(no subject)

[mangofandango]

Good news: I am not insane today, nor am I moody and weird. I got through the crazybusiest day of my week in a fairly organized fashion even though my assistant went home sick, and there was no staff meeting when there would normally have been a staff meeting. A bespectacled kindergartener complimented my clothes ("I like your clothes today, Ms F"), which tells you I was rocking bright colors and extraneous shiny things. Then I came home to a croissant with Nutella. Oh, and also, there are no mice in our towels! Life is good.

I have started a holiday stories unit with the younger kids, since it turns out we have 4 count-'em-4 weeks until Christmas break. We are reading Christmas and Hanukkah stories and reading about traditions all over the world, etc. etc., so we can talk about "text to self connections" and "personal narratives" and diversity and things. I have now read the story of Befana/Babushka several times, and gotten small children to "interpret" Christmas/winter poetry ("what do you think it means when the girl says that snowflakes erase the world?") This is actually putting me in the mood for Christmas-y things. Which reminds me that I have some serious preparing to do and very little time to do it, oh my gosh.

I think it may be time to make lists of things to do. Or perhaps take a bath, and then make lists of things to do.

Comments

[rachelish.livejournal.com]

There are a few little kindergarten girls that tell me they like my clothes a lot. One day one of them said, "oo! I like your shoes! ...and your dress! ...and your tights!" and I said, "I guess that means you like my whole outfit?" and she said, "Yeah I like your whole outfit!" They usually compliment my ballet flats of various colors.

[duchez.livejournal.com]

I guess considering your location, it's not likely that you have any kids who don't celebrate Christmas or Hannukah.

[mangofandango.livejournal.com]

I've sort of done some exploration there, and found that almost all the kids celebrate either Christmas or Hannukah. There is one family that celebrates Solstice specifically, and we talk about that (and I read a non-fiction book about it, along with some other winter celebrations that aren't covered well or at all in fiction). I would like to see more diversity in our holiday collection, though, since part of the point of doing this unit is to talk about diversity, and personal experience and how that varies, etc. etc., and I recently ordered some books to help with that.

There is one story about a little girl whose family are secular humanists who don't celebrate any religious holidays, but the book is so badly written that I can't stomach ordering it. There's a market there, though, if ever anyone would write something decent!