Play Dough

One of my students, Veronica, posted a recipe for making play dough for me to make with my daughter, Sophia.

We made red and green (for Christmas).

We had so much fun playing with that play dough!

Thank you, Veronica!

The Gettysburg Address

Here's a fun and cool way to learn a little about US history:

http://www.openculture.com/2010/11/the_gettysburg_address_animated.html

The voices are AWESOME and the animations are clever, helpful, and attractive!

Check out other important films at http://www.openculture.com/freemoviesonline.

Monkey Business for Veronica

While Emily Post might not be much fun, she sure is helpful!

We can read her ideas about etiquette here.

Once we finish reading a bit of Post, we can relax and watch 5-10 minutes of Tuck Everlasting, here. Then we can compare it to the book and see if we can find any allusions...

We'll have more fun than a barrel of monkeys!

Keble, on learning

[F]or a man to profit as he ought, even from the best of truths, they must not be merely taken up from his teacher, but must be rooted and grounded in his own understanding and practice.

- John Keble

An Anecdote for Veronica

Hammering

I am a mother of a 2 year old. Her name is Sophia. For the last two weeks my husband has been doing wood working projects at night while Sophia sleeps. We thought that she was sleeping soundly. But last week, when my husband said good night to Sophia, he told her he was going to the living room. To his surprise, Sophia looked up at her Papa knowingly and exclaimed “and hammer and saw really loud!” It was then that my husband and I began to wonder what else Sophia had heard while we thought she was sleeping!

Four new students!

Every Friday and Saturday night I teach English phonics to Wendy, a super-fun ten year-old girl who lives in Beijing.

We always have so much fun together. She reads me stories, we draw pictures together, we sing songs, she teaches me Chinese words, and we play lots of games. Oh, and she taught me to do a "happy dance" when I get the right answer to a quiz she gives me in Chinese, so now we do happy dances when she gets the right answers to quizzes I give her in English -- we dance a LOT!

I just learned that there are more students in Beijing who want me to teach them English! There are four of them: two girls and two boys. They are older than Wendy, some are 13 and some are 14. I'm excited to get to meet them! And I hope that they will do happy dances, too.

I will still teach English to Wendy -- not only is she my student, she is my friend! Her mom asked me to come visit them in Beijing one day and I really hope that I can. Until then, I am so grateful for the opportunity to make more friends.

2 Cool Events This Weekend!

There are two events going on this weekend that I wish I could go to with my ESL students:

1. Word on the Street
2. Hip Hop for Peace

The Word on the Street is a national book and magazine festival. The website says that there will be "author readings, exhibits, performances, and all-round literary mayhem." I love hearing stories read aloud. When the reader is good, there's nothing like it. I like to close my eyes and let my imagination go wild adding color and movement to ideas and sounds of the text. It's better than movies and theatre. It's more real than 3D. When I'm reading, I usually get caught up in the sounds of the words, and the grammar, and where I should have added more sound or emotion... and then I don't really get into the story as deeply. I'd love to go to this festival, find the author readings, and just sit there, listening. But there's also a giant wordsearch, book-making, and a scavenger hunt! We'd have a blast.

I'm not really in to Hip Hop music, but I think that the Hip Hop for Peace festival could be really fun, too. We could learn how to breakdance, do graffiti, MC, and visit the "Self Determination Tent" (I'm not sure what that is, but I'm curious). And, if I can understand them, I am usually sooooo amazed at how Hip Hop artists think of lyrics and rhyme them and everything that goes into making their music. Plus, I really like music that tells a story. That's a lot of why I like folk music. Hip Hop music usually tells a story, and it's usually a sad one, but that makes it "good"-- if you know what I mean!

An Athlete

I met Veronica on Wednesday night. I really like her.

We were only together for 1.5 hours, but we did a lot! Veronica and I discussed her Capitalization assignment and reviewed 3 rules for capitalization:

1. Capitalize the first word in a sentence.
2. Capitalize the full name of a proper noun (e.g.Wall Street; New York City; World War II).
3. Capitalize a title, or position (e.g. Mayor Brown).

I also showed her my blog, and she showed me hers! She's pretty cool.

Then we all worked together to create Veronica's next blog entry. Veronica is a super-fast typer. AND she knows how to make fire by making sparks with rocks that ignite certain kinds of really flammable wood. Wowza. That's rad!

When I asked her which sports she plays, she said "all of them." That's incredible. I was never good at sports. I can do athletic things, but I was never good at team sports. I like to play volleyball sometimes, and I've enjoyed playing basketball, but I'm not really good at them -- I usually end up laughing at myself a lot. I wonder why some people are better at sports than others... is it just practice and exposure? Or is it genetic?

Meeting Veronica

I love words and I'm really excited to get to share them with my newest student, Veronica! I get to meet her in one hour. I decided to dedicate this post to her -- so that she can read it tonight, when we talk about blogging.

I'm so curious! What will Veronica be like? Will she like me? Will she be serious? Will she laugh a lot? What will she wear? What will we talk about? Will we be friends one day?

When I was hear age (grade 7), I used to read the Archie Comic books. One of the main characters in that series is Veronica:

I used to really admire that Veronica. I wonder if the Veronica I'll meet this evening will be like this Veronica. Will she have black hair? Will she like to sing? I wonder what she likes to read... and what other things she likes to do.