Summer vacation is upon us once again which is important for three main reasons:
1) The town pool is open again so Pam and I can swim every morning!
2) I can go to the bathroom whenever I want!
3) It is time for me to issue a challenge to homework-deprived niblets.
As important as reasons one and two may be (and they are oh so important...I am thinking about writing a sonnet to celebrate reason #2), post is dedicated to the task that the niblets and I are taking on for the summer.
This year, I thought we would take a break from memorizing and do some writing instead. Because what kidlet doesn't enjoy extra writing assignments during the summer?
So I am pleased to introduce the Niblet Summer Journal Challenge!
Each niblet received a personalized notebook wherein they shall write (at least) twice a week. They can write about things they did that week, things they learned, ways Heavenly Father blessed them, or things that made them happy that day.
And just in case they have trouble thinking of things to write, the first page of each book has a list of alternate topics. They could write about the kind things their mom does for them, the ways their dad has helped them, or the things they like/don't like about school.
Because Bubba is still a bit young for writing, his big sisters are going to help him with a picture journal as recommended by The Friend. (Picture Journals for Little Friends) He will draw a picture of something and then tell Kenna or Kylie what it is and they will write the caption underneath.
My favorite part of each book is the page I got to write on. I wrote an "I love..., I Hope..., I Know..." for each niblet. Deciding what to write to each kid took some time, but I had so much fun and liked the results to much that I ended up copying each entry over to my own journal.
My Idaho niblets got their journals when they came to Cow Town just before school got out for the summer. Kenna and Kylie are especially goal-oriented children, so they took the challenge in a stride.
The Utah niblets, however, were a little less excited when they got their journals one week into the vacation. But that might have a little something to do with the weekly research essays they are having to write for their parents all summer. Poor little darlings. They will either grow up to be English teachers or as mad bombers writing manifestos in mountain shacks. Or both.
Morgan won't get her journal until she visits in July, but that is probably for the best. It's not like she has a lot of free time on her hands now that she is helping to run her dad's football team.
I am doing the challenge too, and am woefully behind already. That means, if I want to have any hope of not getting my woeful behind kicked by the niblets in yet another challenge, I had better get my woeful behind in gear.
One of the first conversations I have with students in the fall is about classroom karma. I explain to the kidlets that, if they put good things out into our classroom universe, the classroom universe will reward them. But, if they make poor choices and send bad vibes into our classroom universe, the consequences will not be pleasant.
After years of explaining and pointing our examples of classroom karma, you would think that I would be wise enough to avoid making the kind of classroom decisions that would earn me a swift karma kick in the backside. But you would be wrong.
A little background: Every now and then, a random summer school class will invade my classroom where they touch my stuff, use all my printer ink, touch my stuff, poke holes in the paper covering my bookshelves, touch my stuff, leave candy wrappers in weird places, and touch my stuff.
Summer school classes in my classroom also make it impossible to work in said classroom during the day, which means I have to go in during the evening when nobody else is around which is a problem for two main reasons: 1) I am pretty sure I will accidentally set off the alarm, causing a full scale roll out by all four of the town police people and 2) the school is haunted and very scary in the dark.
So, in an effort to discourage any summer school classes from taking up residency in my classroom and touching my stuff, I filled it full of boxes of books borrowed from the lovely and talented Valerie.
But that little act of territorial passive-aggressiveness didn't earn me a spot on the universe's naughty list. Nope. THAT happened when I went back to the school at 7:30 am the next week, before the summer teacher's arrived and became a bit less passive and a tad more aggressive about protecting my space. I spread books around the room, locked up my good pencil sharpener, and moved the projector remote to the very back of my very bottom desk drawer. Then I sat at my desk, swimming noodles close at hand, ready to fend off any would-be-room-usurpers.
I knew I was being a brat, but I didn't care. But the universe apparently did. A lot.
I had been so dead-set on defending my territory that, when I had opened the back door of my classroom that morning, I had failed to notice that a giant swarm of giant mosquitoes had taken up residence in the grass right outside. When I had come into the classroom, so had they. And while I had been busy making my classroom inhospitable to people, I was apparently being a very hospitable host/buffet for the mosquitoes.
So the result of my selfish morning excursion was a karma-tastic collection of super-sized mosquito bites. And now, instead of a room full of summer school folks keeping me from getting a head start on next year, I have been evicted by a room full of the universe's hungry little little enforcers.
The 2014-2015 school year is over, but more importantly, the 2014-2015 yearbook has been delivered! On Friday, months of building the book and weeks of organizing the delivery of 355 books to 355 kidlets in about 25 1A classes culminated in a lot of happy 'tweens and one tired yearbook adviser.
It is our yearbook staff tradition to come to school at 7 a.m. on the last day of school to organize the books for delivery after the last final has been given. We count books, put them in boxes, count them again, and then have breakfast while we sign each other's books.
We still met at 7 this year, but before we could sort the books, we had to take a last minute addition into each one: a tribute to our sweet Chance who was killed in an accident in April.
I was a little worried about getting everything done before school
started at 8:25, but the yearbook minions were awesome.
They got the
pages glued in, books sorted, counted, recounted, and boxed with plenty
of time to spare for a pre-test breakfast.
Two tests later, the yearbooks were delivered to all 1A classes via carrier-kidlet.
Forty-five minutes and twelve But-I-Know-My-Mom-Paid-for-One-back-in-September near-meltdowns later, the books were gone, the kidlets were gone, and I was excited to go home and have a night of of yearbook-nightmare-free sleep.
So as soon as my grades were finalized and I had turned my checkout form in at the office, I grabbed my yearbook and then went home.
For twenty minutes.
Then I got bored and went back to see if Valerie needed any help with her checkout stuff.
The rest of the afternoon could have been mind-numbing start to the summer. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE vacation. It's just that I tend to suffer from a bit of whiplash going from the craziest school day of the year to no school at all.
Lucky for me, I had niblets around to keep me busy for the rest of the evening. I think the summer is off to a good start!
Some kidlets just aren't designed for sitting in desks all day.
Take this little guy, for example.
It became pretty obvious early on in the school year that I was going to have to make a choice: spend the year trying to teach him to sit in a desk the way desks were designed to be sat in OR spend the year trying to teach him how to be a better reader and writer.
Can you tell which curriculum option I went with?
He is a really good, fun, smart kid. He doesn't try to be bouncy or wiggly. He has never walked into class with the express goal of recreating a Cirque Du Soleil routine in the back of the room.
It is just that he can only really focus on one difficult thing at a time, learning or sitting.
He can sit in his desk correctly OR he can participate in the class discussion.
He can keep his feet on the floor OR he can get his work done.
He can be engaged in the lesson, or he can keep his backside in his seat.
And that is ok because he is THIRTEEN.
Someday soon, the parts of his brain that can think critically, plan, and control impulses will kick in and then siting still and listening won't be mutually exclusive activities.
I hope.
But if not, he can always get a job working at the junior high with the rest of us adults who never quite mastered those sitting-still-skills.
Once again, the kidlets have proven that they are creative geniuses, especially when inspired by the locker room showers. I am pretty sure that the shower song will be the most popular part of the orientation video again this year.
For example, when they are in the middle of a six-week testing window, and have to spend waaaaay too much time sitting in front of a computer screen.
Give them some surgical masks and gloves, a pair of scissors, and some cadaver sentences. Then turn them loose! Chopping up sentences and splattering sentence guts all over some sentence skeletons is the best testing therapy there is!
If the kidlets happen to be 7th graders who have to take five multi-hour tests over the next few weeks, I recommend giving them a day to cut stuff up AND run around by making the dissection activity a relay race.
For that, you will need a surgical suite, so the kidlets don't trip over backpacks or jackets in the classroom. You will also need to remind them over and over and over that they are not allowed to run with the scissors. If you fail to remind them not to run with scissors, there is a good chance one or more of them will be in need of actual surgery before the race is through.
It is amazing how much fun grammar relays can be... when compared to sitting in front of a computer screen for four hours earlier in the week.
It also helps to have brilliant kidlets, which I just so happen to have piles of at the moment.
Brilliant, and loud, and squirrely, and (since they are almost 8th graders) a little fuzzy and kind of stinky. But none of them ran with scissors!
If you need something else to inject a little fun into the testing window, letting the kidlets nominate literary heroes and villains for a tournament also works well.
After a couple weeks of voting, we ended up with the 2015 champion.
If only defeating the big, hairy, slobbery, fanged tests was as easy...
My Idaho Niblets got to spend the night at my house Friday while their parents celebrated Becky's birthday in Twin (where Warren had been doing some training for his new job).
I didn't get photos of all of our adventures, but here is a play-by-play, just in case their parents were wondering about Bubba's new fascination with potatoes.
5:15 p.m. - Mindy returns from purchasing kid-friendly cereal, chocolate milk, apple juice, fruit snacks, assorted Easter candy, glow bracelets, pizza, and mac and cheese.
5:25 p.m. - Mindy moves all vases, lamps, sharp objects, markers, and fragile Harry Potter/Doctor Who memorabilia to higher ground.
5:27 p.m. - Mindy considers moving her Willow Tree Angels out of reach, but changes her mind after remembering 1) how much Kylie likes to play with them and 2) how easy it is glue their little angel heads back on.
5:34 p.m. - The niblets arrive.
5:35 p.m. - Baby Kristie decapitates a Willow Tree Angel, whose apparent please for mercy went unheeded.
5:36 p.m. - The niblets exercise their car-weary limbs and vocal chords.
5:37 p.m. - Mindy is thankful that she is currently without an upstairs neighbor and makes a mental note to wait and mail the assorted Easter candies to the niblets, perhaps when they turn 18.
5:50 p.m. - Dinner is served.
6:25 p.m. - The Niblets create a birthday book to give their momma the next day. The book contains beautiful their artwork along with lists of reasons they love their mom, including Bubba's heartfelt, "Her helps me not be sick."
6:45 p.m. - Easter Egg Hunt!
7:00 p.m. - Baby Kristie is introduced to Mindy's rat puppets.
7:01 p.m. - Baby Kristie develops, what we can safely assume will become, a life-long fear of rats and puppets.
7:10 p.m. - Kylie invents a fun new game to play, wherein she and Kenna are princesses who, while in the course of having many exciting adventures, discover that they are long-lost sisters.
7:15 p.m. - After listening to the extremely detailed back-story behind the character's in Kylie's game, Mindy begins to look forward to the time when Kylie grows up to become a famous novelist, screen writer, or producer on the Jerry Springer show.
7:18 p.m. - Kenna enjoys the contents of the jewelry kaboodle.
7:22 p.m. Kristie tastes the contents of the jewelry kaboodle.
7:25 p.m. - Bubba introduces the Avengers to the giant potatoes and sugar beets Mindy couldn't bring herself to throw away from last year's fair booth.
7:33 p.m. - Becky's sweet parents arrive and wonder aloud why Bubba is playing with fake root vegetables instead of with his action figures.
7:38 p.m. - Kristie goes to stay at her grandparent's house for the night, saving Mindy from the potential trauma of having Kristie wake up at her aunt's house in the middle of the night with no parents in sight and having a complete and total stranger-danger-come-apart.
Visual approximation of what Kristie might look like had she waken up in the middle of the night to the sight of her Aunt instead of her parents. Also a visual approximation of what Mindy would have FELT like had Kristie woken up and had a come-apart in the middle of the night.
7:50 p.m. - The remaining three niblets (who were evaluated to have very low middle-of-the-night come-apart potential) change into their jim-jams and get ready for "popcorn and movie time"!
7:55 p.m.- The niblets taste the popcorn and, in a rare moment of agreement, decide that it doesn't have enough salt.
7:56 p.m. - More salt is added to the popcorn.
7:57 p.m. - The niblets, setting a new record by agreeing with each other twice in one day, declare that there is now too much salt on the popcorn. 7:58 p.m. - Mindy takes a deep breath, shakes the popcorn bowel a few times, and tells the trusting niblets that all of the extra salt has been removed.
8:04 p.m. - The niblet contentedly munch popcorn while watching The Gruffalo on Netflix.
8:15 p.m. - Mindy marvels at how many of the voice actors in The Gruffalo have guest starred on Doctor Who.
8:16 p.m. - Mindy briefly considers showing the niblets an episode of Doctor Who before they go to bed, then reconsiders after remembering how Kylie reacted the last time she watched an episode of Doctor Who at her house.
8:45 p.m. - Mindy, finally learning from past experience, has the children piddle before getting in bed.
8:50 p.m. - Kylie and Kenna watch an episode of Barbie's Dream House on the computer while they fall asleep.
8:52 p.m. - Bubba watches an episode of Jake and the Neverland Pirates while he falls asleep in his "nest".
8:53 p.m. - Mindy gives thanks for having multiple Netflix enabled devices.
9:00 p.m. - Mindy watches an episode of Doctor Who in the living room and briefly considers checking on the kids while wearing her gas mask and asking, "Are you my mommy?" ala "The Empty Child" episode.
9:01 p.m. - Mindy, unsure if Warren's new insurance covers long-term care by child psychologists, decides against checking on the kids while wearing the gas mask.
9:02 p.m. - Mindy congratulates herself on being cool enough to own a gas mask.
6:45 a.m. - Kenna wakes up.
6:46 a.m. - Kenna does her own gas-mask-less recreation of the empty child, standing above Mindy until her Aunt awakes with a start.
6:46.30 a.m. - Mindy very nearly jumps out of bed in fright while silently thinking a cuss word or two.
6:47 a.m. - Mindy, after checking to make sure she isn't having a heart attack, gets Kenna all comfy on the couch with blankets and books, then goes back to bed.
7:20 a.m. - Kylie wakes up. Mindy hears her talking to Kenna in the living room and is therefore prepared when Kylie comes into tell her aunt she is awake.
7:21 a.m. - Grateful for having avoided another cardiac event, Mindy gets up and makes blue berry muffins with the girls.
7:50 a.m. - Bubba wakes up and immediately goes in search of his new friends, the potatoes and the sugar beet.
8:00 a.m. - Breakfast is served.
9:00 a.m. - Becky returns to collect the kids before conference. Kylie gives her mom the birthday book made the night before. Kenna starts to pack. Bubba, unwilling to leave his new nylon tuber pals, scoops a few up in his arms and makes a break for it.
9:04 a.m. - Mindy corners the potatoes bandit in the guest room.
9:10 a.m. - Bubba reluctantly relinquishes his grasp on the fake potatoes, gathers up his Easter eggs, and dives to his grandparents house with his siblings.
9:55 a.m. - After having restored her home to it's pre-niblet condition, Mindy settles in to watch the Saturday morning session of General Conference with a bowl of left over Easter candy.
10:02 a.m. - Mindy may, or may not, have fallen asleep as the Tabernacle Choir sang "Glory to God on High".
