Today’s Number is Zero

One of my teacher besties sent this to me yesterday, and it spoke truth into my soul.

It is like the universe is against us teachers.  The kids come and we spend the first month establishing routines, building community and relationships, and administering initial assessments to see where they are at.  Then we have all this data and we get rocking and rolling around the beginning of October.  Then we have to attend our MTSS meeting, which probably means nothing to you, but it means a lot to us.  And we have to bring a lot of data, as well as our A game, to this meeting.  We have a few moments of teaching bliss and then it is HALLOWEEN WEEK.

After Halloween week, it is time to start thinking about progress reports and conferences.  We we try to teach and teach and teach and we also need to assess and assess and assess so we can report, report, report.

And then it is THANKSGIVING WEEK.

We all come back, chubby from turkey, and try to get the kids back into the school mindset.  Oh!  And also!  MTSS is happening again this very week.   It happens every six weeks.  Like clockwork.

So, I am trying to get ready for that and get them back into a school mindset. I am happy to report that Mack has mastered the word “the”, but now we must pull out all of our hairs over the word “and.”

We are painfully fellowshipping over the first sentence in his new book.  The sentence reads, “Tim and Dad got a hog at the lot.”

Mack:  T-i-m . . . TIM!

Me:  Good.

Mack:  a . . .n . . .d . . . . . hat! had! hot! dog!  I don’t know.

Me:  Try again.

*repeat*

Me:  Mack.  This is the word “and.”  You will see it all the time, just like “the.”  We need to work on memorizing it.

Mack gleefully finds the word “the” in his sentence:  I KNOW “THE”!

Me:  Yes!  I am so proud.  Let’s work on “and”

So, we spell “and” together.  We touch “and”  and we say the word “and” about 18 times.

Me:  Ok!  Let’s try reading again.

Mack:  Ok!  T-i-m . . . TIM!   a-n-d . . . . HAD!

Oh my gosh, Becky, the kid can read every word in the sentence except “and.”

Meanwhile, another students walks up to me and joyfully announces:

“Mrs.  M.  I LOVE school.  And graham crackers!”

And, so that is how first grade is going.  Also, we have 13 actual school days before our two week Christmas break.  And I am sure the kids will be calm and pleasant and ready to learn for all thirteen of those days.  Then we will come back and try to reign them all in again, just in time for . . . more assessments and data for report cards!

Let’s talk about dog toys.

In case you were wondering, dogs can destroy most toys.  We have found two brands of dog toys that our dogs cannot actually destroy and consume.  They are “Kong” and “Chuck-it”  We have bought about 63 combined Kong and Chuck its and the dogs never know where they are because they take them and leave them about our vast lands.  Yet they always want to play fetch.  Norman, bless his heart, has started walking over to the Christmas tree, pulling an ornament off, and dropping it in my lap for me to play fetch with him.

Here he was just moments ago.  Happily trying to play fetch with my cinnamon scented pine cones that I use for ornaments.

And I love them.

Darla the calf is choosing life, but she is still not choosing to stand.  I got home around 945pm last night and went to try and see what was what with her.

I got her to drink some water.

Oh, the joy this brought me, Reader!  So, I got more water and the dogs came and then this cute little interaction happened-make sure to turn on volume.

She is not interested in sharing her water with the dogs.

Yes.  I am aware that she has dried mud chunks all over her.  That is because we found her almost dead in the mud.

Remember?

No.  No, I do not have time to bathe her.  I have to teach Mack the word “and.”

Happy Wednesday.