School has started and I feel like I’m finally settling into the routine. The routine of working late, bringing work home at night, and going in on the weekends! Arghh!! Actually, I won’t complain, because I think I have a pretty good class this year. My class last year was, well, shall we say, challenging? Not that I don’t have my challenges this year. (one with turrets, one with epilepsy, almost 1/2 my class reading below grade level, a couple reading at first grade level (I teach fifth) and I already had one parent pull their child out of my class because I tried to teach her how to hold her pencil correctly.
Back to school night was last night and I had a pretty good turn out. It seems like I have some really nice and supportive parents this year. I also got to see a few students and parents from last year which was nice. Usually, I don’t see my students again because they go to another school after they leave fifth grade.
On the sewing front, things have been kind of quiet. I have been working on my free-motion quilting, and although this has hundreds of mistakes (no, I’m not exaggerating) I still think it looks pretty good (you know what they say - ignorance is bliss)
I stopped at the quilt shop on my way home today and picked up this pretty panel. Not sure what I’ll do with it yet, but I they had one made up in there and I liked it. Then I went to JoAnns and bout 1/4 yard of 8 different flannel fabrics to cut up into white-board erasers for my students.
Yesterday I got an email from a lady at my church who does a lot of sewing. She is having a sewing day at her house and asked me if I’d like to come. What, pass up an excuse to sew??? I think not! Yes, I’m sorry DH, but that cleaning up in the garage will have to wait for another weekend! ( we don’t let him clean in the garage unsupervised - he throws everything away. It’s an ugly site when I have to go pulling my things OUT of the dumpster! - and yes, we have a dumpster in front of our house right now. This is like putting a big juicy steak in front of a dog with a fence in between. DH is dying to throw away anything he can get his hands on!) Anyway, I’m going to the sewing day tomorrow, but I have to make sure my machine is working well first. I ‘ve been having a lot of problems with it lately and have been using my friend, Sandy’s machine. I think mine is working fine for regular sewing now. It’s just that every time I drop the feed dogs, it won’t pick up the bobbin thread. I can’t figure it out. I’ll be working on my 1945 jacket this weekend - when I’m not perusing Science curriculum or grading papers.
And, I had a nice package in the mail when I got home. I had ordered fabrics from sewingstudio.com and they arrived today. Most are knits. The ivory is a stretch crepe and the pink floral is a rayon crinkle. Everything else is some kind of knit. I think I need to have a cutting day and cut out a bunch of knit tops. Knits are so fast to sew together that if I had some cut out I could really get a lot done.
Friday, August 22, 2008
Ramblings
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4 comments:
The free form quilting looks great! :)
A parent that pulls a student for being taught correctly? I'm telling ya - and anyone who'll listen - its what's wrong with the system! Big hugs to you! I love teachers! You're so underappreciated but you're my heroes!
Well I think your free motion stitching looks good. It's something I'd like to learn to do someday. As I understand it, it just takes practice.
And gosh! half the class at such a low reading level? Has to make teaching very challenging! My hat is off to you, but I AM curious as to why that would be. Are you teaching in a low income area, are there a lot of non-English speaking people, am I just naive as to how prevalent this is? I still have two in school, and don't THINK that anything approaching that has occured at my girls' public schools.
Yes, it's sad and frustrating. My school does have a large low socio-economic population and I have 7 out of my 30 who are still designated as English Learners. about 2/3 of my class qualify for Free lunch. I would guess that less than 1/4 of my student have parents with a college degree. Yet, they expect us to do so much... don't get me started ;-)
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