Good Criminals Have to Follow the Rules

I just read a news article about a guy who was busted with over $22K of heroin in his car when he was pulled over for speeding. My question is: if you know you have a small fortune worth of heroin in your vehicle, WHY WOULD YOU SPEED? That's like transporting a dead body in your trunk and rolling through a stop sign. It seems to me that if you're going to be a good criminal, you've gotta follow traffic laws, don't you think?

Watch me connect this to teaching.

I've taught in two different districts with substantial gang populations. One was a high school, and the gang members really didn't cause issues in school - in fact, some of the most respectful kids I have EVER taught were Latin Kings. The other was a junior high, and those kids were always in trouble.

And here's the difference: the high schoolers knew it was about conducting business, while the junior high schoolers thought it was about acting like a punk. The high schoolers understand that you can't sell the drugs when you're constantly being sent to the office and being watched because you're a repeat offender; the junior high schoolers don't quite grasp this. So again, to be a good criminal you've gotta follow the basic rules.

Yet, I don't think I'll go over this in class.

Google Fail & Vitamin Poem

So we're all familiar with this internal dialogue/scenario:

"Hmmm, you know what would be great in this lesson? ____________! Let's Google that..."
6 seconds pass...
"There we go! Modify this a wee bit, combine with that... boom! I'm done! Now for Boardwalk Empire!"

And we're also familiar with this one:

"Hmmm, you know what would be great in this lesson? ____________! Let's Google that..."
16 minutes pass...
"What the heck??!! I CANNOT be the first person who has thought of this! What is the deal with these scurvy pirate teacher hoarders??!! Don't people know how to share??!! Dagnabbit!"

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Yeah, so I fell prey to Scenario #2 tonight, and I had to {gasp!} create my own wheel.

All non-teachers are now completely lost. Too bad.

In Foods 1 I'm working my way through a very basic introduction to the major nutrients. First, I will digress and discuss my Foods curriculum philosophy. I do not cook first quarter. For one, IT'S TOO DARN HOT! No air conditioning does not lend itself to a pleasant lab experience. Two, I find that it's absolutely crucial to spend a substantial chunk of time right out of the gate on nutrition; once we start in the kitchens the only thing the kids care about is "When're we gonna cook again? What're we gonna cook? Why do we have to learn this? This is stupid, why aren't we cooking?" and so on and so forth. So I start out with a big nutrition push, then go deeper as we cook our way through the different units.

And I begin with a basic overview of the six major nutrients, and drill them until they've got the real basic info and then we can begin to have intelligent discussions and really dig into the issues.

All this to say that this afternoon I was revamping the notes we take on vitamins, and I thought I'd really like them to be able to recall what each vitamin does, which is actually quite a bit of information and I don't want to spend days upon days just on vitamins. So, I'd need to boil it down to just the key information and give them some tricks to help them memorize them. At which point I thought, "There must be some kind of little poem or song out there about the vitamins!" Wrong. Could not find anything. Well, anything at all useful. Some weird stuff and some incomplete stuff, nothing helpful.

So I wrote my own. And since I am not a scurvy pirate teacher hoarder, I am going to share. Let me forewarn you that this is no work of genius; also, you really have to want it to make some of the syncopation work. Here it is:

And as I am big on both skeleton notes and graphic organizers, here is the form of the poem that my students will actually receive:

 And here's the filled in version:

We'll see how it works out!

And in case you're wondering, once we get into the more complicated stuff, I make them come up with their own stupid poems and memory devices, but first you gotta model, model, model.

Happy Sunday night!

Ah, Adolescent Absurdity

Consider this a post in honor of a blogger I much admire and have mentioned before, M from Teenagers Are Ridiculous.

Boy: If we bring in music can we listen to it during work time?

Me: Um, I dunno. I'd have to hear it first.

Boy: And could we sing along with it? No singing isn't one of the class rules.

Me: No, but keeping me happy is one, and that might not make me happy.

Other Boy: What if our singing is so beautiful it's a mixture of Fergie and Jesus?

Why We Need Home Ec, Part 2

Oh for crying out loud.

This is also why we need spelling tests.

Currently September

A new month, a new Currently with Farley!

Listening - If you have cats, you know they love plastic. This guy goes nuts for duvet clips - especially now that he's lost another tooth and is teething again. The shape is perfect for him, he carries it around like a little binky. It also glides well across floor & carpet, so he loves to bat it around and chase it.

Loving - Ahhh, a break from the 90s! I was roasting on the third floor of my non-air conditioned school this week. I have to say the kids did very well given the circumstances. It'll be great to be in a cooler room tomorrow, though the forecast says it won't last!

Thinking - I've probably written about this before, but I would definitely work longer days four days a week in order to get a three day weekend every week. Three days gives you one day for recovery, one day for work, and one day for play. On a regular weekend, by the time you've recovered, completed your work from the past week, prepped for the coming week, cleaned house/finished laundry/grocery shopped/gone to church, Sunday night bedtime is already here!

Wanting - These first two weeks have been wonderful! I hope the year continues to be this great!

Needing - I am pretty behind on my grad school work - the business of the beginning of the school year has absolutely pushed it to the back burner. Must get butt in gear! Luckily the end is near - we're finished in January!!!

For Me - #1: I need to find a running schedule that works with school being in session. Even though I ran at 5am most of the summer (to beat the heat), that time has become more challenging now. I think it's because it's now pretty dark out at 5. Because of that, I have to pay extra attention to everything, which slows me down, which means running the same distance takes longer, and I begin to lose steam farther from the finish line. Much as I love working out first thing in the morning, I think I'm going to have to try moving it to the afternoon when it's light out. We'll see!

#2: I'm working hard at not staying late, but I also don't want to leave until everything's ready to go for the next day. Now that my commute is longer I'm striving for more efficiency in that regard. This means staying ahead of the game and utilizing every minute of time during the day effectively, especially since I'm trying to minimize my "working at home" time as well. Last year I was a slave to the job which really ran me down; must avoid this year!

#3: Girlfriend time! One of the best decisions I made for myself last year was committing to seeing my best gal in Chicago at least once a month. My husband is my best friend and my favorite person to spend time with, but he can't replace female companionship (nor would I want him to). There's nothing like hanging out with the girls!

So what's "currently" going on with you? Link up!

Plan B...

Yep, this is how you want to start your day:

Plan B it is!

But I'll tell you what - my IT gal took care of the issue in record-breaking time. Something like this would have taken WEEKS at my last school. Soooo great to be back here!

Feeling Like a Rock Star

Not gonna lie, I am feeling like a rock star this weekend! For one, it was a GREAT first week of school, fun even! Two, my readers are definitely making me feel loved. I got a shout out from M over at Teenagers Are Ridiculous. If you don't currently follow her blog you simply must check it out - she is HILARIOUS! You can totally picture all of the absurdity that she reports from her classroom. Also, Mrs. S over at The Crafty Raider offered to send me a Snoopy flag that she is not using. You know I love me some Snoopy flags! (Not so much grammar, apparently, but it's Sunday!) So thoughtful!

I've got lots to share, but for right now I've gotta make sure I have everything ship-shape ready to go for tomorrow - the half-hour preceding 1st period is booked full of 504 meetings, so there will be no time for any foolishness in the morning. More to come about back to school adventures in the following days!

And That's My New Philosophy!

If you're a fan of "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown," you know that the title of this post comes from Sally's big number in the musical. It's been going through my head a lot this week, the reason for which you will soon read.

BUSY, BUSY, BUSY! Kids come on Tuesday! We had our first of two Institute Days on Friday, so it is GAME TIME, PEOPLE! I've been working hard at getting my room ready to go, as well as organizing all of my classroom materials - just like the rest of you. Unlike the very few of you non-teachers who read this blog either because you know me and I told you to, or you... well... I don't know why you would read this if you don't teach and you don't know me. Must be my winning personality! Anyway, here's a peek at what I've been doing.

First, a big scrub-a-dub-dub of all five of my new kitchens (thank you, mini shop vac!). God bless my new principal, who gave the okay for me to use the school's industrial dishwasher in the cafeteria to speed wash and disinfect everything!

What would have taken me DAYS to do by hand took about 90 minutes. Yes! So it wasn't long before my kitchens began to look like this:

Still have labeling, shelf lining, etc to do, but since we won't be in the kitchens until several weeks into the school year this was a good enough start.

I livened up my entryway, since it's the first impression my students will get of my classroom. My doorway is at the end of a hallway directly across from the stairwell, so they'll see this as they climb the stairs.

My Snoopy flag was of course a given, and will be changed out with the seasons - as will the apron. The red sign on the left is my daily schedule of classes, and the yellow is a sketch that a student from this school actually drew for me 5 years ago of a possible logo for outside of my door to replace that little chef guy - the sketch has Snoopy sewing and baking!

While the standing chalkboard in the classroom was charming, it was not nearly as practical as a whiteboard - especially since I'll be adding a projector to the room! Luckily there was a 4' x 6' whiteboard attached to the recessed wall past the flag (where no one can really see it, wha???), so the maintenance crew was extremely kind and moved it from the wall and attached it to the chalkboard at my request. It has of course been Snoopified with bulletin board border found at Joann's!

My desk has also been Snoopified in the same manner:

We're required to post a large display of our classroom rules (which I'm in the habit of doing anyway), so I took advantage of $1.60 engineering prints at Staples to make these:

After reading the "Whole Brain Teaching" book I added #6 - I love how it covers all of the loopholes you could argue for the rules! I made a really big schedule because I much prefer pointing rather than constantly answering the "When do we get outta here?" questions. In April. Hmf. On the back is our late start schedule, so I can just flip it over on days with a different schedule.

This year I've decided to also post "Class Philosophies" in addition to the class rules. These are the things that I say over and over and over again to the kids, to the point where I only have to start the sentence and then they finish it. I'd rather focus on these concepts than the rules, so they are much bigger in the classroom:

1. "Take Care of Self, Take Care of Others" is a phrase I learned through Link Crew, which I think encompasses the whole "respect" idea, as well as all the dangers that a FACS classroom has to offer - needles, scissors, knives, fire, etc. The language is a little less PBIS-y as well.

2. "Go Slow to Go Fast" is another tenet of Link Crew, but has been a mantra of mine since well before I encountered it there. I learned very early on that if you have students go too quickly nothing will sink in and you'll have to start all over. I say this every time a kid is rushing and will clearly have to redo or start something over, or when they complain that it takes us too long to get to the "good stuff."

3. "Say I can't YET." Gets rid of the whole "I can't" business.

4. "Make it AWESOME." I am still a huge, huge fan of Kid President's Pep Talk, so I think about this a lot. I've also found that "awesome" is a whole lot less subjective than you would think. This is my response every time a kid asks me "Is this good enough?" When I ask back "Is it awesome?" the answer is usually a pretty obvious "no" and it's back to work for him/her. I'll mention my sister thinks I should have made it "AWESOMESAUCE," but that's a lot of letters... : )

So this year I am going to try emphasizing these "philosophies" over the rules, in an attempt to make the classroom culture more positive.

And that's my new philosophy!

Mini Shop Vac {Bet You Didn't Know You Needed This}

I'm borrowing an idea from "The Clutter-Free Classroom" blog, which has a series on helpful classroom items that she finds absolutely necessary. Here is my necessity:

This little guy is FABULOUS for cleaning out cabinets, sucking up loose threads, random food particles, and the very worst custodial offenders: hole punches! It is soooo worth the investment (less than $30 at Lowe's) to have my very own shop vac that remains in my classroom. Just make sure you write your name all over it. It's no guarantee that it won't walk off, but it's more likely to be returned.

Summer Worker Cinnamon Rolls

As I've mentioned before, I think it's very important to show appreciation to the people at school who help you to do your job! As a FACS teacher, I usually rely on baking to accomplish this purpose. In the summers I like to bring in a pan of homemade cinnamon rolls for the summer work crew to chow on during their breaks - nothing says "Thanks!" like an insane amount of butter and sugar!

Doesn't it drive you nuts when you remember to take photos of every step except for the finished product? Or am I the only one? Sheesh...

I brought these puppies in for the adults and kids working to make my new school all shiny. Like magic, they disappeared pretty quickly.

What do you do as a "Thanks" for making the school pretty over the summer?