to the tidepools!

to sum up our unit, we went to

search for sea creatures at low tide today!

there were alot of moon jellies and
"fried egg jellyfish" floating around too.

"i'll always remember you."

said one of my students today.

i love lunch days when the

cafeteria serves fish sticks
:D 

out of my way kids!

icelandic poppies
apparently, at bars now, people can sense

me as having the energy associated

with being a kindergarten teacher.

Vesna will have a plot of land in

Saipan, Micronesia and she invited me to come

visit the beach bungalow once it is renovated.

woohoo
 for GIANT coconut crabs
in the south pacific!!

Vesna and I hiked 10 miles today

in mount baker-snoqualmie national forest.

we dangled our legs over heather lake,

ate walnuts & watched jesus bugs leap across the water.

near the end of the trail, we were literally
running down boulders and through mud
trying to get to food.

today, the kids discovered my "real" name.

they were surprised and found it

fascinating that I have a first name (Linda).

then they were shocked at how "old" i am

after i finally told them.

~ ~ ~

 i love working with kindergartners.

they are the most magical and genuine

little humans i have ever met.
i experience eternal sunshine and tiny hugs all day.
 ~ ~
ps, ellen, i inspired one
student to become a wooden figure today ;)

many great things happened today :)

(4)

i've been teaching my kids alot of

 exciting things about the world, such as:

-scientific information about sea stars

-to write persuasive petitions about solutions

to problems we see at school and in the larger world

-to apply what we have learned about the

properties of different types of fabrics to solve

problems we have in our daily lives

With 3 teachers observing me,

i had my 8th and final observation today!

my interdisciplinary science-math-art

graphing lesson went phenomenal and it makes

me so ecstatic to have such engaged students
demonstrate all that they have

learned from MY science unit on fabric.
~ ~ ~
i also calmed a stranger down at the bus stop today

who was going through a crisis. i think our

conversation might have helped prevent him from

going to jail (again). before i departed,
we shook hands and he thanked me for "being a
teacher and teaching him."

my face during the last 2 minutes of

game of thrones..

12 days until graduation!!!
(btw, this is a purple stole, not blue).

today, i taught scientific information about sea stars
to my kids. then we watched a video of an octopus
opening a jar with a crab inside.

i also chopped off 3 inches of my hair.

bridal veils falls!

danny, vesna and i picked and ate these unidentified
yellow berries (they are NOT black or rasp berries)

and stood in the massive misting of the waterfall.

today i was given a free salmon & lox bagel,

read in sunny breezes on a roof,

and rolled some felt sushi

with a hot glue gun :D 

according to cathy, i am a
"living bank of ideas."
~ * ~ * ~ * ~

M didn't have anything tropical or nature-y

to wear for the assembly dance,

so i decorated her hair with flowers and leaves.
^___________^

i used my one can of coconut milk and made a:

and a

banana walnut cinnamon chia seed custard!

n a r n i a

today during recess,

S was trying to tell me all

7 of her brothers' names,

but could not recall her

7th brother's name.

:P

i've been teaching our new unit on Opinion Writing.

it's a tricky and long process,

but it makes me so happy to see my students

writing about topics such as

gun & knife violence, dirty water,

and that in some countries,

only boys can go to school.

and to also provide reasons why these are problems

and articulate how they feel about it.

these are kindergartners who are starting to
think about complex global issues; i love it.

i like to think that i'm planting the seeds

for these skills that they will have, develop
and can use for the rest of their lives~*~

next, we move onto

petitions :D

another glorious seattle day.

i read in the sunshine,

watched kites flutter when the wind rose,

and then picked up some irises from Pike ^___^

seattle art museum!
we went to the last day of the Miro exhibit.

i really love aboriginal dot patterns.

i want to learn more about the Dreaming...

when i think of the p northwest, i think this:

sunset at golden gardens

-always the best way to end the day.

ashley and i went hiking in the woods today
and it unexpectedly turned into a frozen lake

surrounded by waterfalls flowing down

the sides of snowy mountain cliffs.

it was hauntingly, stunningly beautiful.

baking muffins on a friday night~*

tomorrow, i will climb a mountain.

~*~and now the countdown begins~*~

23 days until graduation!

we will have fancy light blue hoods
and specially sewed sleeves..

"You seem fully immersed in a study of oppression.

Any reason for this?"

"Well, I do live in the world."

(p.35)

cleaned my room for the first time in a month!

i borrowed some books from the library

and now i have time to actually read them~

y e s

it was teacher appreciation week and

all my students wrote me a letter

and compiled it into a little book! :)
somehow, i had no idea this was being created.

"I think you are awesome! and you rock and

thank you for thecheing me haw to read and to write."

"you rock because you teach us fabric."

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

now that i have a life again (post edTPA),

i indulged~ in doing laundry and being clean.

brunch, bagels and free books!

a start to building my own classroom library!

I'm most excited about:
"How my Parents learned to Eat"
"The Muslim Child"
"The Underwater Alphabet"
"What is your Language?"
"Kites: Magic Wishes that Fly Up to the Sky"
"Crystals"
and
"A Cache of Jewels and
Other Collective Nouns"

i taught kindergartners to sew :)

- - - - - - - - -

SoC celebration for completing edTPA!

HOLY MOLY,
I AM FINISHED.
probably worked on this for ~250+ hours,
on top of full-time student-teaching.

in my edTPA, i am referring to things such as

beans, anthropology and rainbow pom poms.

in the process of working, ashley and i ate

some amazing tacos and both invested in

some winter-y things. I got these fingerless gloves

made in bellingham, washington.
i'm using them to motivate me to type

and i plan to use them when:

camping,

sewing,

making jam,

walking on a cold night.

母亲节快乐!

recycle, reduce, reuse!

creative ways to get kindergartners to be quiet:

1) tell them you're going to cast a quiet spell

on them and once you tap their shoulder

with the magical wand, they must be silent

until you break the spell.

2. tell them to be wooden figures that can't move or talk.

3. pretend there is a sleeping giant and we can't wake
him up, if he wakes up, he'll eat the talking kid.
~ ~ ~ ~
i thought of and tried one of these on thursday.
it worked. first, they had dumbfounded looks on
their faces and then they got excited.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

11 minutes

val and tay,

thank you for

sharing your stories,

 inviting me to meet the

other 9,998 dimensions of myself

and

reminding me that i am a person

prone to mystical experiences:

^

^

^

^

^

^

^

^

^

^
^

^

oh edTPA,

you horrifying monster of a project.

the most challenging academic task

i have embarked on in the last 5 years

X_______________X

I CAN'T WAIT TO BE DONE

so then i can spend my days

frolicking in dandelion fields,
planting nasturtium seeds

and engaging my little friends

to sing in their native language
~

i was reading The Lorax on Friday

and afterwards, Cathy said:

"I just love listening to you read.

You have the nicest reading voice."

i'm glad it sounded "nice", because inside,

i felt like a crazy actress performing on stage,

trying to be as expressive as possible

in order to entertain an audience of

20 easily distracted children, half of whom

had already checked out...

until i screamed

"the TRUUUUUUUUUUUFFULA TREEESS!?!?"

"when i think of you, i think of a little

orange pumpkin with a vine coming out of it."

~my sister.

what a long day.

apparently, i taught a phenomenal choral counting

patterns math lesson today :)
yay, i'm finally getting the hang of this
whole teaching thing.

 

now i'm sitting on my bed, sipping a

pink moscato-slushie and admiring my henna~*