So far this week I've walked 9 miles at a rather brisk pace.

By saturday, my friend Divo and I should have 15 miles under our belt. We were both a little sore yesterday, so we lost a few minutes on our time, but just barely really.

I swear after 2 walking sesions my one pair of pants went from fitting-- to being gathered around my waist by my belt all ruffly like.

I think it was like water retention or something. :)

One of the big wigs from my Dream Educational Publishers, hoped for job, has been in our building all week. Sitting down with _________ to corrolate our districts, benchmarks [areas of curriculum that every child in your grade level is to master by the end of the year] to the publishers curriculum. Anyway, that is here nore their. She came to my room and observed and interacted with my kids, and asked them questions, and what they think obout science and me, and well-- she left with a knowing satisfied look on her face.

We were doing a experiment with oil and water and observing their properties. My kids were actually using words like viscous, and translucent-- correctly mind you-- to describe the characteristics of the drops of liquids they had in front of them. AND to top it off they were also using more age appropriate terms to validate the usage of these big scientific terms that my district forces us to use with them.

It was a good day really.

One of my administrators, one that I can't stand, not my big boss that I adore, accused me in a playful way of putting on a show for the bigwig. She so fucking gets on my nerves. She has as yet to EVER set foot in my room this year, and really has know clue as to how my days are conducted, and had she READ my lesson plans-- something that is required of her job to make sure they are legally sound-- she would have noted that they had been in there for a week, she must not be reading them.

Suprise, suprise, like non of us didn't already realize this, but so help your procrastination loving ass if they are even 1 nano second late on Monday, morning. [Even though the district handbook clearly states that they are due by 3:00 on Monday, afternoon per order of the district superintendant] It gives me ample bucket loads of satisfaction to turn them in at the absolute last minute on Monday, afternoon.

My lesson plans are written like my diary entries. Wordy and highly descriptive. Sometimes even scripted. This is what the district expects, and really if she wanted to be a hardass she could have many of the others on my team rewriting their 3 line long lessonplans, for lack of detail. I never refer back to my lesson plans, once they're written they have pretty much been internalized.

I've been trying to use metacognitive praise in my classroom this year. Metacognition is basically thinking about thinking. So, for example, if a student raises their hand and gives me a answer and 3 details to backup thier answer, I'm likely to say something like, "WOW! Fantastic answer. That was some really great CRITICAL THINKING and recall of KNOWLEDGE. I especially liked how you gave us 3 details to support your answer. Really wonderful job ____________." Yeah, so this is kind of difficult cause it requires you to know blooms taxonomy backwards and forwards so you can give the appropriate metacognitive praise. It also requires the children to have a basic knowledge of their own thinking processes and where they are functioning along the lines of Bloom's taxonomy. I mean if a child is working in the application or synthesis portion of the taxonomy you wouldn't want to give them praise about simple knowledge recall. Erikson, says it is critical that learners be made aware of their own thought processes, and they be given opportunities to think about them. Which brings us back to metacognition, thinking about thinking.

Sorry, didn't mean to get on a soap box about eductional practices and philosophies. I write what I write. I think I was in an automatic writing daze.

Coffee is kicking in now.

Was going to do some laundry this morning. [I get up two hours before I need to hop in the shower.] I wrote in here instead though. This is important, but sometimes I wish I could get other things in my live accomplished, other then writing in here.

shower time.

Hugs.