The Median Sib

The time has come to put my words into action. I bought my tent the other day, and I have all the supplies I need to go camping. Tomorrow will see me venture forth on my first (in a VERY long time) camping trip. In order to prevent myself from being the comical entertainment for an entire campground tomorrow afternoon when I put up my tent, I decided I would practice at home first.

So I brought everything into the family room and pitched the tent in front of the TV. OH. MY. GOODNESS! I am so thankful that I tried it in the privacy of my own home before I did it in public. I can just see the people near me at the campground punching each other and pointing in my direction as I demonstrate my one-person imitation of the three stooges putting up a tent. When the people at the store demonstrated it, it looked so simple. Quick and easy - five minutes and you’re done - absolutely no problem for one person to do. Wrong! Thirty minutes, and the sweat was pouring off me. Forty-five minutes, and I’m seriously considering packing it all up and taking it back to the store. A little over an hour, and the tent is up. . . incorrectly. An hour and a half, and the tent is up correctly. The directions apparently assume that the person reading them has a background understanding of how to pitch a tent. They were wrong. I will take the tent down later tonight and pack it away, and then I will put it up again. The second time HAS to be quicker. And then tomorrow when I put it up for the third time, it should be a piece of cake - hopefully. At least that’s what I’m counting on.

I tried out my nifty little hand-size stove, too. Just screw the little burner into the propane canister (or some kind of canister of gas — I guess it’s propane) - and VOILA! A working stove. Of course after I turned it off, I started to fold it back up and burned my hand. Note to self: Let the stove COOL OFF before putting it away.

I taught a demonstration lesson in a second grade classroom the other day. The topic I chose for this first lesson on comprehension strategies was “metacognition” - thinking about one’s own thinking and learning. When children become aware of the mental processes they’re going through as they read, they become better learners. Plus, children love learning new words. They enjoyed saying “metacognition” aloud and practicing how they would answer the “What did you learn in school today?” question they’d most likely hear when they got home that afternoon. I chose the book Edward the Emu as the literature for the lesson, and I used “think-alouds” as I read the book to the class to highlight what I was thinking about as I read the story. We talked about predicting, questioning, and making connections. In the story, Edward kept trying to be something he wasn’t. He learns that it is best to be himself. It is an obvious point that is made, but the story and the illustrations take it beyond the typical books that try to teach a lesson. I loved watching the children’s faces as I read the story aloud to them. They were so into the story!

I saw a quote in Readers Digest this morning that really spoke to me: With kids, the days are long, but the years are short. (John Leguizamo in InStyle)