September Monthly Blog
September Monthly Blog
Racing to the Holidays!
September has crept up on me. I know that I talked about the calendar last posting, but somehow I fell into the changing weather of August. The humid end of August reminded us of when we lived in Florida. Granted, the humidity wasn’t as great as that of Del Rey Beach, but as I said, it was a reminder. It was as if I were back resisting going outside and finally walking out and feeling the hair on the back of my neck curl ever tighter while I went to my car to go to work.
I taught fourth grade at DelRey Elementary. The class was one for gifted and highly gifted youngsters. Most of the children were bused in from Broca Raton, just south of Del Rey Beach. I teamed with a teacher named Becky. Try as I might, I can’t remember her last name. She had the prettiest bulletin board framed in lavender with butterflies fashioned onto it. Her desk was pushed up to the bulletin board and facing it. I remember pointing out that her back would be to her class and she retorted that she needed some time away from them so they wouldn’t pester her. I did laugh when she said that, but it was a novel way of looking at things for me. Here in California, that would be a definite “no-no..”
My class was a bit different than hers. I had a slew of highly gifted children in my class of 36 and had to construct a curriculum that matched their academic hunger. We changed activities every twenty minutes to keep them focused and engaged. At first I thought that I’d lose my own marbles trying to address all of their individual needs, but then I came across a series of books that had amazing topics like Pirates and Architecture of ancient Rome and Greece, and so on. The various subtopics’ activities in each book were rated according to an academic taxonomy that intrigued the children’s parents. Thank goodness (they were a demanding bunch). I thought that I had found a personal treasure. The children were encouraged to discuss the kind of grade each was going to head towards based on their month’s involvement with extracurricular assignments (there were families who accompanied parents on business trips, an award winning ice skater, a child actress, a politician’s child – lots of parties at that house, and so on).Becky and I also used a book of math brain teasers that we told the children they should work out weekly with their parents. There were some weeks that one or both of us would get phone calls that there was no answer to the brain teaser. It would tickle me, but of course I had the answers to the teasers. What a time!
Each day Becky and I would take the youngsters out for recreation. The playground was sandy like the beach. You could stick your bare feet in it and feel like you were walking on the beach. But the humidity and the heat—you could simply melt. The insects loved the weather and were bigger there. Our classes were in trailers and the insects felt free to make them their vacation home. One day a potato bug got a giant wad of dust on it and sashayed across the front of my classroom. Of course it looked as big as a mouse so all of the youngsters had to shriek. I remember stopping them by saying that we had to name it which then caused them to stop. We voted on Henry.
Henry was really much smaller then he looked with dust on him. He was a disappointment to the kids. There was no drama to him. The other visitor to the class was my daughter. As I look back on it, I never asked for permission for her to come on the campus. How different times are now. Anyway, she came once a week. The kids would wait for her arrival and watch for her to come up the ramp. “Diana is here. She’s coming,” they’d exclaim. Diana and I were avid watchers of Earth II which caused most of the youngsters to watch it. We’d discuss the episode and try to figure out what was coming. It was a good introduction to science fiction novels for them.
Meanwhile, we were making home preparations to move back to California. Diana transferred from Florida Atlantic to Scripps in Claremont and could no longer visit my classroom. We had grown so used to the humidity of Florida that when we got off the airplane in Los Angeles the dry air was a shock. Diana’s and my hair immediately relaxed. What a change but August reminded me. Now it’s September and it’s time to begin to think of holidays that begin to rush at you. Get ready!!