Yesterday, we celebrated the Lone Star Baby's ninth birthday with a family trip to the water park where her sister works. The water park is great fun but very expensive so I am having to be rather firm in making it clear that is not the sort of place we can go more than once in a summer (and, really, that is pushing it), which is a little hard for the Lone Star Baby to totally grasp, when her sister gets to go whenever she likes.
We stayed from the time the park opened until when it closed. We met up with two friends of hers from school and they played for awhile. I found myself reluctantly watching various other children who seemed to be completely unsupervised as well - water and unsupervised children is a combination that gives me the heebie-jeebies. At such times, I always think of a friend of mine who used to fold such unsupervised children so gracefully and willingly into all of her family's recreational activities that I am humbled at my comparative reluctance.
The Lone Star Baby has now gone on all of the slides there and even made me go on one of the super-high ones (twice), though I do not exactly cotton to heights. The motion of the wave pool eventually got to her as well as the rest of us, though, and after that, we spent a lot of time going around and around the lazy river, which was alright by me, although not as lazy as I might have enjoyed as I needed to be a horse and various other characters. It was fun to see the Lone Star Baby get her utter fill of the experience.
Definitely a summer milestone for a summer when experiences need to be packed in to the small available moments. The Lone Star Baby says she is glad she picked this instead of a birthday party this year.
Sunday, June 16, 2013
Happy Father's Day!
Happy Father's Day to Lone Star Pa and to my fathers and to all of the good daddies out there! I hope you have a great day!
Tuesday, June 11, 2013
Happy Birthday To My Little Ravenclaw
Happy Birthday to the Lone Star Baby! My baby is already nine - this does not seem possible.
It has been a very Hogwarts birthday, with a dash of ponies thrown in for fun. Instead of a proper party, the newly minted nine-year-old has requested a family water park trip this month, so that is what we are going to do. Favorite presents included a Ravenclaw wall banner and a Hermione wand.
It has been a very Hogwarts birthday, with a dash of ponies thrown in for fun. Instead of a proper party, the newly minted nine-year-old has requested a family water park trip this month, so that is what we are going to do. Favorite presents included a Ravenclaw wall banner and a Hermione wand.
Monday, June 10, 2013
Summer Joy: Mud Pies And Other Recipes
While pulling books about Jane Addams and social policy analysis out of the This-Is-Me bookshelf in my living room to take to the empty bookcases in the new office, I found my tiny, long-lost copy of Mud Pies And Other Recipes: A Cookbook For Dolls by Marjorie Winslow.
I am pretty sure I ordered this book from Chinaberry when the Junior Woman was a toddler, intending to hold it until she was just reading - and then I forgot about it before she reached that age... and the season of mud pies passed.
I remembered it in recent years when the Lone Star Baby and friends were making all manner of concoctions in the backyard, but could not find it. I was so happy to find it and give it to the Lone Star Baby today. She is on the outer rim of her season of mud pies, but it has not yet passed her by.
I am pretty sure I ordered this book from Chinaberry when the Junior Woman was a toddler, intending to hold it until she was just reading - and then I forgot about it before she reached that age... and the season of mud pies passed.
I remembered it in recent years when the Lone Star Baby and friends were making all manner of concoctions in the backyard, but could not find it. I was so happy to find it and give it to the Lone Star Baby today. She is on the outer rim of her season of mud pies, but it has not yet passed her by.
Sunday, June 09, 2013
Summer Joy: Flags & Wreaths
With all the hustle and bustle of the end of the school year and preparing to change jobs, I have been quite remiss at changing the seasonal decor. Today, we switched out the spring garden flags and door wreath for the summer, though, and I am working on the nature table.
Summer!
Summer!
Saturday, June 01, 2013
Heard While Listening to The-Mouse-Themed Radio Station
"I guess that was before fracking because the people under the sea didn't know what fire burning was."
Flying Up
On Thursday night, the Daisy/Brownie Troop had their Bridging and Flying Up Ceremony and became the Brownie/Junior Troop. My little Girl Scout is a Junior now!
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
Good-Bye, Hello: Special Session Starts
Scarcely had the sine die been said over the ending of the 83rd Legislature yesterday before Governor Perry called an immediate Special Session on redistricting maps. Since we still don't know what the U.S. Supreme Court is going to say about the Voting Rights Act, the only thing keeping Texas Republicans from constantly redrawing the state's maps to disenfranchise minority voters, this should be interesting. Most likely in a bad way.
Monday, May 27, 2013
The Right Kills CSCOPE Lesson Resources Over Politics
I've seen different statistics, but according to all of them, well over 700 small and mid-size school districts in Texas use the lessons provided by CSCOPE through the state's Education Service Centers. CSCOPE is an online curriculum tool that provides curriculum and lesson resources tailored to Texas TEKS to school districts that could not easily afford to create such resources.
I do not work at one of those small school districts but I have seen several CSCOPE lesson plans and they are generally spot-on and helpful.
Now they are gone.
Thanks to state Senator Dan Patrick of Houston, and the conservatives he has scared with a lot of ignorant posturing, this resource will no longer be provided to Texas schools.
Why? He was concerned about the social studies lessons:
He says they were "Pro-Islamic". I am pretty sure I know what he was talking about, but getting rid of those totally neutral sixth grade lessons on world religions is not going to change the fact that our TEKS require that world religions get taught. See, in Texas, sixth grade social studies is World Cultures and Geography. Sixth graders learn all about world cultures. Religion is a key culture trait, so major world religions are covered as such: Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Daoism and Confucianism. Sixth grade can't get to everything, but they try to cover the main religious influences of the regions under study. Neutrally. Parents are in charge of teaching religious values, not public school teachers. Teachers only teach about what different cultural groups believe as part of their cultures. This is not pro-Islamic or anti-Islamic...it is pro-education and anti-ignorance.
Another lesson that Patrick and his ilk complained about was one about world economic systems in which students were told that socialist countries often used socialist economic symbolism on their flags and were asked to design a flag for an imaginary new socialist nation using socialist economic symbols. I fail to see why this creative elicitation of higher order thinking skills is offensive when our TEKS do require that teachers teach about different world economic systems.
Patrick and his posse are also offended by a U.S. History lesson that asks students if they think King George would have considered the members of the Boston Tea Party terrorists. Again, critical thinking is bad because.....?
So, another battle won by Ignorance. Cue the A Christmas Carol quote and good luck to the small school districts of Texas that have lost a significant resource.
I do not work at one of those small school districts but I have seen several CSCOPE lesson plans and they are generally spot-on and helpful.
Now they are gone.
Thanks to state Senator Dan Patrick of Houston, and the conservatives he has scared with a lot of ignorant posturing, this resource will no longer be provided to Texas schools.
Why? He was concerned about the social studies lessons:
He says they were "Pro-Islamic". I am pretty sure I know what he was talking about, but getting rid of those totally neutral sixth grade lessons on world religions is not going to change the fact that our TEKS require that world religions get taught. See, in Texas, sixth grade social studies is World Cultures and Geography. Sixth graders learn all about world cultures. Religion is a key culture trait, so major world religions are covered as such: Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Daoism and Confucianism. Sixth grade can't get to everything, but they try to cover the main religious influences of the regions under study. Neutrally. Parents are in charge of teaching religious values, not public school teachers. Teachers only teach about what different cultural groups believe as part of their cultures. This is not pro-Islamic or anti-Islamic...it is pro-education and anti-ignorance.
Another lesson that Patrick and his ilk complained about was one about world economic systems in which students were told that socialist countries often used socialist economic symbolism on their flags and were asked to design a flag for an imaginary new socialist nation using socialist economic symbols. I fail to see why this creative elicitation of higher order thinking skills is offensive when our TEKS do require that teachers teach about different world economic systems.
Patrick and his posse are also offended by a U.S. History lesson that asks students if they think King George would have considered the members of the Boston Tea Party terrorists. Again, critical thinking is bad because.....?
So, another battle won by Ignorance. Cue the A Christmas Carol quote and good luck to the small school districts of Texas that have lost a significant resource.
Summer Toil & Summer Joy
This is going to be a summer of so many transitions (more on that later...shhhh) that I know I will not get as much house work done as I usually attempt to do when I am off. Summer is the time I generally try to organize a room (baby steps) or clear out old stuff that has been piling up during the school year. I had hopes of getting my bedroom and All The Public Areas done this summer, but it is so not going to happen. I am going to be getting a new roof, though (thank you, hail storm), so the outside progress will just have to balance out the lack of inside progress! And I will have to try to deeply appreciate what small things I can get done inside. That's the way it's going to be. For example: I dealt with the Lone Star Baby's disastrous clothes drawers today and put away the too-big, packed up the too-small and organized the rest. Yay, me!
Likewise, long, lazy days of fun summer family time are not going to be in much supply this summer. I intend to try to deal with this by enjoying each small shard of summer joy as it comes. One came early today: the Lone Star Baby and I chased an ice cream truck all over the neighborhood until we caught it, bought overpriced ice cream, and rambled home eating it, with plenty of it dripping down her face and the wind blowing her hair into it. That's some perfect joy.
May you also have many moments of summer accomplishment and, most of all, of summer joy.
Likewise, long, lazy days of fun summer family time are not going to be in much supply this summer. I intend to try to deal with this by enjoying each small shard of summer joy as it comes. One came early today: the Lone Star Baby and I chased an ice cream truck all over the neighborhood until we caught it, bought overpriced ice cream, and rambled home eating it, with plenty of it dripping down her face and the wind blowing her hair into it. That's some perfect joy.
May you also have many moments of summer accomplishment and, most of all, of summer joy.
Sunday, May 26, 2013
Onward To Upper El
The Lone Star Baby has a couple of more days of school as a third grader next week, but those are mere movie-and-field-day technicalities. On Friday, she "graduated" from the Lower El program (1st - 3rd grades) to the Upper El program (4th - 6th grades) at her school. 4th grade, here we come!
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