During Bikram, I slept for the 2nd half again because my leg gave out after the separate leg exercises. When I got home, I took the laundry off the line and took out the garbage.
Paulette had contacted me about the photos of the lava stones in my front yard that I thought would serve well as a gravestone for Mike's, and eventually my, grave. We were going to a funeral at the church and would stop off at the graveyard to check out the situation, taking measurements.
I got a text from Mrs. B saying that there was assembly right after lunch, so I went in a little later than I had planned. It wound up that it was right before the end of school, so I only had half an hour. Good enough.
I worked with I. in Mrs. B's class. He's up and down but can usually figure out a word, but he struggles with stories he has repeatedly seen. I find he still doesn't use the decoding procedure I have taught him on his own. When I blocked out the first letter(s) so he could only see the vowel and the following letters, he figured out the word with ease. But he still doesn't do it on his own. He struggled more today than yesterday, but it didn't feel like it was a step backward. It felt like his nervous system was recalibrating and confused. Recalibration means that improvement will follow- from my lips for God's ear.
R. from Mrs. D's room asked to work with me. The class was working on a cursive assignment. She didn't look like she needed a lot of help. I sent her back in and called out M., but he was involved in something at that moment and didn't want to come.
I took D. he also came out with his handwriting work. Oh, yes. I was supposed to work on his handwriting with him. I forgot. I figure if things are bad enough, the teacher will remind me. Mrs. D. came out and told me she was seeing improvement in his handwriting and his behavior. This was fantastic news. I asked him if he was happier. He said yes. I told him how happy he made me. I asked him if I could kiss him. (Mrs. D. was standing right there.) He said no. (Good practice if nothing else.) I asked him if I could blow him a kiss. He said yes. I like to make a fuss when kids do well. Making changes is hard at any age. I think it is harder for a young child to make changes consciously. That is a lot of prefrontal cortex work. That part of the brain is not fully developed until sometime in our twenties. He was working on the letter y. I hate the way handwriting is taught. It's a throw away subject. The goal is good handwriting, but there does seem to be some relationship between the fine motor coordination required to do it and emotional regulation. I learned that from Emmie Spies at the Lewis School of Princeton. She said it correlated with the ability to pay attention. D. showed me how he could use his hand differently. I had shown him how to use his whole arm when he wrote rather than just writing from the wrist. Wow! I have never had a kid take off with one lesson on the hand position like this. It usually requires a great deal of concentration and hard work to change the way you use your muscles. Holy cow!! It was very exciting. I noticed he didn't use the lines provided in the handwriting book correctly. I borrowed an idea from another teacher in Princeton who started the Latin school, which I don't think exists anymore. I described the baseline as the ocean's shoreline and the hump used to start the lower case cursive y as a small mountain. Then you come back down, create a valley, go back up to the line for the top of the mountain, and then down to below sea level, come back up to sea level, cross the other line, and end they just above the sea level line. He got this right away. I am going to work more with him on how to do cursive. If Emmie Species is right, this will turn this child's life around
I worked with K. from Mrs. D's room next. We had worked on her fear of making mistakes in math last time. Hopefully, it made a difference. However, when I gave her an addition problem, she promptly put out the number of fingers representing the larger number. I articulated the procedure: step one: compare the numbers. Which is the larger one? Step Two: How many fingers do I put out? It has to be representing the smaller number. She seemed more confident and did a few problems with greater ease. Then I gave her a six-digit addition problem without regrouping. She did very well with this. Sailed through with ease. I sent it home with the words' without regrouping' and 'no carrying.' Her dad has been working with her. I thought he might create some other problems for her, but I wanted to make sure it didn't include regrouping. We hadn't done that yet. My next step will be to cover subtraction without regrouping before I teach addition with it.
While I was finishing up with K, the kids brought their chairs out into the atrium for the awards assembly. I told both Mrs. B. and Mrs. D. that I had run into a teacher who had been in our school several years ago who I had worked with before I worked with them. Mrs. D. knew she was working in a school again. She had heard from a friend who worked there.
I took off for Costco. I found the blueberries I had come for, but I couldn't find the vinegar. I wanted to pick up several bottles so I could use it for the weeding next week. Come to find out, vinegar is an antibacterial. There is a good chance that Costco is out of it nation-wide.
When I got home, I took a nap. Someone called, but I couldn't be bothered. When I did get up, I texted Shivani, reminding her to call me to sing Happy Birthday to Sidney; he's three years old. I have made a birthday card which I still have to send out. I told Shivani this proves that everything the art critics have said about my talent is true. She laughed appropriately, but I had fun doing it.
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