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".

School view

Not the greatest photo...taken with my phone from my car window...but you can see one of the reasons why I like my drive to school in the morning. Sunrise is not overrated.

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.

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!

A First

I'll admit that I have a cold. My head is stuffed up and I have a cough, a good productive cough. But at the same time, my hygiene is just fine, thank you. I know how to cough into my sleeve, I deposit my used tissues in the trash, and I wash my hands often, singing Yankee Doodle all the way through...twice.

So when I got to school today and had a big note on my door that said "You must see the nurse before seeing students", I wondered what was up. Turns out I was too germy for school and I got sent home. It seems that my cold (and I called my doctor just to be sure) is their H1N1.

I know this is one mean virus and I don't mess around when it comes to illness and other safety issues. But this is overkill, folks! I'm expected to walk around at school with my can of Lysol. I think I'm in as much danger from chemical poisoning and depletion of the ozone from all the whatever-they-ares in that aerosol can than I am from anything else.

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!

Last teaching day

My last day with my students was today. It's always a day that is just a bit sad...after all, I do this job because I like these kids. But I would be lying if I didn't also say that it is a relief. I will not be involved with all of the end of the year craziness and any teacher will tell you that that makes them just a bit jealous of me.

I'll be screening kids for next year, a stressful job. But at this point in the year, I need a change of pace and this is my change. I am feeling ready.