North By Northeast

North by Northeast
by Ray Ellis (Author), Walter Cronkite (Author)

This book came to mind today on learning of the death of a newscaster that I often listened to in moments seared into my being. He wrote the forward to this book and offered an introduction of the artist. It brought me memories of Cronkite oddly as I just took it out to say goodbye. I suppose as news has been plundered in recent times he slips off the stage in a time news is doing the same. At a very young four, when my mom washed the windows, he told me of the death of our President, and then I told her. So much he "introduced" into my life just as he does this work. Space travel, riots, civil rights, artists, revolutions, crimes, crisis and the century moved on. At another time he spoke against a war, on yet another occasion- the last I saw him on network stuff- he was asking Dan Rather if bankrupting the future of our children with a Gulf War was so wise. He had guts. But I never saw him again in the position to ask the tough questions. That voice is the one speaking of his friend here and talking of his love of sailing and the watercolors of this artist as vehicles to capture those feelings.


I often take this book out, or put it back on the coffee table and look at the images.
On the surface quite academic....I find it very appealing. It has lovely text describing the artist's process, life, technique, and thoughts.
There are pictures here that I find quite an escape into the kinds of places I haven't really traveled or ever known, east coast. His actual technique is dramatically good and the descriptions so interesting.

I'm not necessarily sure why my brother selected this for me, I was in my twenties or early thirties when he sent it, one of a rare few gifts from him and very unexpected, but it has meant a great deal to me. I would think that it might stand also as the kind of thing Cronkite would do-to share out the work of his friend in this tribute to his life of creating. If you enjoy pictures of the sea,watercolor, of island, of coast, sailing you would appreciate the work.

I can't believe he died today. Man.


Walter Cronkite in 2006

A Day With Whale Makers, a Wonderful Day

I love this picture.
It shows a bunch of people involved in a mural we are building in paper collage on one wall this summer. On our ocean theme. (In my Pre-K Migrant summer program.) I'm usually 1st grade so this is a rather lovely break for me back into the days the child just came into the idea of school.....and an opportunity to build vocabulary, meanings, collaboration, cross-age work, the construct of "school," it's really getting to be fun. I try each day to do something more interesting than the day before....tomorrow... I feel a bit excited as I'm going to take them into painting jelly fish, on either black or deep violet, or dark rich blue paper. Should be exciting. At the end of summer we will display a phenomenal ocean aquarium built right into the room, just wait til we make the huge hanging kelp beds from the ceilings.
And really all it is, this mural, is a place we are "parking" our thinking, our making, our classroom being together. The 4 year olds I'm working with, as I said, are just coming into notions of "school" and our summer theme, "Oceans." So of course our WHALES are just one of the most important things we can ever learn about.

My room is very fluid, dynamic this summer. We are doing things just all the time, helpers are coming and going. Children are participating and finding out things...today we decided to talk about WHALES.

Look at that, just look at that luscious paint.

And I got an idea in the morning, I wanted to make giant whale paintings.

One reason for that is that I had a child yesterday talk spontaneously about whales several times. So I showed a video I've had since my children were young. It's one on whales, they visit Sea World, they go on a whale watching tour, sing songs of whales, listen to whale song, reveal something of whale intelligences.Good movie for this age, long out of print. It's a pretty good introduction. I got on the Promethean board and pulled up clips of whales too. Pictures. We did a little with that on the new board at least. See footage here, it's great.
Then I asked the 8th grade helpers to work with one child each and do some big, big whale paintings. They astounded me!
I provided almost nothing by way of help on this, aside from some pictures intitially. We did run off some pictures for drawings. You just have to fall over at what they did.
It was a wonderful hour.

I was so pleased with the fact the children taught them how to paint, most of the children, all but one, had never painted before in their life.These 8th graders are quite exceptional artists with these small kids.
So they were teaching how to handle brushes, do strokes, not a cross word was spoken. So patient. They had to put smocks on them, clean them up, explain jobs they could do, it was like language development heaven.
But more importantly this was the introduction to young children about what school is and what we do at school. I'm the first introduction and in a week we have community, caring, purpose, problem solving, collaboration, and so much more in place. It's active, everyone is different and yet part of a collective thinking, it's working! I feel awfully proud of the children.

Here are a bunch drying in the sun.

Isn't that a wonderful painting?

I want to put every picture but I'll just put the slideshow. This is a really extraordinary set of children's pictures well worth the time to watch.



Lovely job I have you know.

Lots more to come as we generate writing and thought about whales!

Tomorrow I'll include things my little ones want to tell you about whales. It should be fascinating.

I found a GREAT site for video clips on the ocean. Check it out at Ocean Footage.

Summer Octo-School

From Wikipedia
Size of this preview: 477 × 599 pixels

Beautiful picture my daughter sent.

Hi,
I'm mostly writing this because it feels rather discouraging to leave up the same old thing for so lonnnggg. (Wheezing as I do it, bad cold in my chest and sinus.)
At the same time, I'm not really that exciting anymore.
But I'm working most of the summer, so that's life.
My job is usually teaching 1st grade in a program called Sheltered Immersion working with mostly immigrant kids, but this summer I have started teaching a Migrant Pre-Kindergarten. Lucky to get it. (Didn't get the Migrant 1st.) I was really shocked to be called for the position, it was added a bit later than the hires I first heard about. So I'd settled into thinking of a summer at home and then changed my plans. Not that I had many plans. Sit around and feel like last year was pretty hard. Worry over money.

It's been a long while since I taught Kinder, and awhile since I taught Pre-Kinder. (I am turned down regularly for the program that they run as a Pre-Kinder at every site-a get ready for school program- that really does assist in getting children ready. It's intentions are very good. After four turn downs (where I see some interesting hires) I get it. I'm just out.)
I think I'm not chosen since having to give up one assignment one year after I just started due to intestinal surgery. Yes in so many ways the cost of cancer and health issues is high . Or it's just me. That was maybe 4 years past, they might have gotten a never ending bad taste in their collective mouth. It's kinda hard because I am aware of this as a slight, sadly, that I find really intolerable if I let my mind wander there. Being friends with the person in the program at the level of development -bums me something ouchy. Such it is.

I'm so honored to be involved in Migrant Programs. I appreciate the effort they make through Migrant work for the children. There were so many kids that wanted summer school. That's impressive.


We live in our perceptions, and sometimes that's messes, in the assumptions and the milieus of workplaces, so I hope I'm accomplishing this summer work to the satisfaction of the on-lookers.
And their perceptive capacities.

It gets difficult to try to explain. It tends to be that I feel something.... throughout all aspects of my life. Right now in multiple domains I feel, maybe too often, the worst is assumed or seen, the good is wiped away, or invisible, the intention gets overwhelmed, and nothing feels quite right. It's like having an inability to look at your real reflection. I can't even bear to look at mine. So I might think about that. Actually.

I'm thinking of course about kids too and last year. Working with them, thinking of last year, of my time in life.....what I want to do, I'm dealing with some disappointments and with change. Thinking about how important it is to see the children positively. Wanting to do work from that position. Really glad to be able to think about it with this group.

The floors are so filthy this summer, not vacuumed yet, but so stained and dirty from at least two years of not cleaning the room with shampooing, it's disgusting to be there every time I look down. I don't see any good reason for it. Yikes, well enough of this...

Ok.

The kids are just incredibly cute. My own daughters this year so far aren't over to help, I'd so like to share these kids with someone. Maybe my son can come over. They are just like little buttons. Almost every child has never been to school before, and some do not speak English, but all of them are doing just great I think. Really great. I think they do really like it. I'll have to plan surprises for them this weekend. Need to make some colored noodles. I like to make the things we use, or find and collect stuff to use.
We had a few first day tears and that's normal, but it was really great to return right at this time to memories of my children going to kinder. The strongest memory was my son, now going to 10th grade. He started at 4 years old, all my children did, because of where their birthdays fell in the year. I have this great reluctant picture of him going out the door. I recall he liked recess and blocks and I was called over to extract him from under his Dad's desk where he was being out of control after a week or so. He had to wait after school and he rally got fatigued. They tire out. They need to go home much sooner than my children were allowed to do. I regret that still. His Dad was the Principal and apparently my role was the heavy. So we went to go get a doughnut as I had to explain about Dad's image....well my Pre-K doesn't know about Principals, bosses, images. They like to play with blocks and go to the recess. It kind of makes me amused.

I missed a day. Yesterday.
My cold has lasted over a month and is back with such a vengeance. I missed both for that and to be a mom on an issue that required a mom. My sub made these great octopi? with them, we are building the ocean in a huge beautiful collage mural on the wall and then will add in, from the ceiling somehow, a giant kelp bed. Lots of vocabulary development. I'm showing them shells, watching ocean clips over the new Promethean Board (that I can't see so well so I'm not sure that's thrilling me), and we watched a video today on whales. They thought watching a 30 minute video was the best thing ever! And they are so cute to each other. They are calm, they laugh at one another.
It's very heart warming.
Really.

My job is to start the school experience warmly, welcoming. I'm in a position to just affect things for a 20 day stint, so I'm looking at their time as a way to ease them toward skills that they'll need in the fall. Or at the least skills that I hope they'll need in the fall like inquiry, creativity, oral language development, social skills, becoming able to work together in caring ways.

In the morning I start with a coloring book. Now I know what you might be thinking. But my class last year had very few homes with crayons or coloring books so it is a calm way to start.They all ride buses. Imagine. I see they can use crayons, we have "fat" ones, so I'm going to buy I think these cool centerpiece crayola things I saw that spin. They cost twenty bucks a table, I have 5 tables but they are so nice and can be a part of teaching sharing and care for materials, also they'll be ready for use in my fall. One reason I work is for the money to buy these things.
Here we go:


I'm not actually advertising for them, but the quality of their product beats some stuff I bought at the dollar store and kind of regretted. This site is really great for art lessons. By the way.
Altho I can't find a place that tells me how to make cuttlefish. That's bugging me.


So we color awhile, and then get a sticker- that they find hilariously misplaced by putting it on the page they just finished. They laugh. It's a fish coloring book. The theme this summer is "The Ocean," perfect as we live so close to the ocean. We are supposed to take field trips but these kids seem so young. I guess we really need to go over with them to the ocean and build sand castles, see the harbor tide pool exhibit. I know they'd like the fire station around the corner, need to get them to the lbrary around the block. But because they are very young, just right now haven't gotten us up and out.
But next week we'll try to do something exciting. Safe and exciting. There are thirteen children! Pretty cool and I have a lovely child, well teacher, she's twenty five volunteering from MIni-Corps and there is a whole class of 8th graders that help for 45 minutes a day.
During that time each child draws a sea creature we are studying, and then writes a sentence about that animal in their journal. Talk about one to one attention. The older kids are great. Today it was the octopus. Hey, we really are learning a lot....plus my brain kicked in unconsciously.
Did you know how intelligent they are? They are as bright as a cat. Amazing. I think I'll pass on calamari from now on. I'm going to look at more mollusks Monday so I suppose I'll lose another food then.
We watched some cool clips.













By "coincidence" I was teaching color and read a book called "A Color Of My Own" about a chameleon.
Talk about camouflage.



And look at this cuttlefish whose is mimicking a frog fish I think.
Another thing to teach, animals imitate to deceive. to hide.



This piece of film is wonderful on an octopus in action, it even runs a maze, but the clip won't embed.
Go here.



I'm really looking forward to thinking of a way of making a cuttlefish....any ideas??? I haven't got the idea yet and haven't taken pictures yet of our starfish, octopus, reef fish, and coral to show....so lots to share coming up.

This is an incredible link...How Stuff Works.....please go check it out.
I'm sorry I gotta put their links:
Related HowStuffWorks Articles

• How Jellyfish Work
• How Sharks Work
• How Shark Attacks Work
• How Whales Work
• How SCUBA Works
• How to Cook Seafood
• How do fish rise and sink in the ocean?
• Do whales and dolphins sleep?
• How do stingrays kill?
• If water is made up of hydrogen and oxygen, why can't we breathe underwater?
• Wow.
  

We are doing lots of other cool things.... trying to sing our ABC songs, learn to sign the letters, I use a great version of A You're Adorable for this it just has really positive messages core to my progam....we read books, color and paste, talk, share, listen. Lots of stuff.
But my main interest is to start school off as a good, learning, interesting place with books, friends, activity, art, making.
And lots of interesting things to do.