A Quick Check In

My afternoon school is a science and math specialty school. What this means is that the students all make regular walking field trips to the Coon Rapids dam. They also have Junior Master Gardner lessons and a variety of other enrichment programs. Anyway, today as I was finishing up my fifth grade reading group I said to Tim "We'll have to finish this on Monday"
Tim (not his name) said "My class will be at the dam on Monday"
I said "Well dang!"
Tim "No the dam!"
Hmm, Sometimes I wonder if I'm getting through.

As a post script, this student just finished taking his District progress assessments and his scores jumped by more than 20 points! Hooray. I know student progress is a collaborative effort but I feel pretty good about that and REALLY proud of Tim.

I love my job, again

In the past several weeks my job has given me fits. I have had multiple deadlines and a particularly volatile student reaching crisis status. This student is now permanently in my room instead of in the mainstream classroom. This means LOTS of extra work for me but here is what I've discovered. I really love being able to sort out the tangle of needs and feelings and environmental factors that all come together to be expressed in these behaviors. Today my little friend only needed one "break" during the morning. He worked steadily and was able to invite a friend to lunch with him. He smiled and it did my heart good.

Officially Spring

Okay, it's officially spring. Monte has cleared off all the leaves. For some reason our trees don't drop them until the green buds come in in the spring. He tilled the garden, and cleared out the flower beds. We planted 3 rows of peas, 2 rows of spinach, some basil, cilantro, parsley, marjoram, thyme, yellow squash, and zucchini and some onion sets. The chives are already about 4 inches high, the rhubarb is producing, the apple trees are budding, and there are teeny tiny purple buds on the lilac bushes! We managed to have 2 "tiffs" while working together in the garden. My husband's comment - "planting makes you cranky" The blue herons have been spotted down by the water and the geese are already settled in as well. I haven't seen a frog yet, but it won't be long. I have seen mosquitos. God's in His heaven and all's right with the world. Happy Spring to all!