It was all fun and games until...
The Long Essay Experiment
10 Reasons Not to Take a Staycation with Your Children
Ode to Toe
How Exploration REALLY Began
It was all fun and games until...
I
was in a place I was not supposed to be but Heather said it would be fine. We
liked to pretend we were explorers and we were searching for treasure that may
have been buried hundreds of years ago. It was a warm spring day so I had taken
my shoes off and really dug in like a true explorer would have. The grass was
overgrown with weeds and prickly roses that had escaped from their garden
fences. I think it was Mrs. Eden's backyard, but I couldn't be sure, she hadn't
stepped outside in years, so I'm not sure if she lived there anymore. Heather
was her neighbor so if she said we can play there she would know.
Our game of explores became tiresome so we
began to play hide and seek, which was easy in the thick underbrush. As I lay
hiding I could hear my sister calling for me to come home; but it was only 2
o'clock in the afternoon, no where near dinner.
I was going to ignore my sister and remain hidden. Soon her voice got
louder and she began yelling at Heather to go home, but I would not budge, I
did not want to go home yet. Unfortunately my sister's hide and seek abilities
far outweighed Heathers' and she found me quite quickly. She grabbed my arm,
pulled me straight up and had me running in a matter of seconds. I tried to reason
with her, but she wouldn't have it, I tried to explain that my shoes were back
at the lot and she still kept me running. We kept running until she ran me
through an overgrown rose bush and that is where I stopped. I could go no
further, and I began to cry. The rose bushes had poisoned my feet. I could not
understand what was happening to my feet. They were in so much pain, but at the
same time I could not feel them. I looked up at my sister and screamed,
"What is wrong with you?" And that is when she turned me around and
pointed to the enormous black cloud billowing toward us looking as if it was
swallowing the earth.
I could not say a word. I forgot about my feet. Just as I looked back
at her face the yellow sirens began to roar and Laura yelled, "Mt. St.
Helens
The Long Essay Experiment
This essay is a Free
Response Essay I wrote along with my students.
They appreciated the fact that I was writing along with them and they
also liked the process of going over what I wrote and how I brainstormed ideas
and the thoughts that went through my mind as I organized my paper. The students could choose from two prompts so
I wrote one prompt during one period and the other during the next. They have 35 minutes to write for this
prompt, it not typically typed and I left this as my original so you could see
how I wrote it with my students (even though I typed it up for you)
#2 Prompt: Analyze the
roles that women played in the Progressive Era reforms from the 1880s through
1920. Forcus your essay on TWO of the
following: Politics, Social conditions, labor and working conditions.
From voting rights to working
with immigrants, women have played a large role in making changes in the
American Progressive movement through 1920.
Since the Seneca Falls Convention,
women’s desire to be considered “equal” in the eyes of the voting population
was announced. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
and Susan B. Anthony were major players in the movement for the women’s right
to vote. Largely it was thought to be a
movement for the federal government to change this law but ultimately it was
the states that were making these changes first. The movement for women to vote slowly began
in the west and moved eastward pushing for the federal government to make the
same change. If it weren’t for women
like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, women would not have the
leadership to guide them through this process and ultimately pass the 19th
amendment.
Women also unite?(can’t read my own
writing) within their city and state governments to change how voting
regulations would work such as recall and initiatives so there would be less
corruption within these government institutions. If there was, they could purge them from
office. The initiative process also
allows the people to bring laws to vote from the people, which was not there
before.
As women worked tirelessly for
political change, they also wanted to make sure home life and lives of other
was supported as well. Margaret Sanger
felt it was the right for women to protect their bodies from unwanted
pregnancies. Many women’s bodies were in
danger from multiple births and had no control.
With birth control illegal it became very dangerous to protect
themselves from unwanted pregnancies.
Margaret Sanger fought the stigma and shame associated with birth
control and finally birth control was justifiably legal.
There was also a huge
immigration population coming into our cities that needed to be protected. Many needed health care, help with children
and jobs. Jane Addams bought such help
in Chicago
We saw women taking a prominent
role in the Progressive Era both in politics and in the social aspect and we
see another jump for women’s rights in the 1960s. Women like Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem
worked tirelessly to fight for equal pay and rights for women in the work force
and still do today. It may still be
unequal but we are getting there.
10 Reasons Not to Plan a Staycation with Your
Children
Planning
a vacation to get away from it from it all is always exciting to do. Mexico , Virgin Islands, Jamaica
1. Those images of you
sleeping in don’t actually exist. Your
children sense it is their vacation time and will want to get as much awake
time out of it as possible and will, I repeat, will wake you up a 5:30 in the
morning asking for breakfast, to watch a video or for the Ipad – the order may
vary.
2. Your children will be bored because all their
friends are on cool vacations. So unless
you are o.k. with letting watch videos, TV., or be on IPads/x-box for the
entire vacation your daily mantra will be: Go read a book! How about a puzzle?
Let’s go on a hike! How many windows do we have? How many stairs? Let’s do
legos! Who wants to go grocery shopping…again?
3. All of your plans to get caught up on
household chores are out the window. (see #2)
4. All of your good intentions to get your paper
done are also never going to happen. (see #2)
5. Your children will soon tire of all your
ideas to keep busy and will begin fighting.
This will begin on day two.
Actual physical fighting may ensue on day 3 depending on the age and
size of the child.
6. You will being spending money to stop the
fighting. This will be in the form of
shopping trips for clothes (but separately) or perhaps movie outings or
bowling. It is important to keep them
busy and their minds off the staycation.
7. You will be more tired and to the point of
exhaustion because of the constant emotional and physical battle that ensues
between you and your children. You will
begin to question your sanity.
8. Your spouse will be of no help to you during
this staycation. Because it is not a
vacation they did not take any time off.
Whatever happens during the staycation is entirely up to your expertise
and attention. You are completely ALONE.
9. Your children and even your pets will sense
you are losing your grip on the situation.
The children will ask for more screen time while the pets will scurry
for safety into the dark corners of the house.
Your children will slowly turn into lifeless zombies, sucked into the
abyss of the virtual world, all because you wanted some time to yourself
without fighting, more legos or speaking to 13 year old for just another hour.
10. You will end up planning a quick vacation
that is rushed, therefore not planned well and ultimately doomed. This vacation will probably will be
remembered as the worst vacation in your children’s memories for decades to
come. But you must plan this vacation
just so you can reclaim your children from abyss that which you sent them while
regaining some sort of sanity of your own.
It would help if your spouse came along and did most of the work, while
you enjoyed a cocktail or two.
Take it from a mom who had the very best intentions to stay
at home with her loving family for spring break and on day 2 realized what a
heavy mistake I had made. Thankfully, I
called my sister in Montana and I will be
taking my boys to visit her family and to the Museum of the Rockies
for a few days. But I leave you with
this word of caution – BEWARE – it was almost too late for us, do not submit
yourself to this peril as I had; plan your vacations accordingly as it may save
your family’s life.
ODE To TOE
Slicing dicing Ben's Big
Toe.
No Matter how I warned him
he always knows.
Weeks later Ben's Big Toe
aching, red and throbbing, tender to the touch.
I howl, "I told
you!"
More weeks go by, soaking
Ben's Big Toe, crying, and sulking.
"Help me!" Ben
wails.
Ben's Big Toe has its own
heart beat now
and new shades of red and purple.
I inspect Ben's Big Toe and
whisper "It may be time for us to remove Big Toe."
Ben's eyes mushroom to twice
their size, maybe we should see the doctor first.
The Doctor explains to Ben
that he must remove part of the nail but this will stop Big Toe from hurting
and it will stop the heartbeat.
Ben agrees.
Two needles to deaden Big
Toe.
Scissors and tweezers to
take the nail off.
Blood begins to poor out of
Big Toe.
Ben thinks it is cool.
Ben's Big Toe heartbeat starts to slooow down.
Ben's Big Toe gets wrapped up in gauze and tape.
Big Toe's heartbeat stops.
How Exploration REALLY Began
This storybook was meant to
be more of an example of an explorer and their impact on history but when I
went to look for pictures in Storybird I found all these pictures of animals in
ships and decided to make a funny story about animal explorers. It’s a running joke with all my students that
it is my plan to start changing history in tiny ways; just making up ridiculous
things to see if anyone believes them.
So this kind of fits into that category.
I did think that my students would find it
funny, at the same time I could show them how to use the Storybird program with
my expectations for their own projects on exploration; so it is a good
introduction to say the least. (as
demented as it may be lol)
