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Showing posts from November, 2012

Yummy and Healthy

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"Lollies," my son fondly stated, "we can only eat one. It's not healthy." I could almost hear a deep sigh. Such trauma for a three year old. He wasn't finished. Daniel had prepared an entire thesis on the subject that he was preparing to expound on the topic, right there, in the back seat of the car. "Some foods are yummy, but they are not healthy." Yes, my son, such is life... "We can only eat them on Shabbos. Like lollies and cookies." "Daniel," I asked him, "What about strawberries? Are strawberries a treat?" "Yah." a little wag of the finger accompanied the next injunction. "But only one." "Why?" "It's not healthy." The laughter bubbled up inside of me, but I squeezed down the lid to maintain a straight face. "Sweetie, strawberries are yummy AND healthy." Oh. "What about watermelon?" "Yes, honey, watermelon is healthy.&qu

Experienced and Sparkling

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The girls simply sparkled that night! They wore white caftans speckled with a shimmery gold design that glittered and sparkled in the reflection of the disco lighting above. Though I only taught a sprinkling of them, my heart sang, dance and cheered them on. An entire grade put on the most beautiful production, with their topics of learning interwoven between sparkly scenes of drama, music and dance. Truly an event to make a teacher's heart sing with nachas. It was endearing to watch the girls as they bit their nails, threatened to throw up/faint and just plain freaked out in the wings. "I feel like we haven't rehearsed enough!" Shainy* confided as she waited for her cue. Their sweet nervousness over a short-lived performance cast my mind back to my first days of teaching. I was never prepared enough. There was always one more source to look up and one more worksheet to write. Ah, the sparkly confidence that piggie-backs on four years experience... Lessons that I

Here Today, Gone Tomorrow

It could take a good two, three hours to prepare a solid 45-minute lesson. What about when you up the ante? After researching, writing the lesson, preparing worksheets and a follow up quiz, I decided that my Jewish History lesson on the life of Shlomo ibn Gabirol needed some more pizazz. It was late enough, trust me, but the perfectionist in my soul must've had a good dose of coffee because there I was, enhancing the lesson. I gave my eyes a vigorous rub, and clocked in another hour or two to create the slideshow, animation, or interactive activity that would really help my students take home the learning in a very real, long-term way. (Amen!) If you are lucky, you teach two parallel classes and can use the same lesson twice. And then it's over. All the materials get filed away neatly (I wish!) into a binder or digital folder and hibernate for another year. What's the point? I spend all this time in resource creation, and it gets used once. Shoin. So I think about s

Squeaky Clean on Shabbos Morning

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The children dawned before the sun that fateful day. I rubbed my bleary eyes and schlepped my aching muscles out of bed. No point in two of us being zombies, I figured. I shut the door behind me, leaving DH in his nice, comfy bed. I gathered up the children, and together we dined and played for nearly two hours. By 7:15, I realized that I was squinting at the clock through bleary eyes. I held on until 7:30, then gratefully headed back to bed, "your turn!" Mmmm.... At a quarter to nine, DH came in to tell me that he was on his way to shul. "Don't worry, I'm getting up." The little ones came in a few times, tried to cajole me out of bed. I sent them off for a banana, Lego, crackers, anything really, and rolled over. At one point, he asked me to open a bottle of long-life milk, and I told him they could unpack the box into the shelf. At 9:38 (!) I heard some strange noises. "Is she ok?" I asked the big brother. No response. Yikes! I rushed out

New!

Have a lookie over at my new page. I've posted a slideshow I made to show in the classroom tomorrow. Parsha Class.  If you'd like to use the original file shoot off a quick email. Catch you later,