Giving Thanks

In the spirit of the holiday, I have decided to write in the context of what I am grateful for. This month has certainly been exciting! Where to start?

1. Snow. I'm grateful for snow! I know a crazy intense Chicago winter is upon me, but I still get excited when I see the little white flakes falling outside my classroom windows. Our first snowfall this year came mid October! I pulled out my camera and got a couple of shots of the boys' soccer team practicing in the snow - in shorts, of course.

2. Scaring children. Well, that's not entirely true, but I did have an entertaining Halloween this year. The evening started with trick-or-treating, where I accompanied a cat, Spongebob Squarepants, a leopard, some sort of angel, a vampire, and George Bush trick-or-treating (and later met up with a road, Princess Leah, and Sharpay from "High School Musical"). Then I had the pleasure of chaperoning the middle school dance, which actually turned out to be one of the less awkward middle school dances I have been to. The kids actually danced! A refreshing change from the wallflower dances typical to this age group.

The best part, though, was probably the scary night hike that I participated in; the dorm students went on a hike in the school woods, and another teacher and I hid in the woods to spice things up a little. I started following them halfway through the walk, making small noises to set them on edge, while the other teacher waited in a tree and swung down on a rope as the group approached. Ah, the thrill of hearing kids scream. Wait, that doesn't sound good... These students love being scared, though, and have been begging to watch "The Blair Witch Project" ever since. Nope.


3. Real-time learning. It was quite an experience to study the election with the middle school students this year! We watched the debates - and some SNL clips, learned about the important issues, tracked the major candidates, and tried to sort out the electoral college.

After weaving election topics throughout social studies for the month of October, we wrapped it all together with an evening event on Election Day. The students stayed after school for an election "convention" that included pizza, cow tag, presentations, and live election results. Each grade focused on a different area - sixth grade studied local elections and candidates, seventh grade studied swing states, and eighth grade suffered through the electoral college - for which they created informational posters and explained their material to the other grades. Because of school the next day, we couldn't keep the students all night, but they got to watch results come in from the East Coast and some Midwest states.

We also did a mock election, which Barack won by 68%. McCain got 30% of the vote, and Nadar earned an impressive 3% (one vote). Being from Illinois, it was an easy win for Barack! I was glad to see, though, that the students were able to speak intelligently abou both candidates, the VP hopefuls, and the major issues. My goal was that the students would internatlize enough to look back in 20 years and remember that they learned about Barack and McCain in middle school, and I think that goal was achieved!

All in all, my classes are going well; we have finished To Kill a Mockingbird in seventh grade and did a quick poetry unit before moving on to Avi's Nothing But the Truth. Having watched Romeo and Juliet kick their buckets, we will be moving on to Gulliver's Travels in eighth grade. We took a quick hiatus from literature to write short stories, though, and I was impressed with the creativity and variety of subjects that the students have explored. In social studies, we are in the midst of studying World War I (much to the students' dark delight) in seventh grade, and in eighth grade we are learning about Charles I - learning about the British politics that would later prompt the colonies to search out a more democratic form of government.

4. Playing with the dorm. Up until recently, I have been working one weekend a month in the dorm. Just a week ago, however, the dorm director left, so from now on I will be working every other week. Yes, more work, but the kids make it worthwhile! I worked a couple of weekends ago, and other dorm parent I was working with (Mike) and I decided to get the kids cooking. We made pizza and Jessica's Marshmallow Clouds - some of you should know those cookies, the chocolate ones with marshmallows baked inside. Flour, sugar, and pepperoni ended up everywhere, but it was definitely worth it. Korean boys and girls typically keep to themselves, and it can be a struggle to get them to interact. But they all got into the mixing, the kneading, the stuffing, and the baking (not to mention the eating).

Although I would enjoy having my evenings and weekends free, I have found working in the dorm to be really rewarding. There are eleven students total, eight of which stay on the weekend. These eight are all Korean students, sent across land and sea to learn English well enough to be accepted to a good American high school (so that after that, they can get into a good American university). These students are all bright, hard working, and ambitious. And crazy, good-natured kids. By seeing them both in the classroom and in the dorm, I have the opportunity to see them write impressive short stories and ask intelligent questions about the execution of Charles I during the day, and then chase each other around the living room with pillows and giggle in unnaturally high pitches after drinking helium out of a balloon at night.

5. Mango. This past month has been characterized by a few other random events, including buying a new gas tank (mice somehow ate through some element of my original one) and almost losing my cat. As you all probably know, Mango is a stray cat that found her way to me last November. She was found on Principia's campus. After posting a flier and asking around without receiving any response, I kept her. I took her to the vet, had her all checked out, and assumed things were fine - although I did always wonder where she had appeared from. Well, a few weeks ago, I had occasion to take her to a vet in Elgin, and when the vet found out she was a stray, she offered to look for a microchip (a tiny chip that is implanted to be able to track lost animals). She found one! The short version of the story is that they discovered Mango's original owner, who does live at Principia. This owner was contacted and told what happened. She was actually happy to hear that Mango (Annie, as she knows the cat) is alive an in a good home; she thought the cat had been eaten by a coyote, but she is thinking the cat may have run away because she didn't get along well with the family's other animals. So now Mango (no longer Annie) is now officially officially mine! I am very grateful.

6. Unexpected entertainment. As a final note, I thought I would mention that I went to a body-building competition last weekend. James King (friend from Prin and fellow Admissions Counselor last year) was in the area for a wedding, and his brother just happened to be in a body-building competition nearby, so we stopped in to watch. For clarification's sake, the picture here is not James' brother. This guy was one of the most memorable contestants; he was frighteningly chipper, and his hair was, oddly, the same tone as the fake tan he probably sprayed on that morning. James and I dubbed him Rocket Man because in some of his stances, he looked like he might take off for the moon at any moment. It was a very weird experience to sit there and watch men and women flex in skimpy swimsuits, and I was grateful to see that, while James' brother is impressively built, he still looks (well, except for the obligatory sprayed tan) fairly normal.

Well, that's my update for now! Thanks to a newly-updated firewall at school, I can't access my blog on campus, which makes updating it difficult to do spontaneously. So, to my short list of gratitude, I should also add the library's free internet. I'm also grateful for my co-workers at FRCDS, who keep life entertaining and bright through "The Office," Carcassonne, coffee breaks, prairies, and meaningful conversations.

Fall in full swing

Sunday afternoon: I am sitting in the living room of the dorm, typing away as the dorm boys run around the hallway after each other.  The slightly off-key notes of a piano waft up the stairwell from the girls' rec room downstairs, where one of the girls practices the same song that she plays every day.  I have no idea what the song is, but I know it very well by now.  In the kitchen to my left, the dorm parents are stocking the cupboards full of Goldfish, Oreos, and Sun Chips - the fruits of a recent Costco trip.  It's a typical afternoon in the dorm.  :)

It's been what, six weeks since I wrote last?  I am continually amazed at how quickly time can escape without notice.  These past weeks have been very rich and entertaining, not to mention educational.  As I mentioned in my last post, the first week of school for the middle schoolers involves a trip to LOC, a camp up in Michigan.  This week provided an excellent foundation for the year, and at the same time gave me a great avenue for getting to know the kids better.  We spent the three days climbing (and jumping off) dunes, canoeing (and being dumped out of canoes), walking across ropes suspended 30 feet in the air, singing songs about alligators and moose and bananas, and exploring the woods.  

The pictures in this post are from the LOC trip.  The one above is from a game we played where the students were asked to find a partner and come up with a unique frog call.  We then blindfolded everyone, mixed them up, and asked them to find their partner by using the frog call.  Hilarious.  

Above, you see one of my favorite shots from our afternoon on the beach of Lake Michigan.  It looks so mystical and ritualistic... and perhaps it is.  I'm not sure what they were up to.  

I took over 300 pictures at LOC, and you can see a few more of them in an album on Facebook; this link should work even if you don't have a Facebook account:  http://www.facebook.com/album.php?air=2008567&l=b894aid=113100487.

So let's see.  My classes are going pretty well so far.  We are reading To Kill a Mockingbird in seventh grade Language Arts, and we're just now reading about Tom Robinson's trial.  This group is pretty good about debating and getting into issues, so I am looking forward to some lively discussions.  In social studies, we are learning about the Industrial Revolution.  This class is a good challenge for me, because the textbook is rather strange and random, so I have to provide the overarching structure of the class myself.  I am familiar with everything we are studying, but I'm not experienced with putting it all together in a learning form.  (by the way, the picture above is a random shot I got when we were visiting the dunes... there isn't anything important about it, I just like how it looks like these students were washed ashore recently from a shipwreck.  In reality, I have no idea what they were doing.)

With the election nearing, I am also dedicating a day each week to the election in both seventh and eighth grade social studies.  We'll be talking about the candidates, the issues, and the swing states, culminating in an evening election day something-or-other.  I'm still working out the details.  :)  I asked the students to watch at least 30 minutes of Thursday's vice presidential election, though, and it was pretty interesting to have a discussion about the issues afterwards.  

(This picture was the beginning of an hour of canoeing/canoe tipping/river wading - more pictures on Facebook.)  In eighth grade language arts, we are reading Romeo and Juliet, and (spoiler alert) we're getting close to the death of the star-crossed lovers!  This bunch is pretty bright, and they seem to be digesting Shakespeare pretty well - although they grumble as we go.  :)  I am looking forward to a debate at the end of the play to determine who is ultimately responsible for the deaths, as the students have already been making connections about who is to blame and which characters are doing the right thing.  For example, was it selfish for Juliet to run off with Romeo?  At the end of Act III (right after Romeo is banished and Juliet decides to fake her death) I asked the students to write "Dear Abby" advice letters to Juliet about what she should do next, and while most of them advised her to follow her heart and go after Romeo, there were a few students who cautioned her and suggested that she marry Paris, which would be a more sensible choice and would take into consideration the wishes of her family.  After all, Juliet is only 13, and can you really be sure of your heart at this age?  

Romeo and Juliet ties in nicely with eighth grade social studies, where we are studying Shakespeare's biggest supporter: Elizabeth I.  The curriculum for this class makes use of a lot of primary documents, which adds a unique dynamic to the class.  We recently studied some of the sea explorations that took place during Elizabeth's time.  The students were given a prospectus sheet for each of the four expeditions - outlining the captain's experience and expectations, projected wins and foreseeable dangers.  They then had to invest money in one or more of these expeditions based on how successful they thought each trip would be.  Then we read accounts of each expedition and found out how much money they won or lost.  It was very interesting to watch the outcome!  Only one expedition - that of Sir Francis Drake - was really successful, and his earnings were 4700%!  The only other expedition that was successful gained 6%; the other two lost everything.  So the students got to learn about these expeditions from an investor's perspective.  

Classes take up a good chunk of my time, but I feel like they are just the tip of my life iceberg.  I'm the seventh grade advisor, which means I have them for homeroom and for one extra advisory period a week.  I am also in charge of a newsletter class once a week, and I'm pulling together the semi-regular middle school newsletter.  When we have home volleyball games, I am in charge of the scoreboard - very exciting stuff!  

I'm also enjoying living in the dorm and getting to know some of the students that way.  There are 41 kids in the middle school and eleven of them are in the dorm, most of whom are from South Korea.  They are really fun students - they have a good mixture of intelligence and goofiness.  We played lazar tag as a group last weekend, and I now have an idea of who to avoid becoming enemies with!  

Although I spend most of my time in buildings, I am coming to see that the Elgin area has a lot to offer outside!  The school sits right next to the Fox River (from which it got its name), and there is a great bike trail that runs the entire length of the river - 33 miles total.  I haven't done the entire thing yet, but maybe this spring... :)  We are also surrounded by forest preserves and prairies, and I have gone out seed picking a couple of times - once at a nearby prairie and once right on campus!  I didn't know seed picking was such an established art form, but I am becoming wise; there is a group of people who goes out three times a week to prairies in the area to collect seeds from local prairie plants, which they then spread around to other local prairies.  I am learning that this is an important aspect of prairie restoration.  

OK - in the next several hours I need to buy butter, look for an audio recording of To Kill a Mockingbird at the library, bake cookies (rewards for vocabulary/grammar bingo), plan out the next month of election study, figure out what I'm doing in my classes tomorrow (if not for the rest of the week), rearrange the desks in my classroom, wash dishes, and take out the trash.  I should probably get started on that.

Raining acorns

I have survived the first day!  I figured I should post something now, because if I don't do it right away, who knows when it will happen.  :)  I would consider today a success - no one cried, no one threw tomatoes at me, no one asked their parents to switch to another school.  That's a good thing, right?

Tomorrow, the entire middle school (40 students, plus six teachers) drive seven hours to Leelanau Outdoor Center (LOC), which is a week-long leadership camp put on by the Leelanau/Kohahna camp (which is for Christian Scientists during the summer, but they open it up to area schools during the year).  It's a great way for the students to bond, and I know by the end of the four days I will know them well, too!  So before I go, here are some pictures of the classroom.

It really is a beautiful room!  There are a lot of oak trees on campus, and one happens to be right outside my room.  Whenever there is a breeze, a hoard of acorns falls on the roof of the building, sounding like an intense - and quick - hail storm.  It adds a fun dynamic to the tree-house room!

I teach seventh and eighth grade.  Seventh grade has 15 students, and I have them for homeroom/advisory, language arts, social studies, and study skills.  Study skills happens to be on Monday (it's once a week), so today we were together from 8:50 to 11:20!  I will have to find ways to switch things up for them so it doesn't feel like an interminable time in my room.

Eighth grade has 14 students in it, and I have them for language arts and social studies.  The small class sizes are great!  What a luxury in today's school world, no?

This is my favorite area of the room - the sitting/reading area.  This room used to be split in two, so it's a large space now!  I like having the flexibility to be able to create different sections - even having the round table you see below for working with smaller groups or conferencing.  I brought some books from home and have created a lending library, which hopefully some students will take advantage of.  I also went to IKEA and picked up a few things - the green chair, the rug, and (my favorite) the frog cushion.  That was quite a hit with the students!

I have to share this picture with you.  Last weekend I was at a friend's house, and I saw the "chat noir" poster in a storage closet.  I had just been looking for some posters to make the classroom look more interesting, and I asked this friend - jokingly, of course - if she was using this poster.  She took me seriously, though, and gave it to me!  I have to admit, I can't complain.  I love the poster itself, and it fits Mango so well!  I couldn't resist trying to get her picture with it.  Posing animals is next to impossible, of course, but after a few tries to get her to walk across the poster (holding my free hand above it for her to play with), she sat in this position and I 

got the picture.  

Lastly, I put together a bulletin board outside the room to give the students a sense of what they will be studying this year in social studies.  It ended up being rather complicated, but the idea is that what you see is a combination of what the seventh and eighth graders will be learning this year in social studies (yellow cards), set in the context of transportation advances that were happening at the same time.  Here's an idea of what it looks like: 

And that's about it for now!  Now I get to change into comfortable clothes... and pack for a four-day camping trip with 40 middle-schoolers.

Elgin apartment

The move has officially happened!  I am mostly unpacked and settled into the dorm at Fox River (FRCDS).  I'm living in two rooms off the resident director's apartment - but I have full use of the kitchen in that apartment, so it's pretty much a regular apartment.  Except that it's in the downstairs of a middle school dorm.

Cindy and Aaron (mom and brother) graciously flew out to help with the move this past weekend, and I am eternally grateful to them.  A 10' truck seems like it would be plenty of room for one person to move, but it was tight!  Picture a life-size 3D jigsaw puzzle, and you will have a good picture of what it was like loading up that truck.  We were successful, though, and we smoothly made the six-hour drive to Elgin.

Here's a taste of the unloading process:

      

Karen, my new boss, drove me around the area on Sunday to introduce me to the Elgin/Dundee area.  She felt badly that there isn't a grocery store "close;" there are three in the area, but they are each about 15 minutes away.  15 minutes?  I could only laugh.  After spending the past six years in Elsah, where the closest anything is 20 minutes away, I feel like everything here is right around the corner.  Grocery store, Panera, train station, library, park, mall, Dunkin' Donuts, climbing wall, IKEA - all within a 15 minute drive!

OK, now to the real reason you all are reading this: PICTURES.  Here's the new place!

Living room - 

This alcove is meant to be a closet (since the room is technically a bedroom), but I turned it into an office area - 

the cozy desk area :) -

closet/shelves in between the living room and bedroom (and the door on the left is to the bathroom) - 

bedroom - 

view from the door leading into the kitchen - 

the kitchen (the room on the other side of the cabinets is the dorm director's living room) - 

I got the idea for the frames from a friend at Principia... simple, but better than a blank wall!

I'm also excited about the entertainment set-up

there, where I have both my stereo set up and 

extra speakers that can connect to my laptop for

watching movies while I cook  :)

And so it goes

Welcome, one and all, to that which I no longer feel I can avoid: 

The Blog.  (I wonder how many blogs start out with a sentence of that kind.)  As so many have done before me, I have concluded that a blog is the most convenient way to keep my devoted fan base aware of the exciting and awe-inspiring life that I lead.   Or something like that.

Anyway, the big day is almost upon me!  In 48 hours, I will have moved to Elgin, Illinois, to start my illustrious career as a middle school English and social studies teacher.  Over the past couple of weeks, my apartment has gone from looking like this:

... to this:

On Friday, everything I own will be tucked into a Budget rental truck and hauled up to Chi-town! OK, Elgin, actually, but Chicago is just around the corner.  A visual, for those of you not familiar with northern Illinois (I was pretty much clueless until a couple months ago):  

View Larger Map

I will be teaching seventh and eighth grade English and social studies - which includes, but is not limited to, the Revolutionary War, the Depression, Lord of the Flies, Elizabethan England, semicolons, the Constitution, To Kill a Mockingbird, and the development of income tax. I don't know about you, but sounds like a rockin' good time to me! Heading into my first year as a teacher, I'm not sure how much time I will be able to devote to my blog life, but hopefully I can post exciting updates from time to time.