I woke up a few minutes before the alarm went off. It was almost warm when Elsa and I did our walk. When I got to yoga, I told Heather that I had finally verbalized why I was sleeping for the second half of the class. My left hip muscles were exhausted by the work they did for the first half. I am getting serious movement in that left hip. She said she had seen that because my muscles shook from exhaustion. Today, that movement came in on the third asana, eagle. That left hip joint was popping away. After that point, I had to modify all the postures to give those muscles a chance to recover. I learned something new about my body limits by doing that.
After class, Crista, the studio owner, handed me an envelope with a note. I assumed it would be something related to Mike's burial, but she knew nothing about that. The note was a thank you for being a consistent member, a pillar of the studio. I have been going regularly for years now, attending whenever I'm on the island and in good health. She said it is people like me who are role models for the other students and who sustain the studio financially so other students can come and go and be assured the studio will still be there when they come back.
I showered and changed. Today, I needed help putting on my underpants. I called for help, and Heather ducked into the dressing area and gave me a hand. She didn't even have to ask what kind of help I needed. Then I went off to my physical therapy appointment.
I told Katie how the pain I experienced in my left hip bone when I slept on my left side was gone. I thought it was due to the exercise she gave me pushing off on my toes. Instead of doing it as she showed me, I incorporated it into my walk. I push way up on my toes while bending my knees. I do this in three-foot positions: parallel turned in and turned out. I told her that I thought my lower body had done enough for the day, and she should concentrate on my upper body. She worked on my neck and my shoulders. She was surprised by how tense these areas of my body were. She said the tightness wasn't apparent when I walked.
The next stop was Memory Lane to drop off two woolen lap blankets, six plastic placemats, and miscellaneous Christmas cards. I found a member of my church volunteering in the drop-off area.
Then off to the post office and the bank. I sent off Damon's wedding ring, which he had left in the bathroom drawer, and the embroidered tablecloth and ripped linen one to Dorothy, who volunteered to take them from me. What are we all going to do with these antiques? Some day they will wind up in dumpsters. Hopefully, I can postpone the inevitable. Research shows, I may find takers on Etsy.
My final stop was at Home Depot. Their site showed that they sold storage bags for under $10, which is cheaper than Target. Only one problem, when I got there, I discovered it was seven dollars for one medium-sized bag. For $20 at Target, I get two big and two medium.
I got home in time to shower and change and get to school. I was exhausted but didn't want to miss it. I was anxious to see how K. in Mrs. D's class and how D. in Mrs. L's class would do with the math we had covered on Tuesday. Also, I had the work with I. in Mrs. B's class on the impact of fear on his learning.
I started with D. from Mrs. B's class because I hadn't worked with him on Tuesday. Wow! There is some difference. He has been reading and rereading and rereading the transcribed texts. He said he is seeing a difference in all his reading and writing. I had him read the first five of the transcribed stories. He made some mistakes, but they were the type of errors I might make with an overly familiar story. He also made several self-corrections. When he told me he had only been working with the first five stories at home, I had him read the sixth one. He soared through that too. Great. He has a way to work on this on his own and with his mom. It looked like he didn't need me anymore, at least not at the moment. My goal is to teach students to teach themselves. It looks like D. is off and running.
Next, I worked with I. in Mrs. B.'s class. I wanted to work on the fear issue that had come up on Tuesday. Fear interferes with learning. Being in survival mode disrupts the mental processes necessary for academic learning. If 'you,' some part of 'you,' feels scared, that dominates everything.
I started by asking him if he knew why he was scared. I asked him the standard questions: Do you think anyone is going to kill you if you never learn to read? No. Not even his mother who yelled at him all the time, particularly about his inability to read. Has anyone had success with the scream method of teaching reading? Please, let me know. I told him that no one was reading or writing until about 10,000 years ago. He was watching some activities across the open area. I asked him if he could both listen to me and look at something else. He said yes. Then I asked him what I was talking about. Not a clue. I repeated the story starting again with the information that no one read or wrote until about 10,000 years ago. Then I asked how long ago people started reading and writing. He said 10 years ago. I repeated 10,000 years. He repeated 10,000 years. I started telling the story repeatedly and again asked him how long ago people started reading and writing. Not a clue. Oh, boy. This child has some problems with remembering what he has heard.
He had brought out a Little Bear book. I read a sentence from it and had him repeat it. He did much better repeating a whole sentence than he did numbers. That makes sense. Then I started asking comprehension questions. "Little Bear painted a picture for Grandmother. "Who painted a picture? What did he paint? Who did he paint it for? He did reasonably well on the IN The Book part of the exercise. He had much more trouble when it came to using one sentence to understand the next one. He has serious comprehension problems.
In the past, I would have kicked myself around the block for not picking this up sooner. But by this time in my career, I have learned that there is usually a reason for this delay. The student isn't ready for me to see it or ready to work on it. Interestingly, this showed up right after we worked on releasing the fear of not performing as he should be for his age.
While Mrs. D's class was at the library, I worked with D. from Mrs. L's class. The class was about to leave for the library. Mrs. L. told me to send him up when I was finished with him. I reviewed double-digit addition with and without regrouping. He had perfect recall for both procedures. I believe this little boy will be a very good student once he gets over his psychological interference. I asked what else he would like to work on. He said nothing and looked furtively after his departing class. I wrote 3+2= and 3x2=. He answered five for both. I did a little exercise to show him what multiplication meant. I ripped up pieces of paper, telling him they were pieces of candy. I gave him two pieces three times and asked him how many he had. He counted and came up with six. Next, I presented him with two addition problems: 3+3+3+= and 3+4+2=. He proudly gave me the correct answer for both. The question was which one could be written as a multiplication problem. I think he got some of it. We'll see. Whatever else has happened, he is much more cooperative. I sent him up to the library and headed over to Mrs. D.'s class.
I worked with K. on the math. I had her write a problem. She wrote 8 +7 =. Then she held up 8 fingers. I asked her which was the larger number. She said 8. I reminded her that she had to hold up the smaller number and count on. I held my breath while she started counting. She started with 9. Phew! She did another problem correctly, and I asked her if she wanted to show her work to Mrs. D. She said yes. I was nervous because the fear she would feel would disrupt her mental processing. She did indeed need some help. But she was able to demonstrate her improved skill level.
Mrs. D. said K. was doing her math homework. Mrs. D. asked her if her mother did the work or helped her. She said she did it on her own. I don't know if she did it correctly but doing it at all is a huge step in the right direction.
I was supposed to have dinner with the young woman who lived here for six months. I was exhausted already after Bikram. I texted her and asked if we could reschedule. She said, of course, so I went home to sleep.
First, I got a call from Judy. She and Paulette were heading out to Costco to pick up food for tomorrow's potluck at Sue Brio's house. She had offered to pick up something for me. I agreed to two small plates of shrimps for the pupus. Then, I called my friend Jean first because she asked for a telephone date; we hadn't spoken for a while. I only got her voice mail. I told her I was napping and went to sleep.
When I got up, I squeezed lemons for my drink. The bags of lemons I had to buy at Costco had been sitting around for several days. They were out the whole weekend while Damon and Cylin were here waiting to be attended to. Damon said nothing about them. Such a good boy. However, much Mike needed order, I think Damon's is actually worse. He and Cylin had cleaned and cleared all the living areas. I hadn't had any chance to clean my bedroom. Damon said he carefully avoided going in there. Too much ooze. That's what Mike used to say. While I haven't perfected my orderliness, I am getting better. Rather than storing my yoga stuff on the floor, I put it away and take it out of the drawer when I need it. Too bad I couldn't do that while Mike was alive. He would have loved it.
Elsa and I went on our before-dinner time walk. I had some leftover food from the barbeque Damon made on Sunday, cold corn on the cob, and a little bit of steak and, of course, my salad and lemonade.
After dinner, I worked on the blog. I need to catch up. I also loaded things I will need for tomorrow in my car: the pictures of the inside of my eye that Sandor took to show to the eye doctor tomorrow and the soap the Dog Groomer will need for Elsa.
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