Happy Saturday!!!
We’ve been learning about penguins! 🙂 We used Lyndsey Kuster’s unit and my kids couldn’t get enough! We read a ton of nonfiction books, watched a video or two, and did a lot of ooohhhhing and aaaahing because they are just too cute. Then we finished it all up with Jennifer’s Directed Drawing of a penguin and wrote some of the facts that we knew. I didn’t guide them on their writing at all, and it was interesting to see which penguin facts stuck with each kiddo the most.
Now.
I told the kids we would be drawing a penguin. Sometimes I don’t because I’m mean like that. But I told them up front this time. And then I went to use my document camera (we call her Ladybug because that’s her name) and she was working, but the projector wasn’t connecting or something like that so I ended up having to draw directly on the whiteboard like in the olden days.
And the olden days around my school is last week, just FYI because technology is just not happening at my school, even though supposedly, the walk through of each room to see who has what, and who doesn’t have what, and where we might mount projectors from the ceiling, and where we might have interactive whiteboards is scheduled for the end of February, but it was supposed to happen during the summer, and then September, and then December, so we are not holding our breath or we would be dead.
So I was directing my students in this drawing of a penguin on the big ole whiteboard and my penguin did not look like a penguin. In any way, shape, or form. So I did a lot of erasing and starting over, which was good, because it gave me the opportunity to tell my kids to use their pencil and to draw as light as a feather, a happy feather, a floating la la la, so that if you make a mistake, it’s easy to erase, and don’t draw as if you’re angry, and you’re mad, and there was no prize in the cereal box this morning! otherwise, it will be hard to erase.
Well.
I should have taken a picture of my penguin, but I forgot.
Or I erased it quickly.
Either one.
Suffice it to say that no matter what I did, my penguin looked like a Mr. Potato Head.
For real.
We laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed.
At one point, I was sort of crying and my kids told me it was okay, they liked my Mr. Potato Head Penguin.
🙂
Tens and Ones.
In tubs that had other labels on them that I tried to peel off.
Thirty bags of tens and ones don’t fit in a little tub and I need to buy a bigger one, but who has the time?
So we’re finally onto place value!
I love teaching place value.
It’s so concrete to me and I am not a math person of any kind so this is saying something.
We’ve done a couple of pencil/paper things, but mostly we’re using the manipulatives for building a number. And then we write down the number or the value of the tens and ones on our whiteboards.
On Friday, they built any number they wanted (up to 99 for now), wrote the number, showed the value of the tens and ones, and if they could, wrote it in expanded form (which I haven’t formally taught yet).
Then I bee-bopped around the room and checked it all out.
All of that is to say that I haven’t done Guided Math in a long time.
And recently, one of my kids came up to me and told me she missed it.
And while I was bee-bopping around the room, I thought to myself why didn’t I just do this in math groups? It would have been so much easier.
And then I did the whole teacher guilt thing that we all do and felt bad about myself.
UGH.
For the first time EVER, I finally got Fun Friday markers specifically for Fun Friday.
I don’t know what took me so long.
Teacher Whiteboard is a choice on my Fun Friday chart . Kids can use the big whiteboard and do whatever they want. I don’t care. Mostly, they play teacher. Which is fun to watch because I get to see all the things I always say come out of their mouths, like kiss your brain and hip hip? Hooray! and you need to make a better choice (said in a no-nonsence voice). But for years and years and years, the kids either used MY markers and ruined them, and then I was annoyed because I’m super particular about the quality of my expo markers — like it’s not even funny how quickly I’ll fire an expo marker if the tip is just slightly off or it’s dried out just the least little bit — or I would hide my markers and then they had to use their own which resulted in their markers getting ruined and/or they couldn’t even find their own markers. I keep a set that have washi tape around them just for lessons for kids who can’t find/lose/etc their own marker, and then my Fun Friday kids would try to use those markers and I’d have to say no no no no no, you can’t use those! Do you not see the washi tape? Those are for lessons!
I mean, WHAT WAS I THINKING FOR ALL THOSE YEARS?
HOW DUMB AM I?
So I finally got that magnetic holder, a set of fun colored markers, and BAM! Problem solved.
The kids were SO EXCITED. It has been a very popular center the last couple of weeks.
Except.
There are too many markers and it’s weighing down the holder, and it’s not strong enough to be magnetic anymore. But that’s okay. It’s fine.
I keep it behind my whiteboard and just pull it out for Fun Friday.
And when they ruin those markers, then I don’t know.
I don’t have a plan for that.
BUT STILL!
As for now, I’m super smart, especially for being an old lady and all. So I went from having teacher guilt about math groups being non-existent lately to feeling super smart about whiteboard markers.
This week, I went to the eye doctor, and what did I see?
NOTHING.
I still can’t believe what I did. But it happened.
Alright, so you may remember that I am blind as a bat. I am seriously near sighted. Which means I can only see things up close, but even saying that I am near sighted is a stretch because I can’t see anything unless it’s an inch away from me and I squint. You know those people (and you might be one of them) that say I am so blind without my glasses! but you can actually walk around and do things without your glasses, and your prescription is a -2?
You are NOT blind. I’m telling you. You are NOT.
My prescription is a -12 in my left eye and a -14 in my right eye. Um. Yeah.
So anyways, I rely HEAVILY on my contacts (and only wear glasses at home because they are THICK THICK THICK) so when one contact or both are bothering me, it’s a problem. Oh, and by the way, I wear gas permeable contacts which are not soft. They are rigid. Supposedly, they are considered semi-soft, but they are actually hard. They last forever. They are all I’ve ever worn so they are all I know.
Well, recently, my left contact was really irritating me and I kept having to pop it out while teaching and then I would have to teach one-eyed which sounds fun and pirate-y, but it ISN’T.
I ended up putting it away and wearing an old left contact lens.
At my appointment this week, I brought in the lens that was bothering me so my eye doctor could check it out. And, just so you know, I’ve been going to the same eye doctor since I was 17 and I drive all the way out to my parent’s house, in traffic, in order to see him because he knows how blind I am. And he’s good. I will be sad when he retires. Whenever I go to the eye doctor, I get to have dinner with my parents afterward, which is a BONUS.
WELLLLLLLL.
My eye doctor had me take out the left one I was currently wearing (the old one) and put in the one that was bothering me (the newer one) a few different times. Out, in, out, in, old, new, old, new . . .
And then we were finally all done and the exam was over and he said I could put back in my old one.
And that’s where things went a little haywire.
Because all of a sudden, I’m standing at the sink, and my RIGHT contact started bothering me. So I popped out my right contact and then I couldn’t see anything because apparently, I hadn’t put back in one of the left contacts.
Do you see how this got a little confusing and wasn’t my fault?
So I said hey, doctor, um, I can’t see anything. And I know I had three contacts with me today but from what I can see, I only have two here.
I WAS MISSING ONE OF THE CONTACTS.
So we’re checking my hair and my sweater and the counter and the floor (well, really HE was doing all of the checking because I couldn’t see a darn thing) and we were checking INSIDE my eye to see if it was floating around somewhere in my brain (which is always a fear of mine when a contact goes missing while INSIDE my eye) and we could not find the third contact.
And then it sort of dawned on me. MINUTES AND MINUTES later.
And I said . . . I think I got confused (understatement?) and I think I put one of the left contacts in my right eye? I think? Maybe? I’m not sure, but I know my right eye wasn’t involved at all this whole time, but then it started hurting . . .
If you haven’t guessed it by now, I’ll spell it out for you:
I PUT A LEFT LENS ON TOP OF MY RIGHT LENS.
And they were STUCK TOGETHER, which is WHY my right contact started bothering me.
Somehow, my eye doctor was able to pry them apart, but then he had to run around and use some type of machine to figure out which lens was which-was which (because there were three) so that I could wear my old left lens and the right lens and put the newer left lens back in a case.
BREATHE.
And that’s how I participate at eye appointments. How do you?
I am all finished with the Gilmore Girls and I MISS THEM!!!
I miss them so much, I think I need to watch it all over again.
I loved loved loved this show. I can’t believe how much I loved this show. The four part event revival thing was just okay to me. I think that’s because I watched the whole series right before watching it so I was still in the “moment” and not thinking about them ten years later. I think if I had had to wait ten years like most people, I would have expected them to be ten years older and different and what-not. But they aged ten years in basically the time it took me to hit menu on my remote control to get to the new episodes. Does that make sense? I enjoyed the revival, but liked the TV series the most.
I heard there is going to be a season nine so you better believe I’m on the look-out!
I was so obsessed that I read Lauren Graham’s book Talking as Fast as I Can: From Gilmore Girls to Gilmore Girls (and Everything in Between). It appears as if Lauren Graham has the same love and affinity for long titles as I do.
🙂
It was a quick and easy read – I read it in about two days WITH TEACHING AND SCHOOL AND LIFE. She is funny and super smart!!
And that does it for me for this week.
I think that’s plenty, don’t you?
Have a great great great weekend!
Pam Darnell says
OMG! Your contact story was so funny! I know I don’t know you in person, but I think we could be sisters! I think I am the only other person, besides you, who still wears “hard” contacts! I have done the same thing with my contacts before, and put two in one eye! My husband couldn’t understand why I was laughing so hard when I was reading this. I have lost a contact once while in the Yellowstone Lodge. I was on one of the upper floors looking over the railing to the lobby below! I had my whole family looking for it, because like you, I can’t see enough to look for myself! I have also lost contacts in a movie theater, at school, and while mushing my sled dogs, to name a few, but I have always found them! Well, except for the one that my son dropped in the toilet when he was 2! I am also blind as a bat, and have a real fear of a natural disaster happening when I don’t have my contacts in and not being able to find my glasses fast enough. (I think only you can understand when I tell you that I once slept in my glasses for a week, because we had been having a lot of earthquakes that always seemed to happen at 2:00 am!) Now, when I am wearing my contacts, I can’t see close and need reading glasses, which makes me worry even more about having a natural disaster! I once considered laser surgery, but they told me they can only fix one thing…I actually have bi-focal contacts, but as your near vision gets worse, they don’t work as well, so I need reading glasses to read when my contacts are in. Anyway, thanks for the hilarious story! It made my morning!
Pamela Darnell says
OMG! Your contact story was so funny! I know I don’t know you in person, but I think we could be sisters! I think I am the only other person, besides you, who still wears “hard” contacts! I have done the same thing with my contacts before, and put two in one eye! My husband couldn’t understand why I was laughing so hard when I was reading this. I have lost a contact once while in the Yellowstone Lodge. I was on one of the upper floors looking over the railing to the lobby below! I had my whole family looking for it, because like you, I can’t see enough to look for myself! I have also lost contacts in a movie theater, at school, and while mushing my sled dogs, to name a few, but I have always found them! Well, except for the one that my son dropped in the toilet when he was 2! I am also blind as a bat, and have a real fear of a natural disaster happening when I don’t have my contacts in and not being able to find my glasses fast enough. (I think only you can understand when I tell you that I once slept in my glasses for a week, because we had been having a lot of earthquakes that always seemed to happen at 2:00 am!) Now, when I am wearing my contacts, I can’t see close and need reading glasses, which makes me worry even more about having a natural disaster! I once considered laser surgery, but they told me they can only fix one thing…I actually have bi-focal contacts, but as your near vision gets worse, they don’t work as well, so I need reading glasses to read when my contacts are in. Anyway, thanks for the hilarious story! It made my morning!
Julie says
Tales of the eye dr visits!
Last time I went, I had to go to a new doctor 🙁 I tried telling then that the last dr I went to discovered I was allergic to the numbing drops they put on your eye. Yes, it causes you to be nauseous instantly!
So I tell the new doctor and they assure me they have a new kind of drops and I should be fine….Well 2 minutes later I’m literally feeling the walls in the hallway trying to find the lady’s room as fast as could! So embarrassing! They had to reschedule my appointment for the following week….humiliating!
Needless to say, I need to find another new eye doctor! Lol
Debbie says
Oh my gosh!!! I’m almost legally blind too! -6 in my right eye and -6.5 in my left (technically -6.25 but they stop making them in quarter increments when you’re that bad). I’m nearsighted but also can’t see anything within an inch of me. I only wear my glasses at night or when I first wake up. I can’t drive with them and can barely walk with them on b/c I have no peripheral vision and my depth perception is off. Poor you! That sounds awful!!!
Kathy says
I feel your pain with your contacts. I, too, have put two lenses in one eye. However, my lenses are soft, so I would imagine it was less bothersome. ? Wish I had 20/20 vision.
Lisa says
There are two of us who wear GP lenses! I’ve only known one other person (so I guess there are three of us) who wears them. It’s hard to explain them sometimes, isn’t it? I’m a -7.5 and -6 so I get what you mean about people who say they’re blind, too.
Holly says
have you considered using 2 holders for your Fun Friday markers? it wouldn’t be so full or heavy.