This school year has to end!

It is killing me! 4 more days but days filled with 40 days worth of activities.

This picture has nothing to do with that. It's just a random shot of some of my 2nd graders exploring the relationship between circumference and diameter with string. We used the string to measure circles around the school and then they discovered pi...or as they called it "3 and a touch more".

I will miss 2nd graders

Because let me tell you...there are few people on earth more excitable and goofier than a 2nd grade child. Students are seen with the towers they made from one piece of paper and 6" of tape. Not an easy engineering feat!

Good bye 5th graders

This week has been the end of my time teaching these groups of kids. I was challenged, excited,

inspired, annoyed and amused by them for three years. We said our emotional good byes...I was quite teary this year...and one boy said to me "Mrs. Bloom, you weren't always nice to me but you were always good for me." A fair enough assessment! It was an honor to be their teacher.

One last post about Gandhi and gifted kids

What do you do when it's simulation time and you have a child with some serious behavior issues?

Let him be Gandhi. Put him in his prison cell. Use the room next to the government official's office. And be ready to get a lump in your throat when you watch the sincerity of that child, that little gifted kid who has so much trouble in a classroom, as he gives an Academy Award caliber performance.

Does this prove the incredible influence of Gandhi? The power of simulation as a teaching tool? Maybe...but it most definitely shows the sweetness hidden inside this one child. That I know for sure.

Protest process

The long trek to the office

Waiting for an all-clear to enter

Confronting the secretary (for Government Agent confrontation, see yesterday's post)

Celebrating a successful satyagraha

Not just for kids

Although the kids are the stars of the show, there is room for adults too.

To get things organized

To play the bad guy role

To provide "realistic" dialogue

To celebrate and joke with when it's over
Thanks to Phil Downs (pictured here) and the other principals who play along year after year!

I love the earnest expressions and body language.This is important stuff when you are 9 years old.

Post demonstration crazy

This expression is not uncommon after a sit in. I am aware that this hysteria bubbles just under the surface of even the most peaceful child.

The faces of protest

I have told them that Gandhi during peaceful protests was not sassy or sullen...he was serene. That's the look these faces are going for.

Bad week for the British Empire

Are you kidding me! Another protest! And at this one we have Gandhi himself. You almost have to feel sorry for the British.

Note: Gandhi is standing on a stool so that he literally rises above the crowd.

Trouble brewing

Not all of Gandhi's followers are cut from his saintly cloth. Notice the protester with the bindi dot? While the protesters were milling about the government agent's office in a confused fashion, this one had focused in on the basket of candy on the government agent's desk. Sure enough, when the protest had ended, she had several pieces tucked away in her kadhi sleeve.

I should have known she was a phony. Notice the beads around her neck (which she had made especially for our protest?) A cross hangs from them. She had also made a matching necklace for a fellow Gandhi follower who, in her real 3rd grade life, is a Muslim. Religious ambiguity running rampant!

Another school...

...another protest.

Forget the school board!

And post some Gandi simulation pix instead!All you need are a group of 3rd graders, some sheets and a principal who is willing to play the role of British government official. These young protesters are bravely headed to satyagraha and a world of trouble!

And so we leave ancient Egypt....

One of the pitfalls of doing this kind of simulation with gifted kids is that their sensitivity can lead to broken hearts over seemingly minor (in my adult eyes) matters. Our little slave who in this picture seems to be laughing while making PEAKhamen comfortable was actually fighting off tears.

She had wanted to be pharaoh but ended up in slavery. I'm pretty sure that could have happened, I'm pretty sure that is not historically inaccurate but for this slave, the cut was too cruel. When the tears began, I took her back behind the feast, gave her some root beer and a pep talk, spoke to the pharaoh about toning it down a notch, and we proceeded.

In real life she stayed BFF with PEAKhamen so from the vantage point of two weeks after the festival, I imagine all is well. But this reminded me that even when you think you are treading gently, even when you mean no harm, these little people have the tenderest of hearts and feel things to the Nth degree.

Side note: Family members, did you recognize the throne as Ian's rocking chair?

Feast time!

Of course a festival includes a feast. What surprised me was how much the kids liked the ancient Egyptian diet. Everything was healthy...well, except the root beer which was a stand in for the fermented hops drink of that time.

Every festival needs entertainment!

And these folks provided it at the Egypt Festival.

For years I have found parents to be necessary but at times in the way at big-deal-events. Some are great, some are just there to socialize and the latter take up valuable space and energy. This year I finally got smart. Dress them like the kids, have them draw for jobs like the kids do, and have the expectation that they all will happily fall in line. And it worked!

The child of the mom on the left in the picture told me he thought she didn't have fun. Guess what! I have the picture to prove that she did!

The rest of the upper crust

Here we have the vizier ~ the Pharaoh's right hand woman ~ and the priest, looking holy and a bit stoned, and the nobleman who is, as you can see, quite noble.

Heading to ancient Egypt

Introducing the latest pharaoh PEAKhamen and her lovely son PEAKy Jr. Of course no one earns the right to be pharaoh. It is random thing, in this case decided by a drawing. This was part of my 4th graders' study of the Egyptian culture. We ended by celebrating with a festival.

Let's just say that I love 4th graders. Especially my current batch.

Since the last time I was here....

...I have helped my "crippled but not an invalid" husband get along, celebrated the birthday of Nickulous, served an important role as adjunct to the Bloom Sibling-Weekend-o'-Fun, become a true Cake Maniac, indulged my strange obsession for America's Next Top Model, worked full time (pictured are my Huntertown 5th graders in their Mentor Program t-shirts and my Cedar Canyon 3rd graders enjoying their quilt project), finished the sweater for Sari and Paul's baby girl, and started a project for the Knitting Olympics.

(This scarf is my Knitting Olympics project. I had to rip out the first sock of Brenda's pair because of serious gauge error. It is very sad to rip out a completed sock but unless she had plans to wear a cast like Stew's and to wear the sock over the cast, it wouldn't have fit anyway. I figure I have to finish something for her sometime. So far, all she has are promises.)

I don't plan to stay away so long ever again!

Followers of Gandhi

Photos from one of my favorite teaching activities: Simulating a Sataygraha in India. Brave Gandhi followers are my very excited and earnest 3rd grade students.The forces of evil don't have a chance at my school...these peaceful warriors are now experienced and ready to right every wrong through protest!