This picture got a lot of likes on instagram so I'll post it here too

Running Update

Running is going well. I haven't written about it as much anymore. I've started a few times but it hasn't seemed that interesting.

Yesterday I did a workout in a neighborhood near camp that only has a slight up and down hill along about a kilometer stretch. So I ran up and down the stretch 12 times. Or 12x 1k. It went well.

After the Colonial Half Marathon I scaled back some of my goals for the 10 miler in March. Maybe breaking 53 isn't as feasible this year. But I do think there's still lots of room to improve. Part of that is doing more workouts like the 12x1k where I'm running faster than race pace for an extended period of time. I haven't been doing very much of that kind of training at all. So that gives me hope that I could see some significant improvement in a month. Normally I'm doing a lot of those kinds of workouts throughout the year but I've held off on them this time around. We'll see how it plays out!

Word of the Bird 19

it will go here when it's done. You might be able to notice that I'm starting to add things to the stories to make them fun for me. Maybe that's wrong. I'll reflect on it after the kids read.

Gender thing

Today I was helping a girl do something on her computer at afterschool and instead of telling her what to type I asked if it was okay if I typed it in. So I'm typing in this thing and the computer is facing her and i'm looking at the keyboard sideways and hunting and pecking with one finger and it's taking a while and i'm struggling a bit so I say to myself "this is a weird angle to type."

And she looked up and silently turned the computer to face me.

And I was like "oh. Thank you so much. You didn't have to do that. I really appreciate it."

And I don't know if most boys would have done that, turned the computer. Kids are great but they aren't always thoughtful in those ways so this kinda stuck out to me.

I guess it also surprised me because I know for a long time I wouldn't have made that connection like she did. I think I would've just sat there and silently thought, "yeah, pretty awkard angle man. Tell me about it."

So, I don't know. Is this a gender thing? Shout out to that thoughtful little girl.

we're getting ready to go to the gym today and this girl says "look! I made a face in the pizza." Because she was playing a pizza making game so I got excited and took a selfie with it and told her I would make it my profile picture. Then I made it my profile picture.

Anthony Visited!

Long time reader and occasionally perhaps the only reader of this blog, Anthony visited after school yesterday!

He walked into a territorial dispute in the woods. The 5th grade nation was island building to block off a main shipping route used by 3rd and 4th graders. The 5th graders appealed to international courts, me, and for their diligence they were awarded rights to the passage and the 3rd 4th graders were given an alternate route that provided for equal travel time. 

Grades 3/4 refused to abide by international law and a standoff was ensuing as Anthony approached. Bad actors ended up being banished to the other side of the playground for the day.

A neutral party approached Andy and said "It's the woods, it doesn't belong to any of them anyway."

To which Andy responded coldly "yeah, why don't you go tell them that?"

"GUYS IT'S THE WOODS IT DOESN'T BELONG TO ANYONE!" he said. 

He later approached Andy and asked for the 10th time if he would help him dig for worms.

Andy asked, "Were the others able to accept communism?"

Prompting another kid about 20 feet away who hadnt been involved in any of this to yell "BETTER DEAD THAN RED!"

And that was Anthony's introduction to after school. 

I gave out names

Grocery List 2/24

-a baggle-daggle of kale

-a banch-nanch of bananas

-a spin'um win'um muv spinach

-morshroms

-a cubic newton of lemon plums

-cucumbers a la malaysia (2)

-a belting of bok choy

-telera rolls. That's their real name. They look good!

-two guinea pigs standing nose to nose of bagels

-top rectangle, bottom rectangle, two long skinny rectangles, two wide rectangles of raisin bran granola cereal

-from the makers of the 59 cent packs of vermicelli...stars. pasta stars.

-nab of tortillas

They did something to this woman's head...

Put a face on top of a face?

This Week at After School

We need to work on our covers for the afterschool handbook cover contest. And decorating the cafeteria because March is Nutrition Month.

Normally it's lots of free time at after school and I roll with what engages the kids but this week and possibly/probably the next week we need to work on projects!!!!

I guess I'll post updates throughout the week. I've been having some trouble thinking of things to blog about. I write in a journal about my day and I post drawings to instagram. So maybe work things is a good focus for the blog.

Wood Working

this kid and some of his friends built a platform over a hole in the woods entirely out of found sticks. It can support his weight!

Snow Day Today

I need to work on a comic that I plan to bring to the writer's circle I've been going to with Anthony. I also want to make some things out of clay. I remember in my high school art class feeling that working with clay was easier than drawing. I could get things to match the idea in my head and look good with less effort than drawing. I've done some looking and thanks to where i live and work, there's a good amount of clay that would otherwise go unused.

I probably won't run. Still recovering from the half.

idea by maddie

I did it

i graphed out my students. What this graph really needs is to show the ranges that each student is capable of. For some, the point represents a stable disposition. For others it's an average of a wide range. But I thought that might look too busy and would require a lot more work.

Word of the Bird #18

really proud of the kids on this one. LOTS of writing!

Rollerskates #2

Skating has really taken hold of the end of the day at afterschool. The pair that I've been using are too small and have started cutting up my feet. So last night I used my credit card points cash and ordered a pair of skates from ebay. I got a good deal!!!

Word of the Bird #17

Graph Idea

Plot out all my students based on where they fall along the chaos-order axis and the joyful-grumpy axis. 

Out of Data

They should offer a plan that's unlimited data but you're constantly locked into safety mode. I'd get that. I'm sure I could figure out how to navigate with slow data and it would probably be super cheap.

Abstract Painting

[Shrugs] looks kinda violent

A Short

The other day this boy was stomping around the woods. Another boy was touching his stick collection so the boy got very territorial and brandished his stick and bellowed at the other boy. The first was boy, having asserted his dominance, needed to walk around to get space and burn off his excess alpha energy. He got to a fallen tree and attempted to march on and over it. Instead he slipped and fell flat on his belly and knocked a fart out of him. I laughed. 

Grocery List 2/10

-twinning of cucumbers 

- sproitch of spinach 

-bag of kale

-celerium of celery

- inverted trapezoid of mushrooms

- heavy bread

- cylinder knot of bagels 

- meager cheese

- boast of oranges

- box of cous cous

Incentives

I don't normally use rewards when working with kids. Like having things like candy or toys or prizes or whatever for doing well.

But I splurged last weekend and bought all that candy and stickers that was on my shopping list. It's been eye opening to see how much the kids have bought into it.

It's basically a 3 tier system. At the top, for the toughest tasks is air heads. In the middle is starbursts. And at the bottom are the stickers. At least that's how it is in my brain.

Two moments from today.

A kid comes up to me at the start of the afternoon and says "I NEED STICKER! I NEED!" I say, okay you can earn one outside. He asks how. I say by doing a great feat. He asks how. I say that, ya know, we'll just go outside and look around and feel out the energy and most of time epicness happens. And then he found an old inner tube that another kid has hid behind the tree last week.

The other thing that happened was that a boy earned an airhead for cleaning up some of the cafeteria.  He then cleaned ALL of the cafeteria and did every job that is left to me and my coworkers at the end of the day. I told him very clearly that he could not earn any additional airheads. But he was very savvy in increasing the value of his one airhead by eliminating all of the labor that could allow other kids to earn airheads. Does anyone know how to describe this in economic terms?

and proud of it

Word of the Bird #16

Giving This Away on Craigslist

I might get a sheet of really nice watercolor paper for it!!!

A Cool Thing

That guy. peterdraws. Is my favorite artist! And he liked my post last night. I've been tagging him in all my posts for like a week now so maybe I just wore him down but it's still pretty cool! I copy his style, or as best I can manage, in a lot of ways. The way he draws gives me a lot of motivation and inspiration and his YouTube channel is delightful.

Maybe I'll stop tagging him so much now.

Woops! I have not posted for February!!

Woops woop woop!

Groceries Purchased This Week

- about 6 bananas

-pack of mushrooms

-half loaf of sliced bread

-dozen eggs

-carton of almond milk, original 

-2 cucumbers

-1 celerium of celery

-bax of basmati rice

-strand of kale

-colony of baby potates

-tiny plastic barge of vermicelli 

-cannister of raisins

-bag of sour patch watermelons

- 30 airheads

- 2 books of stickers, one of which is pictures of food with googly eyes