(This is the last part of the Slice of Life project at Two Writing Teachers)

The rain has been unbearable the last two days or so. Just deluges of downpour and along with keeping an eye on the rivers — the one down the street is near the edge of the bank — and the flow of water into my basement sump pump — it’s churning out a near constant stream, worrying me about the motor — we are just plain bored out of our skulls. And the kids have been at each other’s throats, too, as we wait for what they say will be record-high temperatures and sunny days ahead.

So, last night, we went to Blockbuster and rented The Fantastic Mr. Fox, which one of the few Roald Dahl stories that I don’t think I have read, although all three of my boys know the story of the wily fox who is torn between being the “wild animal” that he is and the family member he has become.

I love stopmotion movies and I sort of like Wes Anderson as a director, and while I was not blown away by Mr. Fox, it was rather quirky and likeable, and it definitely had that Wes Anderson feel to it. His movies always seem off-balance to me, in a good way.

It was nice just to have the four boys hanging out in the living room, with us cracking jokes and watching the flick. (My wife is away this week). I realized later that we never got the popcorn going. What I thinking?

Peace (in the last slice of the month),
Kevin

(This is part of the Slice of Life project at Two Writing Teachers)

Yesterday afternoon, my voice was almost gone, down to a bare whisper, because I spent the day loudly and enthusiastically encouraging my students in games of Quidditch and soccer and even Dodge Ball on a yearly field trip we take to an indoor soccer arena.

Some of you know that our school is now in its 11th year of playing a version of Quidditch that is complicated to learn and amazing to watch and allows for kids of all athletic levels to participate. In a few weeks, the four sixth grade classes will face off in a full-day Quidditch Tournament at our school.

This year, I have a homeroom that struggles to work together due to some personalities but they have been pulling it together lately in ways that have me smiling in satisfaction and they were wonderful yesterday on our field trip. They worked as a team (we are called Dry Ice, see logo). They cheered each other on. They didn’t wallow in mistakes or point fingers at each other.

I tried to set the example, of course, with my rousing cheers and pats on the backs, and doing that one-to-one coaching stuff around hints and suggestions for play, but they were right there with me. And so, tired out and almost out of voice, I felt as if we had accomplished something important as a class yesterday. We were working as a a team, and as cliche as that sounds, it is important.

Peace (on the field),
Kevin

(This is part of the Slice of Life project at Two Writing Teachers)

You should see our dog in the mornings. We let him sleep on our kids’  beds (not ours) and they have devised an elaborate system for who gets the lunk for the night. (They even have a theme song, sung to Eddie Money, about “Duke’s on my bed tonight, he’s gonna sleep right there until the morning light …”)

My job is to grab him in the mornings and get him outside, and he is often bunkered down hard, huddled up against the boy and reluctant to come with me. He”ll twist away, stretch his head, push his paws out, whatever.  I’m always amazed at how much bed he takes up with his long legs (he’s part lab and part hound, and he has this incredible long, lean body.)

In the dark, I am searching for his collar because the only way to get him is to slowly drag his prone body to the edge of the bed, hold out my hands to catch him (all 60 pounds of him) before he falls and then guide him downstairs. He’ll stretch and yawn and then, with the collar in my hand, he bobs and weaves his head away from me.

All the while, his tail is wagging. It’s an odd way to start the days, but there you go.

Peace (with the dog),
Kevin

(This is part of the Slice of Life project at Two Writing Teachers)

Yesterday, my students and I were reading aloud Time for Kids in class, which we do quite often for understanding non-fiction text and also to engage in discussion about world events and issues. The cover story in the magazine was about the amount of time that young people spend with media — television, mobile devices, gaming systems, etc.

We had some pretty interesting discussions about the emergence of technology in the lives of young people, including some debate about whether schools should allow cell phones into classrooms (my students: a resounding “no” because of distractions) and whether having the television on while doing homework is a good idea or not. What about music?

Since the TFK article used a recent survey by the Kaiser Foundation as its basis, I decided on a spur of the moment to survey my own students on a few of the same questions.

The questions were:

• Do you have a television in your bedroom?
• Do you have your own cell phone?
• Do you have an MP3 player/iPod?
• How many computers do you have in your household?

Here are our results. Click on the photo to get a bigger image.

(I used an online graph generator for showing our results, which are shown as percentages. But I can’t figure out why the graph has a 120 as one of the top lines, and there was no clear way for me to remove that data point.)

I guess it’s not surprising that 94 percent own a music device, but it was interesting how many (35 percent) have more than three computers (including laptops) in the house. Not one student did not have any computers at all.

The Kaiser study found that young people average about 7 hours of media/screen time per day. That includes Wii and gaming systems, computer work, mobile devices, and more. My students thought that was a bit excessive and while I did not ask them how many hours they do spend, my guess would be about three hours (based on conversations I have had with them).

Peace (in the data),
Kevin

(This is part of the Slice of Life project at Two Writing Teachers)

Yesterday, I wrote about the Greek Temples being created at my son’s preschool, but I should have mentioned that they went on a field trip this week to a planetarium at a local university. I could not go as a chaperon because  I was overseeing state reading testing of my students and boy, did I wish I were there with my little five-year-old during that time.

Yesterday, my son started to tell me all about the field trip again — it was very exciting! — and then grabbed some paper and began to draw. He’s been intro drawing everything these days.

When he was done, he proudly showed me his picture, which shows a scene of him and his best friend in the Planetarium, with stars above. I asked what some of the other things were, like the black lines coming down (I thought maybe they were meteors or something) and he said they were the levers that are used to make the stars. After the light show, the kids got to work the controls of the equipment and create stars in the fake sky, and he was trying to recreate that scene.

And there I was, in a room in another town, administering a long test to my students in complete silence. Darn it! I wanted to see the stars!

Peace (in the dark),
Kevin