Eye-Spy: King of the Morning

 1.  King of the morning, the Great Blue Heron. I netwalk with my friend and colleague Jen K each Sunday morning. We never know what we will see---otters, ducks, rabbits, snakes, and birds of all kinds.  This guy let us watch him for several minutes.  He was about as tall as my friend.  

2. Rocket Trail...one of the benefits of living in Central Florida.

3.  Imagine my surprise when the Oscar Meyer Wiener mobile turned into our parking lot one day after school.  I waited with baited breath.  It passed out school and I thought it might go into the park.  Turns out it was a wrong turn.  The funniest thing is what I overheard one of the high school students say.  I can't repeat it here, but it was evident she had never heard of the Wiener Mobile.  

Difference Maker

After 23 years of teaching, you never know about about the long-term impact you have on all of your students. I have been surprised when running into my former high school students as adults.  One is now teaching English at my current school.  I always hope that I have nurtured the life-long love of learning, reading and writing. We also don't know the impact of our other actions. We don't always have tangible evidence of the difference we made. This morning a message on Facebook reved up my day of amazing into full throttle.
 
Sara, a student who was a freshman in my English class in 2002, messaged me about how she was grateful that I let students come into my classroom during lunch. She shared, "During that time you started to introduce me to books you thought I would like, and as I had always enjoyed reading, I started to LOVE it. I counted and I ended up reading over 100 books that year when you were my English teacher." That is a story I love to hear! 

At that time in my career, my students ate lunch in my classroom. My high school principal allowed kids that freedom on the campus.  My classroom became a safe space.  My nerdy boys would bring their laptops and communicate through their games. never talking.  We would play heavy metal or whatever students were listening to through the audio enhancement system. Others came to lunch too.  
Sara was one of those students. She went on to thank me, "for taking the time to recognize my desire to read and discover new books/authors. And most of all, providing a place where I could feel not so alone during a tough time! It may not have seemed like a big deal, but it meant a lot to me, I just thought you should know." Thank you for letting me know.  I keep these notes in the top drawer of my desk. They are for the tough days.

Teaching is an avocation not just a profession. We can wake up every day and read about the wrongs in education and what needs to be fixed, but as my mentor Janet Allen always professed and I continue to repeat that mantra, "We are the professionals in the room."  No matter what, we have to make decisions in the best interests of our students.When I say my goal is to cultivate life-long readers and writers, I mean it and I know we don't do it by testing. We do it by listening, and book pushing and providing sacred safe spaces for kids to read, write, learn, grow and just be. Thank you for confirming that Sara!

Middle School Dance

Flashback to 2nd grade

My girlie is going to her first middle school dance this Friday.  The dress is fancy.  To my daughter that is jeans and converse. I am not sure if that is "fancy," but students have to follow the school dress code. She tried to justify her footwear choice by saying I wore Doc Martens with my outfits.  I told her I wore them with a dress.  Then I had to laugh when she said that she didn't care about clothes.  This is the kid who refused to wear pants at age three.  I can still buy her clothes, but it works best when she is not with me.  She has her definitive opinions about clothes.

Sweating from the dance to the tunes

She, of course, does not want us to chaperon. I remember her "first" school dance in elementary school.  It was a study in child development.   The kindergarten kids just be-bopped around and the 2nd, 3rd and 4th grade grade boys ran laps around the school cafeteria. The  2nd, 3rd and 4th grade girls danced.  The fifth grade girls promenaded around the room in their fanciest clothes leading their fifth grade boyfriends around the room.  No matter what I hope she will eschew popular opinion and just dance! Wish us luck!  We have 4 days left to pull together an outfit.

Sunday Seven

7.  Dedicated hard-working colleagues.  We made it through our first week of testing approximately 1600 9th and 10th graders.  The students took the 2 hour computer-based  FSA writing test last week.  Students responded to a single topic by reading 2-4 texts and then composing an argumentative or informative\explanatory essay.  A week like last runs smoothly when the students feel confident and prepared which goes back to the teachers.

6.   Florida spring weather where it is cool enough to keep the windows open yet warm enough to swim.

5.  Curious excited young future educators.  I have been blessed to teach a course each spring and fall in the College of Education and Human Performance at the University of Central Florida since the fall of 2006.  They keep me on my toes and inspired.

4.  Seeing these these former future educators in the wild.  I am lucky to work with 5 of them and have had the fortune to learn from them.  Most recently at a digital high school in their English classroom.  Our high school is going digital next year and I have been able to pick their brains. One currently as a member of her dissertation committee and she defends next week.  Another at ETEC2. They are members of a clan. Some go by their self-described name of SOBs (Students of Beth) or more recently I learned, The Rebel Alliance.  Knowing they are out there honing their craft and becoming leaders makes the extra work worth it.

3.  A second blooming of my Christmas cactus.

2.  Fearless friends and my husband who strapped on their rollerskates even after their skating talents have laid dormant for the past 20-30 years in celebration of my friend Lee Ann's 50th Skate-bration.

1.  The ability to keep moving...rollerskating, running swimming, jumping...just moving.  I dropped 1 minute and 36 seconds off of my monthly fitness assessment this week.

Stacey, Betsy, Dana, Tara, Beth, Anna, Kathleen & Deb host the annual Slice of Life Story Challenge as well as the weekly challenge.  Blog with us at Two Writing Teachers. 

Spring Into Saturday: DeLeon Springs & Pancakes

Looking for something to do this weekend? Drive north on l-4 from Orlando and head  thru Deland to Deleon Springs. It isn't the prettiest spring to swim in, but isn't too deep for toddlers. Our secret is to arrive and have pancakes at the Old Spanish Sugar Mill on-site for a late lunch/early dinner. This way you miss the crowd at breakfast and lunch. The pancake house stays open until 5. If you are waiting, you can enjoy a dip in the spring, visit the museum, or head out on the pontoon boat to tour the St. John's River. You also don't  want to miss a hike in the Cypress Swamp. There's a decent playground for the little ones too.  It's an ideal way to inexpensively enjoy historical aspects of Florida without paying exorbitant fees for the concrete jungle.

The pancakes are all you can eat and you cook them in the griddle on the center of the table. This meal and trip is best reserved from October to May since the historic restaurant has no AC. There is, however, a 72 degree spring to jump in to cool off . Also for pancake-haters like me, they have a small breakfast and lunch menu to choose from. 

Friday's Food for Thought: Ice Cream

One way to survive blogging each day is to have a routine about what you will post each day of the week.  My Friday focus is food for thought in which I will share some of my favorite recipes.  

I have new rule about food appliances sharing my space with my family. In fact, my favorite new tool is my Kitchen AID spiralizer attachment, but I will write about zoodles later this month.(Disclaimer: I don't get kickbacks for any of the products that I talk about on this blog!) I came up with this rule because we live in a condo and our square footage is at a premium.  I love to cook, but the new deal is this: if I have a kitchen tool or appliance that takes too much space, I have to use it at least once a month or twelve times a year. 

The first item up for possible disposal was the ice cream maker that we received as a wedding gift sixteen years ago. This meant I had to make ice cream\sorbet at least once a month last year or 12 times last year.  Really not an awful problem, since my daughter eats ice cream each day. It's part of her prescription for life. I''m more of a chip monster, but these recipes were worth the work and once you mix the ingredients the machine does the rest.  Here are my top 3 faves!

1.  Meyer Lemon Sorbet:  Sour citrus flavors are among my favorite and lemon stands head and shoulders above the rest.  I have a box of Girl Scout lemon shortbread cookies taunting me from the freezer right now.  What was most delicious about this sorbet was the freshness.  A work colleague bought me a bag of Meyer lemons from his parents'  tree.  It was light and tart and enjoyed by everyone in my house. (a twist on this was a strawberry lemon sorbet).  

2. Strawberry Gelato:  In Florida, you can start picking strawberries in December until the end of March\middle of April.  I tend to go a little crazy picking strawberries, often picking 20 pounds.  I love strawberries and my daughter does too.  This recipe is richer than sorbet. The key difference between it and the sorbet recipe is heavy whipping cream.  It has a decadent mouth-feel.   For each of these recipes, all of the fruit was picked either by a friend or myself. Perhaps that goes back to the quality of the ingredients that made a difference.  

3.  Peppermint Ice Cream:  I love mint, peppermint, the kind that flavors candy canes. Some people love mint and some do not.  I can't stand wintergreen and the only way to keep my mom from eating ice cream is making sure it is mint. Although Publix makes a candy cane ice cream and Haagan-Daz makes a peppermint bark ice cream which both come out at Christmas, this recipe is worth the try.  It is actually from Cooking Light and you would never know the difference.  This was the first ice cream that I ever made.  The key to this recipe is that you have to stock some candy canes away, but I guess crushed peppermint candies would do in a pinch.

I've made other flavors too such as blueberry, vanilla, mint chocolate chip and watermelon sorbet. Not every recipes was a success, especially the watermelon sorbet.  Too much sugar!  My cooking failures are good lessons for me. Now I now to taste the base before I freeze it. Next up on my sorbet\ice cream flavor to-dos are key lime, grapefruit, cranberry and coffee. Any special requests?

What's your favorite flavor of ice cream or recipe to make ice cream or sorbet?

Writing Side-By-Side

My daughter had writing homework tonight. It was the kind of homework I like.  Something she can do without the help of her parents or teacher and it doesn't take forever.  We could talk for days about the pros and cons for homework and examine the research.  But instead I wrote beside her.  She had to complete a writing frame poem about changes, a then and now poem that you may have assigned to kids yourself. She is in sixth grade; she turned 12 last week.  She didn't give me permission to share her poem, but  here is mine:









CHANGES


That was me then; this is me now.
Last year I was 44;
now I am 45.
I used to enjoy being on the go, go, go;
now I like down days.
I used to believe that I wasn't a big car driver and loved my Honda Fit;
now I love my mom-mobile CRV with heated seats.
I used to be confused by how to use Microsoft ACCESS;
now I am still confused, but have more of an urgency to learn it.
Last year I focused fitness goal of competing in CG Games;
now I honing my laser-like focus vision on my A1C goal.
Last year I hoped that chips would be carb-free;
now I still hold that same desire.
This year I continue to find joy in each day.
That was me then; this is me now.

When you are stuck with what to write about this month, just search for inspiration.  You never know where you will find it.  Like tonight after searching writing prompts, I finally found it in my daughter's homework.