Hello, Noah
I realize that this reference to a classic Bill Cosby routine makes me one big, giant fossil, but I can't resist making a connection after this week.
First of all, is should we all be building arks here in New England? Around my house we have 7 foot snowbanks created after the nonstop deluge of snow "events" which began in mid-January. There seems to be no end in sight. Today, forecasters are calling for rain and possibly a finish of snow. Once this stuff begins to melt, we'll be floating.I thought of this routine again yesterday when we were having our Morning Meeting. One of my students, who has pretty much perfect attendance, did not come to school Thursday -- we had snow cancellations on Tuesday and Wednesday. As he is a bus student, when he didn't come to school Thursday, I didn't think it was too remarkable. The school buses that day were late - some by hours - city streets are clogged with snow and no place to put it.However, this student expressed surprise that we had school on Thursday. He claimed to have gotten the robo call from the school-wide information system canceling school. This led to quite a discussion from my students; some get the calls and others do not, usually because they have no working phone number or because the phone number that was shared earlier has been changed (and changed, and changed).But what really made me laugh was the insistence of one of my students that God called her house to cancel school. In actuality, our Assistant Superintendent for Business initiates the call.And while he does have a deep voice, I'm sure he's located in Lowell not in some more heavenly environ.Right.
Today, Veteran's Day 2009, I am remembering. My Dad's generation was the generation that fought World War II. We don't know much if any of my Dad's whole military service. Like many of his generation, it was not something to be shared or talked about. Yet, over time a few vignettes were revealed to us. Glimpses into the past both funny and frightening.I look at the photograph of Dad when he was in the Army. I am not sure whether this photograph was before or after he was shipped to the European Theater, but I do know it was taken in Buffalo. In the fading photograph I can see a much younger version of the man I recall -- and if my mathematical calculations are correct, this photograph was taken when my Dad was 27 or 28. I have a son who is older than that and the poignancy of this thought puts tears in my eyes.The events this week at Fort Hood once again remind me again of the human toll of service to country. No matter what the politics of war, no matter how much or how little I have in common with service men and women, today is a day of remembrance.So at the eleventh hour on the eleventh day of the eleventh month, I stand among the trees in my wooded yard. And to the toll of the churchbell on the Common at precisely 11:00, I stop to remember. Happy Veteran's Day.
One of our activities this week was a trip to the 
Third Graders. The program we participated in - Change in the Making - enabled students to learn about how this area of Massachusetts changed from farmlands to factories over a period of about 100 years. The black and white photograph is an image of one of the looms outside of the weave room. Only a few looms inside the room were running on the day we visited, but the clatter was nearly unbearable. Imagine having to work in such an environment for 10 to 12 hours each day.One of the most (un)popular parts of the tour was the climb to the fifth floor activity rooms using the spiraling staircase that the Mill Girls would use. As our guide pointed out, the Mill Girls made several trips up and down the stairs throughout the day.
his week I spent most of a "day off" in school sorting through the books that had been labeled and logged and organizing them into color coded baskets - red for fiction, green for nonfiction, blue for poetry and yellow for special collections. Using both the small nesting baskets from Really Good Stuff and the stackable medium bins has been a good thing. And the shelves are beginning to look like something other than the mishmash that had been. At this point, I have finished the most tedious leveling - those 500+ books that had not been leveled at all - and I am sorting through the baskets in of previously leveld books. Will need to weed out used and otherwise unattractive books.I hate the feel of books that have been sitting on the shelf - in the warm sun and near the blowers for the heating system in the classroom. They feel dusty, the paper pages feel rough and uncomfortable and often the covers are worn or brittle. These are the books that I've been recycling rather aggressively. Those that belong to the school and were purchased with school funds (Title I, building budget, etc.) are shared with colleagues who need to bulk up their own classroom library or with the Lincoln Lenders. The later is a collection of books for our students to swap - something that happens about once each month. Bring a book to trade and get one in return. It works quite well and more and more children are able to have a book of their own.A side-activity to the classroom library sorting is that I have been classifying my own teacher collection of trade 
books - you know, the books that drive a minilesson or those that are used to jump start a writing lesson. By freeing up all those cardboard magazine files, I've been able to sort my "special" collection by writing topic (narratives, letter writing) and by mini lesson. I've also organized the author collections that have accumulated over the last ten years of my teaching.The room is starting to feel organized -- and I feel as if I've got a handle on what books are available to my students. It is tedious and hard work, but I believe it will be worth it in the end. If there is an end!
The second glitch this week was in the color coded baskets. There are WAY too many books -- can you believe it -- for the baskets I have. And the small stacking baskets, while just the right size for paperback chapter books, are too small for the picture books unless I turn the basket on the long side. This means I lose some shelf space and will probably mean the goal of getting books off of the counters in not reasonable. I've noticed that 
Now, what to do with those cardboard magazine boxes? They're too good to throw away (and if you are or live with a teacher you know throwing things away just isn't something we do). I'll need to come to a decision soon as they are starting to take over the table and desk space!So on the To-Do list for the coming week is to finish labeling the rest of the newly categorized library, solve the basket issue, and, oh yes.... get rid of the clutter before it drives everyone crazy.
