B is for Bobby

My nephew Bobby is one of the joys of my life.  Although he wasn't named for me, we have a special connection because really there are only about three Bobby(i) Aakhuses in the world.  We are a rare commodity.

Bobby is so full of life and is always getting into trouble.  He's loud but kind. He's the center of his dad's world.  One day we celebrated his fourth birthday at a waterpark near Detroit Lakes.  We couldn't find him when it was time for pictures.  When we finally found him, he was with another family as they were taking family pictures.  Bobby photo-bombed their family pictures.  I love that a  four-year old could do that.  I wonder what they think about when they see the little brown -haired kid in their family pictures.

Bobby makes friends where ever he goes.  He wears a fedora.  He calls out to the pretty,  teenage girls; "Hey girlfriend, give me a kiss."  That is our Bobby.  What a guy!

Autobiography A - Z: A is for Allison

My Practical English class is writing their Autobiography -- an Alphabetic Biography - This will be something they can put out at their graduations and think about what's important to their lives.  Maybe it'll be one last chance for  me to get to know them even better.  As they write their autobiographies, I will write mine.

A is for Allison

Allison  Ann is my second born.   One of the first things I noticed about her is that she is very smiley, and she likes to snuggle.  When the nurses and daddy took her away to bathe, she cried and cried until she was returned to momma.  She hasn't liked to bathe ever since!

Allison is very flexible.  Yesterday, she called out to me; "Mom look!"  She was doing the splits up against the wall.  You read that right.  One foot was on the floor, and the other pointed to the ceiling.  Crazy girl.  Allie's dream is to go to the Olympics as a gymnast.  Well, that has been what she has talked nonstop about since last summer when she met the neighbor-lady's granddaughter who is in gymnastics in Fargo.  She and her cousin have set up a gym in her aunt's basement. They have beanbags and sleeping bags to cushion their falls.

Allison loves apple pie and Chicken Belden.  She loves fashion, and her favorite store is Justice. My Allie is a dreamer.  She is full of love.  She is confident and won't let anyone bully anyone else in her presence.  She has been rumored to stick up to the big kids on the playground.  No one gets in her way. She sticks up for the underdog.  She is my Allie.

Cup Hoarder

Before leaving school Thursday evening, I packed up for the weekend.  Every weekend, this is a process of throwing things out and tidying up to the best of my ability.  And as I sat at my desk my right foot hit the box under my table.

"Clink"

Oh - yeah - that's where my stash of used cups were.  You see, I often am so busy during the day that I forget my coffee cups all around my room and then, I don't have time to clean them...  And well, it's kind of gross, so I don't feel that the "Dishes Fairy of the Teacher's Lounge" should have to wash my dishes... and I feel so guilty..

I started putting them in a box to wash later.

But last week, I started realizing that we were running out of cups in the staff room....

So I brought the box of cups home, washed them, soaked them in bleach, and rinsed them out again.  Yesterday morning, I got to work very early and put the cups in the cupboards when no one was looking...

Good thing no one knows that I am the Cup Hoarder ---(insert evil laugh here.)

Soundtrack to My Life

While at Fosston, one of my favorite assignments is "The Soundtrack to My Life". I'm hoping it's one of the Mustang's favorite assignments, too. 

When I passed out my assignment sheet on that Tuesday, I saw a couple of jaws drop.  I couldn't read if they were excited to have another writing assignment that was so original and fantastic that they were speechless, or if they just thought it was another one of Aakhus' crazy ideas.


When I read their papers, I found some students were able to share their lives like they had never shared before. I found that the students who went beyond their usual genre of music had more interesting papers.   I also found that some students don't equate music to their lives and would rather take a 0 than finish the assignment. 

Meanwhile here is my soundtrack.

Dreaming

When I realized that there are kids out there who don't know how to dream, it broke my heart.  All this talk of dreams really ticked some of them off

"I don't have a dream - I'm not good at anything."

This stumped me. As a young teen, I didn't have a lot of self-confidence either, but at least, I had a dream.  I was going to become famous.  I might not have been the best singer, writer, student, athlete, or actress, but I was going to become famous.

I think it was because I had books.  I had an escape from school.  Books gave me a dream.

So - I try.  I try and give them a dream by demonstrating others' dreams.  Maybe they don't know of all the possible dreams out there.

Like this



How cool is that?  Reading through journals, I could see one day one girl's dream was to have a family - which is a good dream in itself.  But, the next day, she added canoeing in the Mississippi as another strand of dream woven into her life.

Never Give Up

We use our 6th hour for Grad Prep - or a Reading Class that runs opposite our music program.  How I wish all of our students had an extra class for reading everyday, but I get our seventh grade every two weeks and then, switch with their Math teacher, and get the 8th grade for two weeks.  During those two weeks, I rotate standards. 

Monday is Main Idea Monday. We focus on the big picture with details to support it.

Tuesday is Time Line Tuesday.  We look at material and comment on how it applies to our own lives.

Wednesday is Wordy Wednesday.  We study vocab.

Thursday is ummm well... I haven't thought of a cool name for that, but we take a story and make it into a poem or take a poem and write a summary - we take the basic meaning behind the work and re-create it into a different form.

Friday is Opine Friday.  We study Author's point of View and then, express our own ideas!

Today, of course was Timeline Tuesday.  We read an article about the invention of water skiing.  Ralph Samuelson invented water skiing in Minnesota at Lake Pepin.  He struggled and struggled to achieve his dream and never let go of his idea.  I thought that this was a great message for seventh graders.  I paired it with this youtube video.



While reading the students' timelines, I found that there are a lot of dreams out there.  Kids wanting to do well in the world.  They want to be nurses, mechanics, teachers, and motor cross racers. What I worry about most are those kids who don't know how to dream. 

"Why dream?  Nothing good comes of it anyways...."

"Don't give up - " I whisper and pat their arm.  "Your assignment is to dream..."

Now, how do I grade that?

Why didn't I do it sooner?

This week, I started a twitter feed for my class.  All I can think of is "Why didn't I do this sooner?"   Seventh Graders were reading an excerpt from Into Thin Air by Jon Krakuer.  They were fascinated by Krakauer's account of Mount Everest.  They started asking questions about what I knew about Mount Everest.  I didn't know much.

Then, I remembered Flat Stanley.  A few years ago, Belden had taken Allie O's Flat Stanley with him to the Taj Mahal and ta daaaaa  Mount Everest. I had thought about shooting him an e-mail or texting him but at the spur of the moment, I decided to tweet him. 

The kids had a bunch of questions for him.  When he didn't answer the questions right away, I explained that he was at work.  He would probably tweet on his lunch break. Which he did, and I pointed out the next day.

And at that moment, I realized my class needed its own twitter account.  We would ask the questions we needed, and we would shout out to the world our morsels of wisdom.  I would put up homework reminders and use "Tweets of the Day" as journal prompts.

And I just wonder, "Why didn't I do this sooner?"