Something old; something new

I'm old.  I've done this for years.  But today was a day of firsts:  yoga, the Met artwork of the day, fraction circles, reading aloud to the students and sustained silent reading (known as SSR in the jargon I learned this summer.)

Yesterday our childcare room was so busy and we had no extra help.   Today we had extra staff and volunteers and half of the families called in with illnesses.  So we were "flexible" (our mantra) and we took advantage of the opportunity for Jessica, a trained yoga instructor and one of our children's teachers) to do 15 minutes of yoga with us.  What fun to be in a circle with four students trying to breathe correctly and to do a few poses.  The smoker among us struggled and that was good for her to know.

I have enjoyed the Metropolitan Museum artwork of the day at home for several months.  If I pull it up daily on our laptop in class, it can enrich all of our lives.  Today's work was a Roman plate from 300 AD inscribed with a menorah, torah, ark, and a shofar.  One student recognized the menorah without knowing its name.  She was the one who wondered how anyone could know how old the plate was.  Good question.

Later in the morning I pulled out the fraction circles that I got from the Math Academy class I took at IVY Tech this summer.  We compared fractions, added unlike fractions, and subtracted with borrowing--all with the students demonstrating our work with the circles.

When I taught sixth grade years ago, we always began the afternoon session by my reading aloud to the students.  Those were good times of reading classic children's books.  A listserv I've been on this summer suggested doing the same with adults.  This morning I read the first chapter of Hatchet--hoping to leave the students with the cliff-hanger of the 13 year old boy 7000 feet in the air in a bush plane with a pilot stricken with a heart attack.  We followed that with ten minutes of silent reading.  The students all chose other books with titles like "Sister to Sister",  "I Never Thought It Could Happen to Me", and "Surviving Abuse."  Not one of them said that they ever read for pleasure.  We'll see if we can start some good habits.  I need to buy more books of the same genre.

My heart sinks when I know that so many students will be absent.  I have to fight discouragement as each call comes in.   But I have done this long enough that I can change plans and take advantage of the opportunities of a small group.  It was a good morning.