Winter of Fire

Just finished reading a YA book called "Winter of Fire" by Sherryl Jordan. It is a dystopia where slaves are branded and used to mine "firestones" (coal) to keep people warm. The skies are covered in smoke and dust because of some past horrific event. Hundreds of years later the only thing keeping the sun from the earth is the smoke from all of the coal fires.  The main character Elsha is a young woman who is one of the slave race, she is lifted out of her slavery by the Firelord. Elsha strives to make changes for her people to save them from their status of slavery.

This is a pretty interesting book with a very strong female character. Passes the Beckdale test (http://jakewesley.blogspot.com/2012/01/women-and-philosophy-beckdale-test.html). The writing isn't very strong, but the messages in favor of equality and for saving the atmosphere by burning less fuel are positive. There are a few plot holes, which I cannot point out here because if you want to read it.... well you get the idea. I would put this book in a 7th grade or higher classroom library. I feel it is a good enough book for students to enjoy. I enjoyed it quite a bit when I was in junior high and high school. I must have read it dozens of times. It deals with difficult issues of equality and slavery without being controversial.

Shooting the Moon

I'm slowly working on reading children's books so that I can decide on what I want to have in the classroom I will someday be teaching. The most recent one is called Shooting the Moon by Frances O'Roark Dowell. The story is set during the Vietnam "Conflict". The main character Jamie (12 year old) is excited because her brother has enlisted and is sent off to be a medic in the war. Over time she comes to learn that war isn't as exciting as she and her brother imagined. Instead of writing her letters her brother photographs his experiences to her. He never writes her a single word.

This was a very good book. But I worry that if I had it in my classroom it may upset or depress student's who have family in our current conflict, but it might also give them hope. I think it would depend on the maturity level of the student. 

I was surprised about this book. It was given to me by one of my students when I was student teaching. It wasn't something I'd have thought he would read. It was his favorite book at the time. I must have seen him carrying that book around and rereading it throughout most of my time in his classroom. He had his mother buy me a copy from the book fair. It was very sweet of him. I hadn't realized that I'd made that much of an impression on him, or that he was that selfless. He definitely made me reassess my estimation of him. 

Area and Perimeter with Cheez-Its Lesson Plan

I've finally gotten off of my lazy butt and decided to post the whole darn lesson plan. This is because a number of teachers have located my blog, and emailed me requests for this lesson. I do have to admit that the idea is not my own, but I did add to the worksheet that I found. Originally the worksheet had only four problems on it, but I felt that a mere four problems would not be enough of a challenge to my students. Here you go! I hope this helps your students to learn area and perimeter. It certainly was effective for my kiddos.


Each cracker is about a square inch. So if you want a worksheet for this lesson plan, simply make sure that you are drawing rectangles that are in square inches. If you want a copy of the worksheet I made, email me and I'll try to get it to you sooner rather than later. I tried to put it on here, but it didn't work so well.


*** EDIT*** Found the website I got the worksheet (which I modified because I wanted it to have more problems):  http://www.proteacher.net/. 

The rain it keeps on falling ...

The weather in my area has been rather wonky and a bit on the scary side these past few days. We even got what my husband and I called "the lake" in our apartment complex parking lot.

The "lake" eventually went away, but flooding in the area has been slow to disappear. Not to far from my home tragedy split a small family of four up. Their car was sucked into the water and the mother and baby died. The father and young child survived. I feel so bad for the family. I cannot imagine how awful that daddy must feel right now, let alone his young son. To be honest, I don't want to imagine it.

I hope that there are no more horrific things that happen because of the nasty winter weather that is yet to come. If it is scary in your area... please try to be safe.

LadyGrace

Giving this another go ....

Another year has come and gone, and with it brought a lot of changes. It feels very cleche to type that out. It is the truth though.

Major events for myself and my husband this past year:

Dad got injured while working and was not able to return to work until his busy season was nearly over (he does house painting, landscaping, and the like).

I graduated from college with a double degree in Education and English. I managed to do it with a 3.51 at the last second, earning myself a Cum Laude honor.

We got pregnant!

My husband was fired from his somewhat well paying job for something he didn't do. Causing us to have to push back our long term goals and burn through our hard earned savings account.

We had our 1 year marriage anniversary.

I managed to get on the substitute teacher list for a local school district, but found out in January do to an unfortunate paperwork incident I wasn't really on the list.

My husband found a new job that paid considerably less per hour, but allows him to work from home.

We found out that we are going to have a little girl.

My grandparents reached their 60th wedding anniversary.

My grandfather reached the age of 90.

After six long months of job hunting, and several let downs I finally find a job. It starts on Jan 30. I'll be taking phone reservations for Enterprise Rent a Car. I find myself depressingly back in the same situation I was in prior to starting my college career. Working in a call center, except this time I'll be paid less, but get to work from home. Well at least I'll finally be bringing in some money, so we can get hubby on his way through college.


Items I've crafted last year:
I crafted more items than this over the last year. I've just been very bad about taking photos. I finished a quilt for my grandmother, as well as made pillows as gifts for the holidays. 


The below dino was made for my friend Kyla who was having a baby. It is a small wall hanging for the nursery.

Below is a table runner I made for my mother in law for Christmas. 

Below is the dino quilt I've been working on for my daughter. I'm nearly finished with the applique, and will soon move onto the the quilting process.

Below is the quilt I made for my mother in law.

Anticipated major events for this year:

The birth of my first child in April!

Hubby getting accepted to, and going to college.

Me starting graduate school to gain a masters degree in Education with an emphasis/endorsement in reading and perhaps ESOL.

My 30th birthday.

Our second year wedding anniversary.




Take care and be well,
LadyGrace