The Fundamental Elements of Design from Erica Gorochow on Vimeo.
Month: February 2013
The Mind
Teaching children social-emotional awareness and how to control their breathing (mindfulness)…I’m so glad to see this organization working toward that goal.
A link provides lots of research and resources, but the site mentions a conference from 2011 and nothing since. I hope the idea is spreading…
A New Day
Lately, I’ve been….. how do I say this without using the D word.
Hmmm, don’t think I can. So I’ll just say it: depressed.
For going on two weeks, we’ve had a rodent problem in our crawl space. Our house was built in 1850, so there are ways for this to happen. Because of some stupid advice, we now also have an odor problem. And it’s been raining, or at least cold and gray, for days and days and weeks and years. Ok, I’m exaggerating, as I tend to do.
But seriously, last night I’d just about had it.
However, I’m always amazed how quickly I can turn stuff around. I mean going-from-the-depths-of-despair to “hey, this is a not-bad-day” kind of flip. This morning, we have wonderful folks cleaning and scrubbing our hard-to-reach crawl space, it’s warm enough for all the windows and crawl space doors to be open and breathing, AND the sun is, well, radiant.
I feel so much better now that we have a plan, and the end of all this is near.
As always, I am remembering to keep this in mind:
We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make the world. – Gautama Buddha
Finding History
Mom is settled in her new home, just in time.
The New England blizzard deposited 22 inches of snow around her building, but she was warm and safe.
While I was moving her, I discovered old boxes of letters and cards she had saved over the years. I couldn’t help taking a few minutes to sift through the piles, and I found treasures!
I recognized the handwriting in a poem I wrote to my dad while he was in Vietnam. (I think I was in fourth grade.) The first line shows my typical “big-sister” bossy self: Daddy, I had the idea of a poem first. Debbie copied me!
Daddy, we miss you such an awful, awful lot,
We hope you sleep on a soft, fluffy bed, not an old rag cot.
I was embarrassed by the second, a poorly written piece I attempted in college. I called it “On Contemplating the Thought That I’ve Finally Grown Up,” a poem letting my parents know how much I appreciated them. What a mush of sickening sweet, flowery stuff. At least I worked on line breaks:)
Teaching Vocabulary
I wish teachers would stop assigning weekly word lists for students to memorize (and then forget). I like this explanation from the LiteracyHead folks:
By the way, LiteracyHead has some of the best resources around for teaching writing/reading.