Skip to main content

Recess

It seems that I will have to find a different routine for the summer. Our six am wake up has shifted to seven thirty or later. I'd like to get my blog post up by 8:30 am at the latest, but it is clearly just not happening.  It's time to find a Summer schedule that works for me.

Summer is the time for trying new things at our house. Today I will be attempting to make kale chips with the kale from our CSA share. Having a CSA share is new for us, too. We're splitting it up with older daughter Alice. She'll be coming over today to fancify Margo's hair with henna streaks--quite the Summer adventure. If we can keep the kale separate from the henna, all will be well.

My husband treasures his summers for the time to pursue music playing and composing. All the instruments get pulled out. He watches the Orioles while practicing guitar, banjo, ukulele, harp, mandolin. Oh, and the banjolele. Did you even know there was such a thing? One year he was practicing tuba for a show in Towson and the Orioles games were pretty exciting at our house.
And if you think "sad trombone" sounds sad? 

Last summer we joined Lifetime Fitness together, and it worked for awhile until school knocked us out of whack in the Fall. We're trying it again this Summer, with Margo now old enough to try the upstairs activities with us. Her excitement is good for the rest of us. (I could use some extra enthusiasm when it comes to exercise.) And of course that means pool dates with Alice and George. I have plenty of enthusiasm for those, although I wish Lifetime had more shade structures.

What do I do in the Summer? Well, I craft. I try new crazy craft ideas, often blending recyclables with materials from my craft stash. I bought a boatload of costume jewelry at the Abiding Savior Flea Market, so I'm thinking that will figure in this year's creations. I'm going to have a table at this year's Oakland Mills Cultural Arts Festival, selling fun, cute items for five dollars and under. Mostly dollar stuff. Target audience? Kids and teens who can't afford to buy anything from the professional, artisan-vendors. We don't have much for them. I'm also going to do a raffle for a barrel-full of craft supplies. That was Margo's idea, and you'll be hearing more about that here as the time approaches.

In the Summer I brainstorm activities for my early childhood special needs music and movement classes. I'm always looking for new music, new hands-on materials, and new picture books that go with songs. Often, I make my own picture books using scrapbook albums and printouts from the computer. I have been experimenting with creating iPad picture books as well. I have done a few using the slideshow function, accompanied by songs, with mixed success. Slideshows don't count musical beats or wait for key words, which is important to me. I have an idea for a "Wake Up" book that has been percolating all through the past school year....

Summer. Recharging. Recess. Absolutely vital. Teachers and students alike must be creators. We can't create if the well runs dry. This is how we recharge. How do you "fill your well"?
 
 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Teacher Gifts

Today is the last day of school before the Winter Break. It’s a good time to remember the far-reaching nature of our public school system. You may not have children. You may have sent your children to independent schools. It matters not. You will be impacted one way or another. Yesterday I read a long thread on Facebook about several waves of illness in the schools right now. There’s influenza A and norovirus, I believe. And of course there’s COVID. Apparently in some individual schools the rate of illness is high enough for school admin to notify parents.  When I was little the acceptable holiday gift for a teacher was one of those lovely floral handkerchief squares. (I don’t know what it was for male teachers. They were rare in my elementary years.) These days the range of teacher gifts is wider and I have fond memories of Target gift cards which I have written about before. I think it’s safe to say that giving one’s teacher Influenza, norovirus, or COVID is not the ideal holiday...
1 comment
Read more

F ³: We Are Not Entitled

  A college student went missing. His family and friends were distraught. The community was encouraged to be on the lookout and spread the word.  Days passed.  They must have been agonizing days for those who cared about the missing student. Thoughts that foul play had been involved cannot have been far from their thoughts.  Then, at last, the student was found. Alive. The news was shared with the public.  So. Much. Relief. A family had been reunited with their child. Even though we know that life is complicated, I think it is okay to accept this as a happy ending and leave it at that.  But the world of social media says no. For every expression of joy at the news came questions and even judgement. It became clear to me that some folks felt entitled to an explanation. They wanted the backstory. It’s as though they felt that, by enlisting the help of the public on social media, the authorities now owed them all the details. Television dramas often weave curr...
2 comments
Read more

Separate and Unequal

  Remember “Separate but equal”? Remember how that really meant that Black schools languished in  broken-down buildings without adequate heat or toilet facilities, with cast-off, ragged learning materials, underfunded and largely ignored? The Supreme Court struck that down in 1954. The evidence was clear that separate was not equal. Plessy v Ferguson had led to - - no, endorsed - - deeply unequal schooling and opportunities. We tend to think of Brown v Board as being purely about racial integration. It was not.  It was about the logical consequences of segregation. And they were not, not, not equal. The ruling in 1954 didn’t transform public education for non-whites into a land of milk and honey by any means. But it articulated some essential truths in a way that made including everyone a legal precedent which could be relied upon and built upon. It was better than what came before it but it rested upon unsteady ground. It did not necessarily change the hearts or minds ...
1 comment
Read more