School's Out!

O.k., so there is officially just 3.5 hours left for students, and 6.5 hours left for teachers until summer vacation starts.

Over the last 2 days or so, lots has happened. First off, some how I got "elected" to be our union Vice President. I must say, our current Executive council has done a great job, but their really tired. Most have been on the council for the past 8 years. So, I got "elected" because I was nominated, and no one else wanted it. (Of course, that is also how the other people got "elected".) Thank goodness being a V.P. requires absolutely no work.

Then, later at the same meeting, I opened my big mouth and volunteered to be High School Lead Teacher if the School Board opens the position again. (We currently don't have lead teachers because no one stepped up in the past. Lead teachers in our school kind of function like principals when the superintendent is away. They deal with discipline issues, cranky parents, dealing with administration, etc.) Although I've had 8 full years at my current position, we have several other staff members at the high school level that have over 15 years experience (5 of them.) However none of them have stepped up to be lead teacher. Part of me hopes that we "reinstate" lead teachers, but part of me does not.

At least this summer will be relaxing. Yup, we are only moving, I'm taking 3 classes around the state, lots of doctors appointments, and a couple of trips to see glaciertoddler's grandmas and grandpa. (Not to mention that I will probably still be doing school work throughout the summer.) Also on tap, see some movies. (Indy IV?, Dark Knight, Iron Man, etc.)

Wii time, Barenaked Ladies

O.k., so glaciermom and I love our Wii. Glaciertoddler loves watching the little Mii's running around. In particular, he likes helping glaciermom and the shooting mini-game on wii play. But sadly, our busy schedules only allow us to play 1 or 2 days a week for about 30 minutes. Bummer.

Recently, I purchased the newest Barenaked Ladies CD. You may be asking, I didn't know they had a new CD. Well, they do, but you have to look in the Children's music aisle. Let me tell you, the CD is awesome. The first track attempts to answer an age old question, "Why did 7 eat 9?" and the ramifications of not having the number 9 any more. The next song, one about ninjas, is spot on. Some songs are bit simplistic (even for a kids album). Example, most of the song "Popcorn" has the lyrics "Pop, Pop,Pop,Pop ..." etc. But my favorite track is "Crazy ABC's". For you word buffs, this song is absolutely great. Most of us know the more traditional versions, you know "A is for apple, B is for boy, C is for cat". Well apparently for a few band members they decided they needed to spiff it up so now ...

• A is for aisle
• B is for bdellium
• C is czar
• d is for djinn
• E for Euphrates
• F for fohn
• G for Gnarly
• I for Irk
• H for hour

Absolutely wonderful! Some words most will know, some only scrabblers will know (Qat). You must hand it to them, trying to increase little kids vocabulary.

Glacierdad needs help

So, I had this crazy idea for getting students to read science stories, think critically about them, and communicate their ideas. Start a blog!! Yup, a blog just for my science students, where I would post science news stories, have them comment, and then assign some sort of grade. So, after looking at a few sites, I found one that might be interesting to start a new blog on. I've decided not to use blogger, so as that this persona and my school identity won't be confused.

Anyway, I've put together a somewhat sample blog of what I'm kind of looking for. Check it out at

glacierdad.wordpress.com

If any of you have ideas, please comment on either blog. Remember though, the wordpress blog currently is just a test page so I can test out ideas, before I start school next year.

Quiz Time

So, about 1 month ago, I had the privilege to take one of our students to the State Geographic Bee. Although he did not make it out of the preliminary round, he did do quite well.

In preparation for the Bee, I stumbled upon the Daily National Geographic Daily GeoBee Challenge.
I usually get between 6 and 8 correct a day. Of course some days I do much better, and a few days (when my brain is turned off) I can do much worst. Today, I only scored 6 out of 10 correct.

It's May 2nd!

And there's snow on the ground. We must have received at least 6 to 10 inches of really good snow. By really good, I mean wet, wet snow. This is the most (and best) snow we have received all year. O.k., so we might have had one or two good snow falls in January/February, but prior to last night, we were at least 3 inches below our normal precipitation totals for the year.

And to top it all off, this is the best snow we've had all year for making a snowman!