Hypatia announced the other day that she “needed” to paint. As I watched her working, I realized that she’s been missing out on some of that stuff that I did with Carbon while we had daycare here. I jumped into preschool with both feet with Carbon, doing all the arts and crafts and alphabet stuff [...]
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The Unschooled Mind: How Children Think and How Schools Should Teach by Howard Gardner
This has been on my shelf for years, and I just finished it as the final book of my 8×8 in 2008 challenge. I think I bought it while I was working on my Masters in Teaching, but I never had time [...]
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Together We’re Better: establishing a coactive learning environment by Bev Bos.
Cooperating implies a mutually recognized goal, but in coacting, a more spontaneous process, a goal is not required. Coaction is simply a way of interacting with others, more often one-on-one than in larger groups, with an emphasis on process rather than product. I believe that [...]
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What a crazy few days I’ve had! Thursday was the last day of daycare, which we marked with what I think of as The Party Recipe:
Balloons, Cupcakes, Streamer paper, and permission to decorate the house any way you want!
I also gave the daycare kids presents. It was a bit sad, but I quickly turned to [...]
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Counting today, I only have 12 days of daycare left to work. I have senioritis, bad. I’m ready to be done!
Now, I do honestly love these kids, and I think daycare was the best option for us at the time I did it. However, I will not miss these things:
Screaming. When you have 6 kids [...]
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I can try to give the kids a project to do, but they are such little independent thinkers that they frequently chage the objective on me.
I started off with sponge prints as the plan.
Hypatia couldn’t quite figure it out, but she had fun using the sponges as paintbrushes.
Then Carbon had the idea to fold his [...]
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I’ve been in quite the funk for the last month or so. Basically, I applied for this job that I would love to have. The kind of work that I would do even if I didn’t get paid, but I’d get paid to do it. It’s wonderful that this opportunity came up, and I will [...]
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I was recently browsing my library when I happened upon a DVD called Draw Me a Story: Nasreddin’s Coat. We were already familiar with that story – in fact the humorous tale is one of my favorites. So I grabbed the DVD, figuring that the kids might enjoy it during quiet time. The “action” of [...]
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Part of our day is devoted to seatwork. This means that the kids have to sit at the table, with a minimum of wiggle and noise, and do some school work or art. Seat time happens during naptime, and it’s part of a series of activities I do with the preschoolers to keep them quiet [...]
Read the rest of A bit of Carbon’s seatwork
Triage (/ˈtɹiːɑːʒ/) is a process of prioritizing patients based on the severity of his/her condition as to treat as many as possible when resources are insufficient for all to be treated. The term comes from the French word triage, meaning “sorting process.” There are two types of triage: simple triage and advanced triage.
If you just [...]
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