Labor

We always teach kids about Holidays--like Columbus day, and Veteran's Day, but I never remember learning much about Labor Day. And I've never taught any students anything about it. This only occurred to me becuase there was some great music on NPR's American Roots this morning, all around the theme of LABOR. Working folks. I know there's something about how it was supposed to be May 1st, but I don't know the history.

Traditional breakfast food is my favorite cuisine: waffles, pancakes, crepes, eggs, sausage, bacon, orange juice. I'm setting a goal to learn how to cook some more delicious breakfast foods: good-enough-to eat-for-dinner breakfast foods.

My class is adorable. Likely its only in contrast to the sixth graders we finally set free last spring, but these babies feel so young and innocent and not even close to adolescents. We enjoy at least one picture book together each day and so far they are super happy to do any ammount of work I ask of them. We have a mini-classroom economy going on this year, and I can't believe how good it's been so far for building a sense of classroom identity and ownership. Thank goodness for the computers--that allow for online banking--so the whole classroom money system can be 100 percent managed electronically.

My girls all seem to be happy in school this year. I'm especially glad I went with North Star for Oba. She seems to have a good enough teacher and some friends. She just met her reading buddy.