed on my own on the course of my education.
I never called it CUBE, but this is exactly what I do and how I do it, and what I teach, especially to students who have a terrible time minding the instructions in the first place.

Game of the Day
Assassin's Creed II

February 25 2010

2010-02-25T20:37:00.000-07:00

Teaching Link of the Day
Block Letters and Shading Geometry in 3 dimensions

It all started with Star Wars...
Letters have geometry. They are square and triangular and circular, and drawing block shading makes them prisms. When you do a lesson on art and graphic design, never neglect the technical vocabulary, the science, the math. With young children, you never know if they're interested in the lesson because they will be architects or artists.

Geometric Shapes
Light and Shadow
Perspective and Depth
Angles and Parallelism

Development of the Day
New student: How to beat the ASVAB (Armed services vocational aptitude battery)

Show of the Day
Studio 60
Food of the Day
Bread--in a bread tube.

February 24 2010

2010-02-24T20:37:00.000-07:00

Teaching Link of the Day:
Reading without spaces

Using this as an aid for a student reluctant to read out loud with confidence--or at all in some cases--allows for the curiosity of the experience to overshadow the embarrassment of mispronouncing or guessing at a word. It eliminates the student's ability to guess at a word automatically based on its features as its features have not yet been revealed--features being landmark digraphs, ending letters, vowel patterns. Logic starts to creep in to ensure that the flow of language makes sense, where when reading standard print, a student like this can ignore logic and place any word in any location based on their preconceived notion that they're wrong anyway.

So what does the ability to read text without spaces show about a reader?

With mine, it showed her reading level nearly 250% the level she has been pegged at by her intervention teachers. Yes. Two-hundred-fifty percent higher. It's all psychology.

From the link:
"The few who could read text silently without these spaces between the words, like Julius Caesar and St. Ambrose, were viewed as so extraordinary that this ability is specifically recorded in historical records."

February 23 2010

2010-02-23T20:37:00.000-07:00

Random Fact of the Day:

some things are just too fun not to share. (also, click the picture to go to OnlineSchools.com for more fun and interesting Fact posters)

Via: Online Schools

February 22 2010

2010-02-22T16:18:00.000-07:00

Teaching Link of the Day:
Using workbooks in a classroom.
One One One One

Pick one, any one. Using a workbook to teach and assess your students is not effective. You become distant from the actual process of teaching reading, pigeon-holed by the idea that you are a speaking version of the teacher--the workbook. You allow the workbook to guide your decisions.

And because of this, students appear to fail. Worse yet, they actually fail.

Food of the Day:
Chicken through a meat grinder makes great salad sandwich options. Mix with nigh on anything you'd put on your chicken and spread it on a sandwich.

P.S. I do not fail to see the irony of the meat grinder juxtoposed by the first few lines of this post on the front page.

February 21 2010

2010-02-21T22:30:00.000-07:00

Show of the Day:
I studied this screenplay in my last college class--an independent study that I wrote and implemented. These brothers are fantastic writers, and then they make movies out of what they've written. It's pretty remarkable. They can actually turn that screenplay into film. It's insane.

Wanna know something cool? The first lines of the movie are spoken by Sam Elliot. The first lines of the screenplay: "We are floating up a steep scrubby slope. We hear male voices gently singing "Tumbling Tumbleweeds" and a deep, affable, Western-accented voice--Sam Elliot's, perhaps"

And the dream sequences? woah

Adventure of the Day:
The wash was filled with water from the snowmelt and new snow accumulation. The mud on the opposing side proved to be a formidable opponent. I imagine this is exactly why we have the 4x4 van we spent all last summer upgrading into an invincible beast. Plus, my husband is a pretty intelligent driver. We survived.

Reading of the Day:
My daughter just finished the second of the Santa series. At 7, I had questioned her ability to retain her reading of text this complex, but she has proved competent. She starts the third one tomorrow. Anyone know more G or PG rated books she can read? A series is best. If only I could get her to write, she might be the next Coen.

February 20 2010

2010-02-20T22:30:00.000-07:00

Adventure of the Day
I was here, but so was a foot of 3-month-old snow plus another fresh six-to-eight inches.

You can't hear anything when you're here in the winter:
the train goes by and with the snow the sound is muffled.
There are no planes, no cars, no birds.
Snow slides off a tree branch and it makes no noise.
It begins to frighten you, after a while, the total lack of noise.
You go back into the house where you can hear a refrigerator running, the children arguing, and maybe the television or radio.
You look out the windows and enjoy the view without the oppressive silence.

I am too civilized.

Show of the Day:

Granny Square of the Day:
Being snowed in and unable to do some of the work to the practice hall or house because of the detours to prevent the roofs from caving in, I managed to use all the little scraps of yarn into one large granny square. I can't find it though, I must have left it there. I'll get a picture and post it soon. It's about 3'x3'. Pretty cool. I'll make it bigger so it will be a lovely throw.

February 19 2010

2010-02-19T22:30:00.000-07:00

Teaching Link of the Day:
Following Directions Dot to Dot
Well, almost. That's ALMOST it. Instead of translating 1 to the answer of the problem for 1, each problem has a true or false. Here, try this one:

Interestingly, neither 7-year-old I tested this on could complete the puzzle correctly on their own, and not due to lack of addition skills.

Show of the Day:

February 18 2010

2010-02-18T22:29:00.000-07:00

Teaching Link of the Day:
I got a piece of plexiglass. It's dry-erasable.
Being clear, infinitely versatile. The film on the back re-adheres without sticking to the word cards I had cut to go under the glass, instead holding them steadfastly in place. Three columns of words: noun, adjective, noun. The goal was to connect each word with another in a different column, thus organically creating very interesting metaphors and similes. Plus, it's cool to write on something big and clear. And next week, I can have something different to scribble about.

Show of the Day:
Now my kids are talking about how cool it would be to take apart and "explore" the rovers.

February 17 2010

2010-02-17T23:45:00.000-07:00

Teaching Link of the Day:
Rhyming is so not important
Truly, rhyming is an advanced skill of pattern recognition and comprehension. We've inundated ourselves in a world of rhymes to teach with--Mother Goose, Dr. Seuss--that an entire series of cognition development is being hurried, and ultimately suppressed, for some readers. Rhyming will dawn on children, but reading skills--sounding words out, comparison shopping in one's own mind for words with similar structures, roots and affixes--these must all be taught.

An astute child will more quickly notice that squid and wig share similar sounds than closet and deposit. Rhyming is a more advanced pattern. This is why we love freestyle rap, why we ponder orange and purple and silver well into adulthood, and why form poetry (sonnets, limericks, etc. ) have a special place in our hearts. (Have you noticed most limericks are raunchy?)

I repeat, rhyming just dawns on people. Like puns. It just happens. Quit forcing it on kindergartners.

Show of the Day:

I still keep saying this movie didn't make any sense. It just doesn't make any sense. It COULD make sense, but it was incredibly slow up to a point, and that point was the climax, leaving only denouement so it was over anyway, and the whole turning-point thing was vague and I didn't get what I was supposed to get at all. Just--vague.

February 16 2010

2010-02-17T00:16:00.000-07:00

Food of the Day:

Games of the Day

Albums of the Day:

Adventure of the Day:

I bet you can't guess what we did today.

February 15 2010

2010-02-16T00:46:00.000-07:00

Teaching Link of the Day:
Take Apart Party, or Teaching kids to tinker

The kids had a "talking" book with pen that teaches word preliminary reading techniques like rhyming, initial sounds, etc. It got an odd short where it would randomly start and start playing the games by itself, so I rescued the book from the electronic part. The kids watched me remove screws and slice through the contact pad that connected the plastic electronics part to the book cover. I walked away to get the tape and mend the raw edge of the book and when I returned the boy had the screwdriver and was deep in reassembly. During the course of the next few days, the toy was taken apart and put together countless times. The circuit boards were removed and inspected. Capacitors were removed, buttons dissected. "Mom, can we explore this [part of a light-up bouncy ball]?" They brought out a dead calculator and a display phone. They laid on the floor with a set of small screwdrivers and removed every part from every other part.

Album of the Day:
Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa covered by Peter Gabriel, recorded for though not included on his cover album, Scratch My Back.

February 14 2010

2010-02-15T00:25:00.000-07:00

Adventure of the Day:
Warmth! Sweatshirt and jeans, Mardi Gras is two days away, and I can finally clean my front porch and back yard. I have tomato plants untended from the early freeze/snow combination from last October. All the tumbleweeds I dreaded hacking down have dried up and been trampled by the heavy ice that the snow from January solidified into in the freeze-thaw cycle. There's still a lot frozen to the earth, but raking it should be a walk in the park compared to hacking at it all in the heat and bugginess of the fall.

Show of the Day: Stand-up funny guys.

February 13 2010

2010-02-14T00:50:00.000-07:00

Teaching Link of the Day:

Writing Transcriber

As a writing tool, this helps a reluctant writer to verify that their handwriting is legible. They get instant recognition results: if their lowercase "a" is built with a circle and a line to its right and the line is too far away, the result is a "oi" instead of an "a." If their cursive letters are disproportionate, they will see an instant mis-translation.

Games of the Day:
Roiworld: where fashion meets games--hers
Zuma--mine
Viva Pinata--his

Album of the Day:
Matched disks, organized, shelved, and cleaned the highly-used media area of my house and did not find my album. Grooveshark had it, though. I nearly put in Daredevil just to hear her.

February 12 2010

2010-02-13T00:23:00.000-07:00

Teaching Links of the Day:

Mesa County Safety Council Children's Safety Fair

From little band-aid kits and computer screen cleaners to coloring books and iron-on coloring sheets, a seat in an excavator to a seat in a cop car, a dog suit to a talking fire engine, and electrocuted hot-dogs to a tornado in a bottle, this was a fantastic way to spend an afternoon with my 5- and 7-year-olds and their 8- and 13-year old cousins. The stack of coloring books will keep them occupied for many days to come, and will also encourage continuing discussion of the safety tips and warnings we learned while we were there.

Two things topped the list of terrifying for me, the adult:

1) Stay out of large vessels of grains. You will suffocate, and struggling will only pull you in deeper, and no one is strong enough to pull you out.

2) The "don't talk to strangers" guy was horrifyingly creepy. I suspect he will crop up in my nightmares.

Album of the Day:

February 11 2010

2010-02-12T00:42:00.000-07:00

Show of the Day:
I love fashion design. I do. When I worked at Ead's News in Boulder, I oogled the fashion magazines as they rotated on and off the shelf. I collected them--the ones I could afford. My personal fashion is jeans and a t-shirt, ratty jeans, worn because they're too long over bare feet, torn at the knees into gaping holes. But to watch someone concoct a work of art with fabric, one that can be worn--or, maybe, to see someone display this work of art as they flounce down a runway...

Well anyway. Art is art, any way you cut it.

February 10 2010

2010-02-10T21:33:00.001-07:00

Granny Square of the Day:

Show of the Day:

February 9 2010

2010-02-09T23:22:00.000-07:00

Thought of the Day: If you work at home or teach at home it's probably because you like the freedom and flexibility. Don't forget that: if you want to play hooky, for goodness' sake, go skiing! Guilt-free! This is exactly why you have the job you have.

Sometimes, it's good to have that reminder.

Random Fact of the Day:
Dividing by zero is our ace in the hole.

Food of the Day: Girl Scout Cookies are in and I didn't have to sort them. She did a good job of that all on her own, post-its and total due and all. If you ordered cookies, expect them soon!

Show of the Day: I love the episode we watched today: there was no telling who the killer was until very close to the end of the show, no dramatic irony, just worried anticipation that the protagonist would be revealed to be correct, right?

February 8 2010

2010-02-08T19:25:00.000-07:00

Teaching Link of the Day:

OpenOffice Impress

Building a simple newspaper with this slideshow program is a good way to introduce brief article writing, working with computer programs, and sharing final products (audience). There is graphic design, ordering logic, and thematic coherency in building something that has a finite start and end and has a unifying color scheme.

Building a newspaper with a slideshow program requires some creativity on the teacher's part. The theme has to be kept narrow. Photographs and other graphics have to be collected either by taking pictures or finding them across the internet or from clip art catalogs like Print Shop. Actual newspapers have to be consulted for features, and the student's age has to be taken into account for the number and range of these features--a younger child may not notice the editorial column but may select a "Letters to the Editor."

Then the program has to be taught: how to save, how to add and manipulate slides, how to add content. The rest just happens. Save it as a slideshow (not as a full .ppt, which is much larger) and have the student discover ways to share their work. Occasional updates are encouraged, but not mandated, as students are just beginning to write multiple variations on a theme. Demanding periodic updates may lead a reluctant writer to believe they don't have any more ideas.

For more serious endeavors, word processor templates can be examined and altered to fit needs, and work better for print distribution.

Reading of the Day:
When I was in second grade, I was one of two members of an exclusive She-Ra and He-Man club where we rehearsed the same story line over and over, recess after recess. She found a new best friend in fourth grade, and we haven't spoken kindly to each other since. I swear, however, I spent years riding Battle cat, forth to fight the Horde--and whatever else we conjured up.

Now my kids get to watch the show and read the books. (Yes, I own one of each of these. That activity book is going for $10.00 on the collectible market.)

Show of the Day:
If you took Moore's films with the appropriate salty snacks in family-sized bags, and noticed all the dirty editing tricks everybody does to get their story to say what they want it to say, then this movie will make you happy you're smarter than most of the population who DIDN'T notice these things. If you watch this movie and are awestruck at how duped you'd been, I'm sorry for saying I'm smarter than you, but I do have a literature degree and I'm trained to examine all the tricks of the trade.

As for this movie, even its working title was "Michael Moore Hates America." The difference between "uncovering the truth" and "telling the story you want to tell" has to do with how open your mind is about the topic you're covering. Michael Wilson and Michael Moore are both guilty of telling their story instead of searching for the truth.

But that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.

February 7 2010

2010-02-07T22:54:00.000-07:00

Reading of the Day:
Taste of Home Cookbook
As a prize for selling magazines last fall for a Girl Scout fundraiser, my daughter chose among four choices of books as a reward. She--a seven year old--chose the cookbook. I was shocked to discover it was not a small, thirty- or fifty-page book of selected recipies, but instead, a full-blown assemblage of culinary variety in a five-ring notebook. It came with a Celebrations CD-rom, with party ideas from appetizers to table decorations. She spent the afternoon discovering teas and Valentine's appetizers.

Teaching Link of the Day:
The Next Great Young Chef Contest
Maybe she can cook her way to college.

February 6 2010

2010-02-07T00:07:00.000-07:00

Granny Square of the Day:
There was snow
and I was not getting out of bed
despite my alarm set for the knitting group in half an hour.
But the girl let sunlight refracted across the house from some uncovered portion of a window somewhere in the house
let sunlight in
because she wanted reprieve from the irritations of her morning-person of a brother.
He came too.
So I got up and gathered my yarns.
He came too.
Those who were not morning people stayed in bed.
There was snow
and not a single other knitter.
He played legos; I finished his sister's mittens.
He ate a blueberry muffin; I crochetted my daily square.
We came home, wearing the mittens in the snow, bellies full.
They were still sleeping.
When they got up, the snow was gone.

Show of the Day:
Wisconsin Death Trip
"Writer/Director James Marsh's first feature, WISCONSIN DEATH TRIP, is an intimate, shocking and sometimes hilarious account of the disasters that befell one small town in Wisconsin during the final decade of the 19th century. The film is inspired by Michael Lesy’s book of the same name which was first published in 1973. "

February 5 2010

2010-02-06T00:43:00.001-07:00

Granny Square of the Day:
Here's the square with the adjustments mentioned yesterday. It came out more like a candy cane, more like I expected.

Development of the Day:
Art Opening for the Members Show at the Grand Junction Center for the Arts. Two of my husband's pieces are on display and for sale--"It finds water" and "Lefty", two four-foot tall pieces of forged and welded metal.

February 4 2010

2010-02-04T22:48:00.001-07:00

Teaching Link of the Day:
Body Letters
I found an ad in an old Reader's Digest and instantly tore it out as an assignment for my children to do together in some of their self-guided school time. Their instructions were A-Z, a-z, 1-9 "exercises". They not only wore themselves out giggling, occupied an hour of their time, and used their creativity and teamwork, they stretched their muscles, fought gravity, and showed off their youthful limberness.

Granny Square of the Day:

OK! So here's the stripe experiment. It looks kind of sloppy. I have some ideas to make it better. The one on the left is the "right" side and the one on the right is the "wrong" side. I crochetted the wrong side like I knit stockinette, so that both strings were on my side of the piece when I was working on the "wrong" side rounds, and were on the other side of the piece when I was working on the "right" side rounds.

Things to note:
A--these clusters are the first clusters of each round and have no center stripe because I evaluated the distance the blue string would have to travel to get there and double back. It should be just fine to do, I just didn't do it.
B--these loops occurred every round, but the successive round engulfed them.
C--Corners are tricky. I was constantly adjusting the tension as I switched between yarns and ended up pulling the blue too tightly in these spots. It's easy to forget to wrap around it if it's not right there, and wrapping around it while it's tight pulls so that the corners are uneven.

So as for making it better, I think I can go ahead and crochet like knitting garter stitch so that every round has the yarn in back. Instead of the second stitch of the first two double stitches for each cluster being the same color as the first stitch, it will be the same color as the next stitch, so the first stripe of the cluster is pink, so the yarn on the hook is pink, the loop is pink, the catch is pink, the first stitch is pink, but the second stitch is blue. Then the second stripe is blue, so the yarn on the hook is blue (the result of the second stitch of the previous double stitch) the wrap is blue, the catch is blue, the first stitch is blue, the second is pink. Because the third stripe is the same color as the chain between clusters and the first stripe of the next cluster, all the stitches of the third stripe will be pink. I think this will straighten the colors out in each cluster so the stripe effect is less muddled.

Readings of the Day:

Below are some alliterate poems for reluctant readers. It's like the condensed Fox in Sox.

Song of the Pop-Bottlers
by Morris Bishop

Rhinoceros Stew
Mildred Luton

Potato Chips
Anthony E. Gallagher

The Man in the Onion Bed
John Ciardi

Waiters
Mary Ann Hoberman

February 3 2010

2010-02-03T19:35:00.000-07:00

Teaching Link of the Day: Brian P. Cleary
Staggering success in the world of a LD reader with How Much Can a Bare Bear Bear? led to an extensive exploration into the fun world of linguistics for children. Ys,
Reading of the Day:
Parent and Child Rights in Special Education
Appropriately light reading for during lunch between students, right?

Food of the Day:
Baked the Friendship Bread. 6 loaves. Kept one starter unbaked. More bread in 10 days.

Show of the Day:
Even Beer is Art, says I. Drink up.
"American beer and canoes" -Oscar Wilde

February 2 2010

2010-02-02T13:40:00.000-07:00

This day in History:
First Groundhog Day 1887
Though this link cites an earlier date, This Day in History is still the First Groundhog Day. That's just how it works.

Teaching Link of the Day:
Current Events
Where a million things can happen around the world but the way they affect us is through filtered-down effects of effects of effects eventually attributable to a cause, which is an effect of something else, ultimately.
Current Events, where you take a peek at one tiny moment of a timeline.

Granny Square of the Day:
Oooh pretty I changed colors in a round...I think I'll try tomorrow's completely striped thus.

Random Fact of the Day:
All founding members of the band Chicago were Sinfonians from DePaul University.

Lee D. Loughnane, Kappa Phi (DePaul) ’65
James C. Pankow, Kappa Phi (DePaul) ’66
Walter J. Parazaider, Kappa Phi (DePaul) ’64
As founding members of the rock-jazz fusion band Chicago, Lee Loughnane (trumpet), James Pankow (trombone) and Walt Parazaider (woodwinds) have been a part of the horn section of the band since its inception. Each have been writing, arranging, recording, and touring for over 40 years. Their influence has led the band to sell over 120 million albums worldwide, with 22 Gold, 18 Platinum, and 8 Multi-Platinum albums. Over the course of their career, they have charted five No. 1 albums, and have had twenty-one top ten hits.

February 1 2010

2010-02-01T13:41:00.000-07:00

Teaching Link of the Day:
Free Calendar Templates! They don't work in Openoffice, or they didn't before the updates I did. I haven't tried in the after, but if you have access to Excel then you're in business. Change the year in the top of the template, and the day and month you want to start on. For educational use only, and being that my job is all education, I am so very happy to have something that works.

Granny Square of the Day:
I wanted to try crochetting with a tiny hook and thin string. It's so..so dainty.
I noticed in the videos I watched yesterday that the instructor hooks her yarn from under, or inside her hand, while I hook it over, or from the outside. I tried her way and got some really uneven results, mostly because half the time I had forgotten to change my crochet direction. The benefit to her way is that I drop my loop less often (not a problem I had noticed before), and the benefit to mine is that I knit and purl continental, so crochetting in this pattern is natural.

Reading of the Day:
Earth, by Emile Zola
It's all about Translation. Mine was published in 1955 and translated by Ann Lindsay. Should I get the Penguin version, translated by Douglass Parmee, or should I skip it all and download it in French and find out what it really says? (Yes, I make a habit of reading books in French. It's the only connection I have with that language here in the West, though that being true I am also not as fluent as I once was.)

Below are the first two paragraphs of each version.

Vote: Lindsay's version (1) Parmee's Version (2) or skip them both and go with French (3).

See Shelfari! below, where (nearly) any novel I finish is up for grabs, just say the word. They're organized by books I've finished, books in progress, and books nearby.

January 31 2010

2010-01-31T15:55:00.000-07:00

Granny Square of the Day: Watched the tutorials over at Meet Me at Mikes while making this. I used up all the purple, white and black within inches of the ends, and had to supplement the end with a bit of variegated from yesterday.
I have decided to join all the Winter squares (Jan Feb and Dec) into one craft, all the Spring squares (Mar Apr May), all the Summer squares (Jun July Aug) and all the Fall Squares (Sept Oct Nov). In this way, all the first and all the last will be together in one, all the worst and all the best. As I am making each square independent of the other squares, it will be interesting to puzzle them together as they all have different gauges, styles, and sizes.

Reading of the Day: The newsletter said this:

Make 2010 the Year of The Book

Always wanted to read Anna Karenina? Moby Dick? Pride and Prejudice? Make this the year that you finally tackle The Book—you know, one major classic you ought to have read at some point in your life. Take it one day and one installment at a time—you can do it! Check out our Classics for inspiration.

So I did this:

01
—of—
54

The Prince

by Niccolò Machiavelli

THE PRINCE

Nicolo Machiavelli

Translated by W. K. Marriott

CHAPTER I: HOW MANY KINDS OF PRINCIPALITIES THERE ARE, AND BY WHAT MEANS THEY ARE ACQUIRED

All states, all powers, that have held and hold rule over men have been and are either republics or principalities.

Principalities are either hereditary, in which the family has been long established; or they are new.

The new are either entirely new, as was Milan to Francesco Sforza, or they are, as it were, members annexed to the hereditary state of the prince who has acquired them, as was the kingdom of Naples to that of the King of Spain.

Such dominions thus acquired are either accustomed to live under a prince, or to live in freedom; and are acquired either by the arms of the prince himself, or of others, or else by fortune or by ability.

Yes, you read that right. This is only 1/54 of the entire book. Awesome, huh? Get yourself one. DailyLIt.
Also, for Reading of the Day: Coming Soon: Shelfari! in my footer bar.

Shows of the Day:
Winter X Games; Avalanche/Rangers; ProBowl; Grammy Awards

January 30 2010

2010-01-30T19:31:00.000-07:00

Adventure of the Day:
I moved my bedroom bookshelf (courtesy of my friend who moved to Hawaii) to my son's room, I moved my yarn dresser (Yes, I have a whole dresser full of yarn, why do you ask?) and craft stuff from my son's room to my daughter's closet, and the closet shelf to my bedroom. The books from my bedroom are still in my bedroom, and the textbooks/homeschooling/teaching resources from my daughter's closet are in my son's room.

That doesn't make sense, does it. I rotated the vessels in room A, B, and C. I retained the contents in room A and switched the contents of rooms B and C. Vessel A is in room B with contents C. Vessel B is in room C with contents B, and Vessel C is in room A with contents A.

That still doesn't make sense. Try this: The Point Is! I moved just about 3/4 of all the books I own today, each at least twice. I moved Large Heavy Furniture across my house. I did it by myself. My shoulders are questioning my sanity.

Reading of the Day:
It's got the graphic novel thing, and the letter-literature thing, and dramatic dialogue thing. I didn't get but a couple chapters in before I scolded myself for not moving more books.
Food of the Day: I kinda wanted cookie dough but it always involves measuring and mess. I compared the ingredients on the chocolate chip bag for cookies against the ingredients on the Krustez pancakes. It's the same, nearly, except the mix has no salt, vanilla or brown sugar and has leavening. So I measured 2 cups mix, one cup brown sugar, one cup chocolate chips, 1 tbsp vanilla, and water until it was cookie-dough consistency. I buttered muffin cups (re: leavening) and filled half way, baking (high altitude) at 370 for 12-15 minutes (I nearly forgot about them, so I'm guessing). They are lovely, better with almond milk or coffee than plain.

Granny Square of the Day:
Practicing with smoother color changes. I also found many more of my crochet needles in the "adventure" move, so I could choose something other than small or huge.

January 29 2010

2010-01-29T23:09:00.000-07:00

Treat of the Day:

YES, already. Easter Candy before Mardi Gras, perfect.

(If you refrigerate it, the sarcasm--I mean gooey inside-- drips less.)

Teaching Link of the Day: Following Instructions

If you print out the instructions (a copy-and-paste technique) and the illustrated instructions separately, and introduce only the words, the instructions will quickly become difficult to follow. Switch over to only the illustrations and not but one step later are they unintelligible (for someone who does not do origami often). Putting them together, you can match the number of the language instructions with the number on the illustrated instructions, and actually create a cute box. Once the box is finished, discuss what about the instructions made making the box difficult, and what was done with the instructions to make it easier. Make predictions on how instructions should be followed in the future to increase the chances of success.

Part B of exercise: Tricky Instructions (note how number 26 is incorrect: Should read TWO through twenty-five. Number 1 reads: Read all instructions first. That part is already done, and is furthermore the purpose of the exercise.

This Day in History: Edgar Allen Poe publishes "The Raven", 1845

Reading of the Day:
Edgar Allen Poe

The Raven

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
`'Tis some visitor,' I muttered, `tapping at my chamber door -
Only this, and nothing more.'

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow; - vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow - sorrow for the lost Lenore -
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels named Lenore -
Nameless here for evermore.

And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me - filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating
`'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door -
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door; -
This it is, and nothing more,'

Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
`Sir,' said I, `or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you' - here I opened wide the door; -
Darkness there, and nothing more.

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before
But the silence was unbroken, and the darkness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, `Lenore!'
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, `Lenore!'
Merely this and nothing more.

Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.
`Surely,' said I, `surely that is something at my window lattice;
Let me see then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore -
Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore; -
'Tis the wind and nothing more!'

Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately raven of the saintly days of yore.
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;
But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door -
Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door -
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.

Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,
`Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,' I said, `art sure no craven.
Ghastly grim and ancient raven wandering from the nightly shore -
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!'
Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.'

Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,
Though its answer little meaning - little relevancy bore;
For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door -
Bird or beast above the sculptured bust above his chamber door,
With such name as `Nevermore.'

But the raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only,
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
Nothing further then he uttered - not a feather then he fluttered -
Till I scarcely more than muttered `Other friends have flown before -
On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before.'
Then the bird said, `Nevermore.'

Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,
`Doubtless,' said I, `what it utters is its only stock and store,
Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful disaster
Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore -
Till the dirges of his hope that melancholy burden bore
Of "Never-nevermore."'

But the raven still beguiling all my sad soul into smiling,
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird and bust and door;
Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore -
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore
Meant in croaking `Nevermore.'

This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core;
This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining
On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o'er,
But whose velvet violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o'er,
She shall press, ah, nevermore!

Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.
`Wretch,' I cried, `thy God hath lent thee - by these angels he has sent thee
Respite - respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore!
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost Lenore!'
Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.'

`Prophet!' said I, `thing of evil! - prophet still, if bird or devil! -
Whether tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted -
On this home by horror haunted - tell me truly, I implore -
Is there - is there balm in Gilead? - tell me - tell me, I implore!'
Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.'

`Prophet!' said I, `thing of evil! - prophet still, if bird or devil!
By that Heaven that bends above us - by that God we both adore -
Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels named Lenore -
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden, whom the angels named Lenore?'
Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.'

`Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!' I shrieked upstarting -
`Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken! - quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!'
Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.'

And the raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming,
And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted - nevermore!

Show of the Day:

January 28 2010

2010-01-29T00:09:00.000-07:00

Thought of the Day: I'm ready for July.

Random Fact of the Day: Unless you're going to eat at a large chain restaurant or bar / brewpub, you will not find anywhere to eat after 8 pm in this town. What's up with shutting down on a Thursday night?

Reading of the Day:

January 27 2010

2010-01-28T00:53:00.000-07:00

This Day in History:
The Outer Space Treaty was Signed.
You may not store nuclear weapons in space. You may not claim any celestial body for a government. Most of the countries have signed this treaty, and most of those have ratified it. Many of the same rules apply for space as they do for International Waters. You can study Space Law. It sounds like fun.

Poem of the Day: Prayer

--Jean Toomer, from Cane

My body is opaque to the soul.
Driven of the spirit, long have I sought to temper it unto the spirit's longing.
But my mind, too, is opaque to the soul.
A closed lid is my soul's flesh-eye.
O Spirits of whom my soul is but a little finger,
Direct it to the lid of its flesh-eye.
I am weak with much giving.
I am weak with the desire to give more.
(How strong a thing is the little finger!)
So weak that I have confused the body with the soul,
And the body with its little finger.
(How frail is the little finger.)
My voice could not carry to you did you dwell in stars,
Oh Spirits of whom my soul is but a little finger...

Word of the Day: Rend/Rent
He said Rend. I said Rent. He went here and I went to the Webster's on the shelf. He looked up Rend and I looked up Rent. We learned the same thing.

rend v. rent or rend·ed, rend·ing, rends

v.tr.

1. To tear or split apart or into pieces violently.

2. To tear (one's garments or hair) in anguish or rage.

3. To tear away forcibly; wrest.

4. To pull, split, or divide as if by tearing: "Chip was rent between the impulse to laugh wildly and a bitterness that threatened hot tears" (Louis Auchincloss).

5. To pierce or disturb with sound: a scream rent the silence.

6. To cause pain or distress to: tales that rend the heart.

v.intr.

To become torn or split; come apart.

[Middle English renden, from Old English rendan.]

Granny Square of the Day:
I didn't make one. I made a granny circle for my VHS tape bag. Maybe I should have scanned that in. No matter. The full thing will be done...eventually. You know, I have to build the other circle for the other end of the bag, build a handle, build a liner with a clasp, sew it in, line the change purse I've already done--with a clasp--and then...and then I'm done. I'll be lucky if it's done by Christmas.

January 26 2010

2010-01-26T22:29:00.000-07:00

Granny Square of the Day: So I've been interested in how my scanner "sees" my yarns. I wanted to see what it would do with VHS tape. I am kind of disappointed, I guess I expected a more stark black and white due to the shininess of the tape. WOO experiments.

Reading of the Day: I finished the book I will send for my Book Club (mentioned in the Thought of the Day January 4th). It's taken me nearly a month to do my part in sending my chain letters and the book. I had to pick a book to read as I had already given away all the books I've already read (that I am going to give away. I will likely not gift my copy of Moby Dick or The Woman in White, or Pamela, or...) Anyway, I hope the reciepient enjoys it. It is a good story.

Thought of the Day: I get paid to be a writer and editor. That's awesome. It's a great job. Sometimes I forget. I just go through my day all routine-like, never really noticing that everything I have I have always wanted. Not many people get to say that.

January 25 2010

2010-01-25T15:12:00.000-07:00

Teaching Link of the Day: The Space Station

Tell me about the space missions; tell me about machines
Tell me about dogs, the moon and adventures made of dreams
Tell me about rockets and satellites and photo shots
Tell me about the lives of the ISS astronauts

Game of the Day: Hide and Seek (cheat sheet for the one who can't quite get from Twelve to Thirteen)

Reading of the Day:

Granny Square of the Day: This is a bag made of 4 squares of City Market bags. I am NOT very good at crochetting plarn. Must practice if I care to get any better.

January 24 2010

2010-01-24T20:19:00.000-07:00

Teaching Link of the Day: Quilling, with a History
The video has rotten audio quality, but it was the only history of quilling video I could find, and it was everywhere. Someone, please make a better one, please?

Shows of the Day: InfoMania and RadioLab

Word of the Day: Stochasticity
From RadioLab:
A wonderfully slippery and smarty-pants word for randomness.
From Wikipedia:
from the Greek στόχος for aim or guess; means random. A stochastic process is one whose behavior is non-deterministic, in that a system's subsequent state is determined both by the process's predictable actions and by a random element.

Granny Square of the Day: That yellowish is actually orange, that old seventies orange. I am amazed at how un-true my scanner reproduces the color of my yarn. Maybe I will actually take photos sometime so they can be more accurately shared.

I did this color combination because of a conversation at the knitting group about the faces made by our elders at the idea that we do granny squares. I had to say--one girl said-- that they're cute squares, not those awful combinations they did in the seventies.

January 23 2010

2010-01-23T11:52:00.000-07:00

Thought of the Day: The best advertising campaign ever: Call the Nestle Hotline at 1-800-295-0051. When asked if you want to continue in English or Spanish, wait quietly for about 10 seconds. Listen to all the options. Choose one, but if you don't choose #4 you should come back later and listen to all the options in menu #4 before making a selection.

Word of the Day: Slashdot (Effect): This is what you experience if you call the above number and get a busy signal. It means that the popularity of the fun traveling around the internet is creating a call volume too heavy to connect you. Whee!

Adventure Continued of the Day: It was my daughter's basketball game: She was a cheerleader! It was really fun to watch. Their routine was to Ice Ice Baby, which was funny because last night she could only remember it was a song something about "baby."

Granny Square of the Day: I always feel I need to make a finished edge for my granny squares. I have no idea why. I like how the variegation came out on this one, organized on one side and sporadic on the other.
Radio Show of the Day: Wait Wait Don't Tell Me! I love to get my news from comedy shows. It's exponentially more informative than actually listening to the news. Or I just pay attention, one of the two.

January 22 2010

2010-01-22T21:47:00.000-07:00

Teaching Link of the Day: Multiplication Pictures

I encouraged the drawing of pictures of things with parts and both the 5- and 7-year-old enjoyed the project. We used number stickers--of which I have many--in place of drawing the numeral, and the older wrote the equation where the younger just labeled the number of units, the number of parts, and the total parts.

Game of the Day:

Adventure of the Day: I took my little girl to a Cheerleading MIni-camp tonight. She said, as we were leaving, that she would like to do it again next year. The basketball game is tomorrow. The kids get the half-time. It's so excited.

Granny Square of the Day: Hodge-Podge-Scraps-of-Yarn

January 21 2010

2010-01-21T19:38:00.000-07:00

Teaching Links of the Day: Puns & Puns & Puns
Print up homophonic puns (defined below) and some sticker labels with the "real" word. Have the student cover the pun with the matching sticker. This should strengthen the connections between the different ways to spell a sound. When a reader pays attention to the sound structure of a word they are more likely to recognize those structures when they read.
"Homophonic puns use like sounds but with different spellings and meanings. This is also referred to as polyptoton. Examples of homophones are scent and sent, jeans and genes, waive and wave, and buy and bye."--from link below

New Sidebar "Pun of the Day" =>

Granny Square of the Day:
Today was a Red day. My morning shirt was red. My gussied-up-for-teaching sweater was red. My scarf was red. And the color I coincidentally chose from my dresser of yarn is also red. Quite not on purpose. It's a thinner yarn and I used a disproportionately large hook, as I tend to do. I think it's a wool, or a wool blend. It was very nice to work with. My scanner made it look orange. It is very red, instead.

Show of the Day: We just got to the episode with the homemade automatic shotgun today, and look, it's on the cover. I wonder if he keeps it through the rest of the season, or if it was just the coolest thing they could find to put on the boxed set. It is definitely cool.

Thought of the Day: People act like you're not around when they talk to others. It's frustrating. Is nothing private? No wonder small towns have that "small town" feel. People will talk anywhere around anyone.

Development of the Day: I'm down by a student, maybe two. It's a bummer. I love to work with my students; losing them for any reason other than success is frustrating. How am I to ever become good at reaching goals when I'm not giving the opportunity to reach them?

January 20 2010

2010-01-20T22:35:00.000-07:00

Granny Square of the Day: No-show student, I'm glad I brought a hook and yarn. Larger hook than the first time I used this yarn. I was in the lobby with two women discussing the very disturbing life of one of the students--one's student and the other's stepson. Very disturbing. You can tell by how uneven the stitches are.

New "___Of the Day"
Kid Quote of the Day:
Aunt: "I see you germinated some little beans."
Kid:"Well I didn't mean to do the germ part."

Food of the Day: I really like the Mocha of the brand, so I tried this (see, it says NEW) and it was wonderful. I still like the mocha one better, though.

January 19 2010

2010-01-19T21:17:00.000-07:00

Teaching Link of the Day: Make a Word Search
It changes the handwriting because it's not about the flow of one letter to another, it's just letters next to each other being letters. It also requires concentration and patience to write other letters in the "blank" spaces. Use a grid, though, because without, lining things up is rather frustrating for a little one.

Food of the Day: Las 2 Margaritas. No pictures. It was gut-stuffingly delicious.

Game of the Day: 3 way Cricket. The one with the fewest closures won because he consistently hit multiples of 20 before someone could close it or catch up in points. Much fun.

Granny Square of the Day: Leftover yarn from a hat I made for my boy. Still had a bit left over after square one so I made another square and made it around to the last bit of string.

January 18 2010

2010-01-18T14:11:00.001-07:00

This day in History:

Wouldn't it be nice to be the Graphic Designer for the Google logo on holidays? I think that would be an awesome job.

Teaching Link of the Day: The Vase has Two Faces
Draw a Vase with Two Faces. It's fun and weird, and deceptively simple. It's also cool to see what the imagination of a kid will produce with this exercise.

Thought of the Day: Twitter is worth it even if you only follow Weird Al. I promise. It's a moment of hilarious sunshine every once in a while.

Food of the Day: Orange Juice. 9 oranges = 24oz juice.

Granny Square of the Day: You know those jokes about grandmas who knit on and on forever? I just couldn't stop with this square. The yarn was so nice to work with and it looked so good. I finally did a chain around the edge to end the endless rounds of granny square stitches.

January 17 2010

2010-01-17T13:00:00.000-07:00

Thought of the Day:
She said, "Ever wonder if your guardian angel has gone out for a smoke?"
I said, "I'm always hoping there are more than one, and that each have different interests in mind. On really rough days, I see the "two angels arguing on my shoulder" with all of them, and of course no one is really paying attention to me on those days."

Granny Square of the Day: I made this from four tiny balls of leftover string, and ran out of the fourth color. I guess I've learned to check length for suitable usage rounds.

TV of the Day:

January 16 2010

2010-01-16T12:59:00.000-07:00

Teaching Link of the Day: Public Library Events Doing an activity led by someone else--especially for a homeschooler, can make a difference in what is learned from it.

Random Fact of the Day: January 16 marks the end of my Holiday/Birthday Season. Next up: Life as normal as I know it.

Granny Square of the Day: Whaddya Know, the radio program I listen to on Saturday Mornings, gave, as a prize to the first quiz winner, an alliterate gift from the Pink People or Pink Program or something and it stuck with me. At least, the Pink part did.

Thought of the Day: The only thing I want in life is to spend it with him, and any other achievement is just gravy.

Show of the Day;

January 15 2010

2010-01-15T15:37:00.001-07:00

Teaching Link of the Day: Sight Word Bingo meets Othello

This game was so FUN! And not exactly easy, even for Teacher against Strategician 7-year-old. The 5-year-old enjoyed it thoroughly, and he can't even name the sounds of all his letters yet.

Granny Square of the Day:
Today's Granny Square represents a day. After several complements in the short span of an afternoon on my totebag made of knitted plastic grocery sacks, I decided plastic was my material today. I started this morning and stripped some newspaper sacks for the center. The next round--of grocery sacks-- I completed this afternoon, interrupted by a quick shopping trip for birthday gifts of the cake variety. The last round--trash bag-- I finished late tonight. The border green was the packing pillows from a birthday gift. I had exactly enough to go around in a chain, though I was tired and the chain is uneven.

So this was my day. I got up, read part of the paper, got some groceries, went to a birthday party, and came home to polish off the evening chores.

Game of the Day:
Password

Food of the Day:
kaluskis, koluskies, koluskys, I have no idea and I can't spell it to google it but it was delicious!

January 14 2010

2010-01-14T17:12:00.000-07:00

Teaching Link of the Day: Basic Geometry

The kid says, "I think these lessons were too easy for me." So we watched the above videos. Now she knows more.

Introducing:
Granny Square of the Day:
Explanatory Link Over in the Today! Margin=>
I'm going to do a Granny Square a Day! Well, maybe not EVERY day and maybe even not very MANY days, but I am going to participate on whatever level I can. Here's today's: black acrylic and Sugar n'Cream salt and pepper print

Movie of the Day:

Thought of the Day: Geometrically Similar Polygons are like Shrinky-Dinks.

.

January 13 2010

2010-01-13T15:24:00.000-07:00

Teaching Link of the Day: PH
"phrase" cannot be pronounced 'frayz' because it doesn't have an F.

My fourth grade student told me this. We skipped the rest of the reading and read the words in the encyclopedia that begin with PH. Also, we replaced the F in F-words with PH. Phunny, huh?

This Day in History: First Mickey Mouse Comic Strip Released (1930)
"The editors never told me why all the sentences had to end in exclamation points, and I never asked, but I can think of three good reasons. One: not enough writers knew how to punctuate correctly, so the exclamation points simplified the chore to a foolproof system. Two: the exclamation point gave any sentence a seeming importance. Three: engravers making plates from the artwork were less likely to etch out an exclamation point. They could see it was something the artist had put there. A period they could mistake for something a fly had put there."
(Carl Barks; The Carl Barks Library of Walt Disney's Comics and Stories in Color, Album 38)

Games of the Day:

January 12 2010

2010-01-12T15:57:00.000-07:00

Teaching Link of the Day: Yahtzee! (also staggeringly awesome over here at Wolfram)
You can analyze the strategies a student uses to play the game to determine what kind of patterns they notice more than others. Understanding a student is as valuable as the student understanding you, because the first leads to the second.

Word of the Day: Bleb
Yes. It really is a word. It's even a technical word.

Show of the Day:

Introducing: This Day in History link in the margin =>

January 11 2010

2010-01-11T19:01:00.000-07:00

Random Fact of the Day: Today's Date is the number 30 in Binary, and is also a palindrome. 011110. It goes to follow that 010110 is the number 22 and 011010 is the number 26, and that 012210 is a palindrome. It would be most awesome if the word palindrome was also a palindrome, but it is not.

Teaching Link of the Day: Bowling Math
Thought of the Day: Letters to the Editor

The billboard says: “Cherish Life: Born and Unborn.” Among the “born,” of course, we must include children who are abused or neglected, right? And probably those who do the abusing or neglecting, too, as well as snotty-nosed, loud-mouthed kids running around being annoying or disruptive and sullen teenagers, naturally. Plus folks with tattoos, too much make-up, or sloppy attire. Or people who are as big as a barn or as thin as a wisp. And alcoholics and addicts.

Other lives to be cherished would be the poor, those without health insurance, and highly paid corporate folks who raid our paltry savings to give themselves obscene bonuses. Without a doubt it includes socialists, Republicans, Democrats, people of faith (all faiths, Christian and non-Christian), and the agnostics and atheists, too. Can’t forget soldiers, journalists, law-enforcement personnel, auto mechanics, fire and disaster workers, bankers, supermodels, medical workers, peace demonstrators, teachers, grocery clerks and librarians.

Respecting and cherishing life also ought to include the elderly (even if they drive too slow or smell funny), bicycle riders (ditto), SUV drivers, those with physical or mental disabilities, the wise and the foolish, people we love, homosexuals, all politicians (even if we disagree with them) and even non-human life — like our dogs and cats. Also among the born are Oprah, Rush and Jay Cutler. Keep on cherishing!

I’m sure you get my drift and I hope you all have lots of categories to add to this very incomplete list. However, if you want to omit anyone, then I don’t think you can truly claim to “cherish life.”

NANCY TIERNAN

Grand Junction

January 10 2010

2010-01-10T20:43:00.000-07:00

Movie of the Day: Aang: The Last Airbender

I am infatuated with this show, if I am infatuated with any show. This movie is coming out, and I am Totally and Entirely Thrilled. I thought it was coming, and then Cameron's Avatar came out and I thought we had been mistaken, but no! here it is! We are all going, both families, to the theater when it comes out.

Game of the Day:
Treasure Hunt!
and
Bomb the Ship!
and
Guess Who?,the Pirate Edition.

Food of the Day:
Dirt Cake with a Treasure Map. Thank you! It was so good, and everyone loved it.

This Day in History:
Thomas Paine published (anonymously) Common Sense.
It would do us a little good to review it.

January 9 2010

2010-01-09T16:32:00.000-07:00

Teaching Link of the Day: Dry Erase for Preschoolers
Many times we draw something for little ones to color or to watch, but it also goes that they should draw on their own as they're observing. If you use a dry-erase board as tall as your preschooler (less than 4' should do) then they can participate in a face-to-face drawing experience.

Today, we drew a truck. He drew the tires and we discussed what should be in the bed of the truck, and drew those things. *Erase* We drew a Bulldozer. He guided my drawing line-by-line verbally and with gestures. He indicated four wheels, a top, and a scoop at the front. Then he filled the scoop with rocks. It took him a very long time. *Erase* We drew a house. He drew the roof. He drew the door. It was more of a window. We talked about what a door was, and found one in the house. He drew a door on the ground. It was a bit short, but we worked it out. *Erase* We drew colors like a rainbow. They were mostly the same four colors, and one sweeping line had a flaw he had to black out intensely in one spot. I reminded him we could erase. *Erase* We drew lines and swirls of colors. He ran away.

Game of the Day:

The board is missing, the die is missing, two legs are missing, and a tongue has been chewed to oblivion. It does not function as a game, though it has the title and appearance of a game. I have hereby demoted the remainder of the game to Potato Head status. (I was just reading about Pluto. It seemed an appropriate analogy.)

Thought of the Day: You know who your real friends are when shit hits the fan and they're there to help scrub up the smelly, gag-inducing mess. And tell you that the stains don't really show.

Show of the Day:

I do not understand this show. No one's character seems to be consistent from episode to episode.

January 8 2010

2010-01-08T21:07:00.000-07:00

Adventure of the Day:

The children's first train ride, 4-hour round-trip (not counting for delays), to Glenwood Springs and back. The boy's birthday gift.

The first time I'd been on a train since Montreal in High School. The first time my husband's been on a train since Alaska when he was the same age.

Food of the Day:

If the vending machine doesn't have what you want, you can push the...Cow return? and get fresh beef.

Thought of the Day:

Light has Fangs.

It strings out from the edges of a form and it suggests glinting cones.

Light has Fangs.

Teaching Link of the Day:

Water Flow of Ice Covered Rivers

and yes, I really do ask these kinds of questions while roaming the earth enjoying it. I can't stop at "awesome," I have to define it.

(This wasn't exactly the answer I was looking for as this is not the kind of river, but Google is not forthcoming with the mind-reading.)

Word of the Day:

Statedly : At stated times; regularly.

This was our return-trip train-car number, interestingly, our departing-trip train-car number was 611. This is the secret-window in the access for changing this number, which is in the accessible restrooms.

Game of the Day:

How Fast Does the Train Go?

70 before stopping before Glenwood Springs

45 through DeBeque (DuhBeck) Canyon

80 through the town of Palisade

January 7 2010

2010-01-07T23:40:00.000-07:00

Teaching Link of the Day: Graph Paper

Standardized tests don't use lined paper. Nor do teacher's tests. They're all printed out on white paper with white space to show work in. So why in the world does every math curriculum encourage that math concepts be practiced on lined paper? Why the notes, neatly organized as if it were a book report? Use blank paper for math. There is more freedom in adapting thoughts and ideas, with a little arrow, a crossed out bit that didn't work, and the conclusion neatly displayed...somewhere...there it is. The chalkboards the great geniuses use don't have lines.

At the very least, use graph paper instead, especially for geometry.

Development of the day: I fell off a stool and cut the bottom of my foot on my daughter's desk. It hurts. A LOT. I have to stop falling off/down things. (I fell down the steps just before the New Year.)

Dictionary.com Word of the Day:

quotidian \kwoh-TID-ee-uhn\ adjective
1. Occurring or returning daily; as, a quotidian fever.2. Of an everyday character; ordinary; commonplace.

There are so many Project 365 blogs; everyone has caught the quotidian fever!
---Heather in Progress--- ---JonMagic--- ---your name here---

Game of the Day:

January 6 2010

2010-01-06T18:37:00.000-07:00

Teaching Link of the Day: Sentence Diagramming

When you have students who consistently mis-construct sentences, a diagram teaches them what to expect. This one is a simple, straightforward one. The site mentions that this hasn't been taught in classrooms for 30 years or more, but I got to be a lucky one who not only studied this early, but it eliminated the need for any further grammar drills after about the third grade.

I do it with a different color for each part of speech. This way a student has a narrow field of what fits in each spot, and they begin to recognize grammar patterns.

Game of the Day:

Two bored kids, a notebook, two pens. Each list 5 nouns and 5 adjectives. Switch lists, and go.

Thought of the day: Autistic Children with Brainy Parents

Evidence that the smarter you are, the dumber the people around you seem. If you live in a blue collar community with an average education, you may not notice someone with an odd learning or social disorder.

So who is normal? What does normal mean? Do children with autism get diagnosed only because they're different than the people around them?

Development of the Day:
Girl Scout Cookies are coming! Place an order with your favorite Girl Scout starting Friday! The new cranberry ones are delightful. There is also a donation option, and this year my daughter's troop is sending the donations to the Hometown Heroes (firefighters, etc.) and the Bloodmobile.

January 5 2010

2010-01-05T14:58:00.000-07:00

Family Development of the Day: My son is 5 today! I have no more babies. They have grown up.

Game of the Day:

The boy opened eight dinosaurs' resting places, carefully removed them from where they've fossilized all these years, and meticulously shoved the pieces together, following slot by slot, number by number. He and I made a Triceratops (it looks just like the one here! The joy of models.) and a Plesiosaurus, which happens to be one of my student's favorite creature.

Food of the Day:

Junct'n Square Pizza re: Spaghetti and Meatballs

Television of the Day:
Avatar: The Last Airbender

January 4 2010

2010-01-05T00:56:00.000-07:00

Teaching Link of the Day: Colorado Homeschooling Law

Colorado law states that you can teach your child all of school (from age 7 to 16) or part of school (for example, math). Your child can also participate in all school sports and extracurriculars.

What this means is that if your child is struggling in one subject bad enough, and has uncooperative or overworked faculty, you have every right to pull your student out and homeschool for that one subject. It's been done, it's legal, and it's fair.

Game of the Day:
Interesting Development of the Day:
I no longer have corporate competition. They closed their doors December 20th. I got my first call from one of their former clients today. Anyone have a loan so I can do an advertising push for the rest of their former clients?

Thought of the Day:
Pyramid schemes are better when you send books to the person named on the back of the letter, instead of a dollar. Or when it's edible, like Friendship Bread.

January 3 2010

2010-01-03T13:13:00.000-07:00

Teaching link of the day: The Letterary Society at the Alphabet Soup Cafe

This day in History: The Curse of the Bambino
I just learned, in the past two months (embarrassing to admit in all my Baseball Fandom) Babe Ruth's nickname was The Bambino. It's enough to remind me of the book From Ghetto to Glory and that most players have books out there, and I should probably read them. Why not? as I can't seem to read but the same first few pages of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and some jokes and entrepreneurial/charitable start-ups in the Reader's Digest.

As a literature geek, I am sorely weak in my recent reading list.

Movie of the Day:
Tom Stoppard, speaking of literature geekdom. Mixed of course, with Terry Gilliam, via Monty Python, which is just plain geekdom.

January 2 2010

2010-01-02T14:23:00.000-07:00

Teaching Link of the Day: Buzz! for Kindergarteners
I play the variation of Buzz where--instead of a multiple, or a multiple and a digit--I use just the digit. The little monsters begin to recognize that "twelve" has a two in it, and so do all the twenties; same goes for "eleven" "-teens", and "a hundred" having ones. Any digit will do.

Game of the day: Boy oh boy do I suck at this game, but I just can't quit playing it.

Family development for the day: Beer a Day

We stocked up on about two weeks worth of beers he's never tried, and he's already written an extra review for a stumped day. When he's ready, I'll reveal his link.

January 1 2010

2010-01-01T13:45:00.000-07:00

Teaching Link for the Day: The Rose Parade

After a long, commercial-free parade, make a float.

A) Discuss float: n vs. float: v
B) Discuss decoration rules
C) Discuss various awards
D) Discuss theme
E) Brainstorm lists of B, C, D and construction of A.
F) Construct
G) Budget and buy materials
H) Decorate
I) Grade re: C) Various Awards and B) Decoration Rules and G) Budget/Buy

Games of the day:

Yay for Christmas gifts and games that aren't too hard!

Word of the Day: meticulous

Derived from the Latin for fear. Go figure.