blah blah blog

I really enjoyed doing a blog.  I consider it a digital journal.  I have kept a journal since 5th grade so it is something I am used to doing.  The biggest difference I see is that other people will view this so I had to be careful with what I wrote.  I am used to letting loose in my personal journal so I had to read and re-read, checking it over as if I were soemone else viewing it.  Another difference would be how I had to monitor what I wrote to keep out family references.  I am used to writing anything and everything as it crosses my mind.  I have been so busy with teaching, clooege work and life in general that I have let the blog replace my regular journal to some extent.  I will probably do this again with my students.  I think it would be something they would enjoy and a way for me to receive feedback from them about class and school.

My side of the Mountain

This is the book I did the original book talk for.   It's by Jean Craighead George.  She has written over 100 books for youth.  She was awarded the Newberry Medal for another of her books, Julie of the Wolves.  She grew up in a family of naturalists and she wrote this book putting that knowledge to good use.  When she was little she dreamed of running away from home and living out in the woods.  This book is a fulfilllment of her long ago dream and  for others who may have had a similar dream.
The book is about a teenage boy named Sam Gribley who ranaway from New York City and his time out in the woods of New York State over a several months time span.  It describes how he caught food, trapped animals, used natural resources around him to make clothes, utensils, housing, and more.  It is a great book for middle school aged students.  I read it to my son in 4th grade and he enjoyed it as well.  He is a real life Sam who likes to go out to streams to catch crawdaddies and bugs, and so on.
You can apply it to science of course for the naturalist aspect, but also to literacy for the writing style, colloquialisms, for social studies to discuss the differences from New York City where he ranaway from and compare it to the woods where he lived for almost a year.

How Time Flies

The semester is quickly coming to a close for my classes in Greenland and the graduate classes.  It has been such a learning time for me.  I am a mother of four of my own, but then I have 120 other kids.  These are my science kids.  I wish I coud get to know them all equally well.  There are definitely some I have a good rapport with.  Others not so much, but I still want them to succeed.  I get so frustrated when they just give up and seem so apathetic.  My superintendent wants us to pick one student to pay particular attention to and take under our wing.  There are too many for me to choose just one.  I hope and pray that I can continue to improve my own learning and that it benefits those of my science kids too.