68/365: Ash Wednesday
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67/365: For Me? Aww, Thanks!
The other day, I told my student, Alexis, that I really liked her dripping font. Then, yesterday, she handed me this. Yay!
66/365: Candy Quax
I don’t think I’ve ever tasted hollow milk. You?
65/365: Trio World
When Atticus sets up a bunch of toys and things in a particular order, he calls it a “world.” This picture of tonight’s Trio creation is a good example of it.
Earlier this evening at my parents’ house, he was bringing all kinds of kids’ things into the dining room: puzzles, crayons, a ball-slam toy, Winne-the-Pooh and friends figurines, a metal dump truck. When I told him it was time to go home, he was upset that he wouldn’t be able to finish his world.
Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to create your own world? What kinds of people, places, objects, colors, textures, and sounds would your world have?
I used a “film grain” Photoshop filter.
64/365: DanvilleType?
I love typography.
There, I said it. And now that it’s out there, I can tell you about the hours upon hours I spent as a kid and teenager writing.
Some of it was writing, as in writing something. A lot of it, though, was just writing anything. It didn’t really matter what the words said that much (although they mostly tended to be either song lyrics or some boy’s name over and over). It was more drawing than writing, I suppose … lettering, I guess you could say. I just wanted to draw the letters and words in all kinds of different ways. Still do.
I stumbled upon the ChicagoType website a number of years ago. It’s a bunch of pictures of signs in Chicago, a bunch of them old and/or hand-done, some in neon. Since then, I can’t get the idea of doing the same for Danville out of my mind.
Every time I pass an old building with fading paint on its old brick, I think, “One day, I should take a picture of that.” When I saw the pictures my dad and brother recently took when they explored a very old building and site, I thought, “Ooh! I need to go take a picture of that sign!”
So I finally did it. I stopped at a sign that I pass every day, one that I always see and think about photographing, and did more than think about it.
I haven’t bought the domain yet or anything, but it’s a start. ๐
Jedi Reading Intro by Atticus
Attie’s been playing a lot of the Star Wars Jedi Reading game on Lucas’ Leapster 2 lately. It’s helping him work on spelling and reading and learn new vocabulary, yes, but it’s also taught him a whole lot about Star Wars.
In the midst of his off-game playing and drawing, you can hear him reciting the instructions and comments from different games. Just now, for example, he came downstairs and sat at the table with me, saying, “We need your help to rescue ships for the Rebel Alliance. Press the ‘home’ button to play another game.”
Yeah, a little weird. And a lot amazing. What a memory!
I took this video of him reciting the introduction to the game this morning. He’d already gone through it a few times when it hit me to record. (Slow on the uptake…too much grading to do.)
When he watched the video, he said, “Fast.” Then he was all giggles. ๐
“It’s a dark time in the galaxy…”
63/365: Railroad Crossing
Remember how excited you used to get when a train rolled by?
You’d squeal and count the cars, hoping to get to a hundred.
Now, you try your best to avoid it and just deal with it on the occasion you must.
Or you begin to fill with a thin layer of anxiety over anger, your fingers tapping the steering wheel, counting to ten with lung-pulsing breaths.
What would happen if you just stopped all of that foolishness?
Let it pass. And then move on.
62/365: ELMO!
This is my ELMO.
Yeah, it’s not red and fuzzy. And no annoying whine.
And, okay, it’s not really mine. It’s my inclusion teacher’s, but she lets me keep it in my room. (She’s awesome like that!)
And really it’s not exactly hers, either. It’s one she’s been issued to use.
Regardless, I’ve been using it all the time this year, and I’ve barely even touched the surface of what it will do.
Here are just a few examples of how we’ve used it so far:
- Talking through MLA formatting of source cards (above)
- Magnifying student work during presentations. (See symbols cards, for example.)
- Diagramming sentences, one student at the ELMO, and the rest of the class participating while watching the process
- Showing on-the-fly models of what students are working on at the moment
I can’t wait to find new ways to use it!
61/365: Red Buds, Baby!
I <3 the dark red of these buds, and I <3 the contrast of the blue sky behind.
A Purple Sign of Spring
Leaving school today, I was so weary.
Snow-day makeups and a later-than-usual Spring Break have us trudging through day after day, week after week, with not a break in sight. Papers from the first semester are still piled up, awaiting the filing I never had time for, since they took back our post-exams workday. Yep, I’m out of paperclips. Yep, I’m out of space. Yep, I’m in need of some R&R.
And then the sun’s warmth enveloped me on the way across the parking lot.
And then, there in front of my car, was a beautiful surprise: purple flowers!
They’re probably weeds … or maybe clover, which may be weeds, too. I don’t know. I’ve never been that good at IDing the flora.
But they were so beautiful! The picture just doesn’t do them justice.
And I SO needed that.