Silent E, Holy E

My calm and bright student is working through the silent e words for the fifth, and lowliest, of the vowels. The words with their illustrations make a peculiar group:

mute  butte  cure  pure  rude 
fume  prune  tune  flute  cute 

What image can illustrate "pure" for a five-year-old? The picture that goes with the word is a child in a winter coat and hat starring up at the stars.

The image for "cure" shows EMTs unloading a patient on a stretcher from an ambulance.

"Mute" and "butte" present problems stretching from here to Montana.

"Tune" shows a kid whistling, and "cute" is a baby, although not the cutest grandbaby on Earth, with whom I'm acquainted.

Gave myself a stern talking-to about finishing the pile of ironing before putting up the Christmas tree.  The pile is still there, should you need a silent e illustration for the third vowel.  The lights are untangled, and most of the strings still work. Maybe I should pop "Hunt for Red October" in the old VCR in honor of the USS Enterprise, and fire up the steam iron.  I'll just let the lights blink on the living room floor.





Employee overheard at the copy center in a national chain office supply store patiently explaining to a customer who might have been off his meds:

You need Dobe to print those puddiffs.

[In this case Dobe does not rhyme with Kobe Bryant.]

Long ago I taught a girl who sang "Dudolf da Ded-Dosed Deindeer".  Dudolf could never get his pdfs to print with or without the latest version of Adobe, and my Christmases have never been the same since.

© 2012 Nancy L. Ruder

Writing on the surface of a lime

The preschoolers were enjoying a birthday snack of blueberry muffins with OJ at the playground picnic tables when a red car came racing through the parking lot.

"It's going too fast," the kids told me. "We need a speed lemon!"

I wanted to make a speed lemon, but there was just a tired lime in the fridge. It's really hard to transform a lime into a car with a Sharpie pen. Ask.com and eHow.com offered no advice for my trouble with lime writing, just suggestions for making invisible ink.


Nadir is one of those crossword puzzle words. Lemon law is a crossword answer, too. I read an unflattering review of Ralph Nader's Seventeen Solutions in the Kirkus Review 8/15/12 issue.

nadir (n.) 

late 14c., in astronomical sense, from M.L. nadir, from Arabic nazir "opposite to," in nazir as-samt, lit. "opposite of the zenith," from nazir "opposite" + as-samt "zenith" (see zenith). Transferred sense of "lowest point (of anything)" is first recorded 1793.

Just for a sec I misread that low point as 1973, the year I finished high school.  Our principals kept telling us we were the worst class to ever darken their school door, but I don't think we were all lemons.

Several of my little students are unsafe at any speed, especially when they don't settle down and take a good long nap. Accidents happen when they are tired, but they are not all lemons, either.


Had a flashback to the days of Chevy Corvairs, Ford Falcons, Dodge Darts, Plymouth Valiants.  Exploding Ford Pintos, the Tylenol tampering scare, and tampon toxic shock syndrome profoundly changed our collective U.S. mindset.  We became consumers who expected to be protected by government from dangers in the products we buy and use. Yes, consumer advocacy and litigation made government bigger. Do we want to go back to the "let the buyer beware" era?

"Every time you open a bottle or package (of medicine, food or drink) that has tamper evidence features, a band around the lid or an interior seal, it is because of the Tylenol case," said Pan Demetrakakes, executive editor of Food & Drug Packaging magazine. 

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission is charged with protecting the public from unreasonable risks of injury or death from thousands of types of consumer products under the agency's jurisdiction. The CPSC is committed to protecting consumers and families from products that pose a fire, electrical, chemical, or mechanical hazard or can injure children. The CPSC's work to ensure the safety of consumer products - such as toys, cribs, power tools, cigarette lighters, and household chemicals - contributed significantly to the 30 percent decline in the rate of deaths and injuries associated with consumer products since 1972.


© 2012 Nancy L. Ruder

Buoy, Bowie, pho boy

"I'm okay!"  Even while he's still in the process of falling down, our new student is announcing the upside.  He's just turned three, and he doesn't have very far to fall. Sometimes he's already made his thumbs-up spin pronouncement before checking in with his skinned knees. That leads to post-announcement reassessments reminiscent of  Dubya's "Mission Accomplished" speech, but with cuter Hello Kitty Band-Aids.


Elementary students sitting at the long table are arguing about the pronunciation of phở while they squeeze the salsa from its condiment package and sprinkle faux cheese on their nacho Lunchables.  My sons are  phở -natics, so I know  phở  rhymes with "duh", but not with Homer Simpson's "D'oh!"  


Artist Marc Trujillo has captured the creepiness of a nacho Lunchable, but I won't reproduce an image of his small oil painting.  Please check it out.


Still more pronunciation anxiety arrives via the Wait! I Have a Blog?! post called "Natural Buoyancy". I am transported back to the early Seventies, steering a very small boat around a very small lake. We learned to turn the boat "hard alee" around a buoy.  In Nebraska-speak, that is pronounced "heartily around a boo-WHee".  I still love the sound of the commands, "Prepare to come about; ready about; hard alee!"
   
ready about
Last warning given by a helmsman before tacking and turning the bow into the wind, notifying the crew that the boom and sail will cross the boat.

Bwoy,oh ,bwoy, what a big can of worms.  Buoy does not rhyme with "La Choy" or "soy", but does rhyme with chop "suey"! According to the Merriam Webster online dictionary, buoy rhymes with chewy, gluey, phooey, and screwy. 


Oy vey!  Oy rhymes with koi, poi, bok choy, hoi polloi, annoy, borzoi, and Troy, my auto mechanic.
Buoyancy is boy-antsy but like you've just consumed a 25¢ coffee from a paper cup dispensed by a machine in the basement near the stairwell to the art history lecture hall while you are in summer school as a sophomore and considering changing your major.

My grandpuppy, Wiley, presents a new pronunciation problem.  His widdle doggie self esteem is in the pits since he did not advance to the finals in a doggie beauty pageant. I so wish I was closer to give a doggy morale boost by saying, "Wiley, good bwooy!"

"Eureka!" comes from the ancient Greeks meaning "I have found it!". The story goes that Archimedes was soaking in the tub so long his fingers and toes were getting wrinkly.  All of a sudden he understood the theory of buoyancy. Wiley never gets sufficiently relaxed in the bath to discover theories.


BOO-ee is the preferred pronunciation for the legendary Alamo defender and knife namesake, Jim Bowie.  But then there's David Bowie:  Although his name is often pronounced as BOW-ee (-ow as in now) the pronunciation that he uses and we recommend is BOH-ee (-oh as in no). He is married to the Somali-born supermodel Iman (pronounced ee-MAN).


So goodnight for now. I'm exhausted from carrying this buoy through the slough.  


© 2012 Nancy L. Ruder

Wueƨsday all week long

Trouble was, it was Wueƨsday right after Tuesday in the preschool class.


Then it was Thutƨbay, quite an Osterized day, chopped and pureed. Ranger fans felt they had been through the blender by the time Game Six was over.

When my blender went to appliance heaven, I decided to try an immersible blender this time around.  Never could get all the hummus out of the old blender around the blades.


The school Halloween celebration was Friday, or Friboy if you are still reading the preschool writing on the white board.  Girls in attendance:


Queen
Ariel mermaid
Princess Barbie
3 Rapunzels, although one called it Carpuntsel.  
Kimono princess
Rodeo princess
Sequined singer
Leopard ballerina
Princess fairy
Minnie Mouse
Gypsy girl
Clown
Ladybug
Batgirl (superhero, not baseball assistant)
"Army sister"


Boys:


Dragon ninja
Darth Vader
Transformer
Ninja turtle
Football player
Fireman
Orange pumpkin


© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

That's a really big sky.

"That's a really big sky," the five year old said.  "Do you think it will fall on us?" He was not joking.

"We must go and tell the king," I did not say.

He was staring up, unable to remember he was in the process of biting a Ritz cracker.  He's been known to worry how the birds that fly onto our fenced playground will get back out.  I keep hoping he will step into a phone booth and emerge as a super learner instead of Chicken Little.

I went back to watching for migrating monarch butterflies in that really big sky and wondering how to help kids focus.  I want an incredible cure for the epidemic of attention deficit.  Incredible... hmmm.  Weren't there some superheroes by that name?

Yes!!  I want to create the Indistractables, a crack team of superfocused preschoolers ready to listen, to stay on task, to think for themselves, to solve problems and learn new things. We must harness the power of the human brain!  We might need some red capes!

It won't help to just dress Chicken Little in a cape. But a chance to wear the Indistractables cape and receive a Super Focused Hero award might be an incentive for a few kids to follow through on a project.

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Finally Friday night

It rained.

asymmetrical ankles

blue morpho butterfly

Buick in ecstasy

so long without rain  

This has been a week of frittering, taking refuge in very old stress relief habits of procrastination, compulsive grocery shopping, wandering around in Tuesday Morning, staring out at my patio jungle, and wondering why my ankles don't match.  One is concave, and the other convex.

The hummingbirds are gone. Haven't seen one at the patio feeder in over a week. An anole has claimed their feeder.

Dad is fighting, slapping, kicking, and hitting the nurses and aides.  Also me when I try to help out.

Overslept.  Felt like growling quite a bit. The growl forming in my throat and maxillary sinuses, the ones  behind my cheekbones.  The teeth clenching. The squint taking over my eyes. Used the coffee grinder, and got the morning pot too strong.

The preschoolers learning insects call that a "Blue Martha butterfly".  I can't help thinking of Stewart.

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Rock and a hard place souvenir tee

The preschoolers were eating lunch.  One four year old was wearing a Hard Rock Cafe t-shirt.  The next child says to him, "I like your shirt.  It's just like the one my mom wears to bed.".  I just about snorted red pepper hummus out my nose trying not to laugh.

Then the student in the Hard Rock shirt says, "My mom got it when I was at Dad's house."  That made me sad.  So many children, so very young, shuttling between parents' homes, confused about the new significant others in their parents' lives, who maybe packed today's lunchbox.  So many small children picked up by adults who continue talking on their cellphones while retrieving child, lunchbox, and papers from the hall cubby.

I'm down.  Day after day over one hundred degrees is zapping everyone.  Disgust with Congress and media coverage is like walking in a perpetual cloud of gnats.

So hard to find a starting point for gratitude.  I'm thankful:

• My sons were older when divorce became inevitable.
• I was able to be my sons' primary caregiver and educator while they were preschoolers.
• In a backwards way, that my spouse needed to prove his manliness by providing for our little family all by himself.
• That the boys had grandparents who were consistently interested and supportive.
• We ate enough meals as a family that my kids learned some manners they still use everyday. 
• My students don't know what I wear to bed!

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

"That bad man will come and get us"

We have nothing to fear but fax machines and finger fumbles that wipe out lengthy blog drafts.  And miller moths flying up the legs of our bell-bottom pants making us lose control of our 1961 Plymouth Sport Fury.  The evaporated verbose entry began with the bell-bottoms and the proclamation about the "bad man" by a three year old student.  We were out for a little nature walk just listening to birds, feeling the wind on our skin, seeing squirrels in the trees, and noticing the guy in the parking lot talking on his cellphone.  My what big eyes he had.  My what big teeth and a coffee mug.  My what big ears and a cigarette, and that same navy striped knit shirt he wears any day when he's not meeting clients.

Fear.

Three year olds are afraid of many things.  This is a countdown of things that send them into a mass tizzy:

1. thunder
2. ants
3. garbage trucks
4. loud toilets
5. fresh fruit
6. sirens
7. spiders
8. bees
9. fire trucks
10. power failures
11. new vegetables
12. foods touching each other
13. paint on hands
14. strangers
15. shots

Once upon a time I was frightened of big cities, not having ever visited one.  I called my fear "metrophobia".  On my first trip to Washington, D.C. I overcame much of that fear by learning to negotiate the Metro transit system.  Twenty-five years later I still love the DC subway system except for the out-of-service escalators..

We have nothing to fear but faxing itself.  FDR did not say that, but it is still true.  My metrophobia is mostly gone, but I'm holding firm to faxophobia.  There are things in this world that are really scary--hunger, abuse, exploitation, lack of clean water, war, gang violence, long-term unemployment.  I was going to make jokes about credit card debt, termite swarms, old age, and other things that will come and get us.

I don't know whether to read an old Nancy Drew mystery with a black widow spider, or to watch the quicksand scene from Lawrence of Arabia.  It is thundering.  Angels are bowling.  Christian soldiers are marching onward.  Mothers are serving brussels sprouts to innocent preschoolers.  Moths are just waiting for you to flick on the bathroom light in the middle of the night.

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

ConVader Belt

Use the Force, Lucy and Ethel!  Bonbons with light sabers!

"ConVader belt" is the preschool vocabulary word. 

And, if you need another laugh, you can check out the softshell turtles trying to sunbathe on the little concrete dam of the pond at Oak Point Nature Preserve.  Every time a bicyclist or jogger goes by on the trail, the turtles backslide quickly into the water.  Then they have to swim around with their necks craned checking if that annoying lady with the camera is still there before they skootch back up. 

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Learning about wild animals

A student was working with the basket of plastic wild animals, reviewing their names and matching the words to the objects.  She was stuck in a rut of thin and crispy crust Pizza Hut or possibly the cosmic One Mind.

She brought me the plastic cheetah.

"What's that animal?," I asked.


 Pancheesy  she said. 

"You are almost right.  It's a cheetah," I said.

 cheetah


She brought me the plastic rhinoceros.  Her tentative ID:

 Pan-theisee 

"Hmmmmm," I said.  "What sound does it start with?"

 r-r-r-r-r, pancheesy

Having just done a lesson on shapes with the youngest kids, triangles = pizza slices were already warming up and waiting in my mental wings.

The student brought the plastic fox, and was consistent in her suggested species:

Pancheezit 

My blood pressure can't take it!  Too much salt.  More fresh foods!  I've never wanted to be "didactic".  It always sounded like some tiny furred mammal being crushed by a falling pterodactyl egg.


 Panjesus

The student names a primate.  Not the plastic spider monkey.  Not a rhesus.  I should have known!  The plastic chimpanzee!


The circle of life is uncoiling.  And what would that be called?

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Super powers are not for squirrels

In the hierarchy of playgrounds that has existed since the very first slippery slide was invented, the cool/older/savvy kids were planning the game for after lunch.  I was dining and eavesdropping with three boys, ages four to five, at a picnic table. 

Boy #1 to Boy #3 after conferring with Boy #2:  We are going to play Power Ranger Squirrels with Buffy and Twinkie [girls' names changed to protect minors].  We don't have any colors left, but you can be a squirrel.  You won't have any super powers, but you can climb trees. 

Buffy and Twinkie to the younger girls:  We don't have any Power Ranger colors left, but you can be rainbows.  When we freeze you, you have to stop.

. . .

I had no idea the Power Rangers were "re-versioned" in 2010, or that they visited Millennium Park in Chicago.  I bet they skipped the Art Institute:
...A new generation of Power Rangers must master the mystical and ancient Samurai Symbols of Power which give them control over the elements of Fire, Water, Sky, Forest, and Earth. Under the guidance of their all-knowing mentor and the aid of their devoted animal Zords, they battle the dark forces of the Netherworld ... .

Peace on Earth with Welch's grape jelly and whirled peas.  Be nice to the folks on your playground.






© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Hell and salvation

It's nutrition time again in the preschool class.  The youngest children are learning the names of foods.  The older kids are sorting foods into a wooden food pyramid.  Have you had any "grotein" today?



On Fridays a student brings special snacks for the class.  This week it was a snack from hell--twenty-one individual cups of diced peaches in heavy syrup.  Can you say sssssSTICKY?  So we got the children into their coats, then hauled the peaches to the playground, along with napkins, spoons, wet wipes, a sack for trash, a sack for recyclables, a sack for saving the spoons to be washed, a bowl for draining the heavy syrup, a tray for serving, a first aid kit, and the 911 emergency buzzer.  We also took the kid who just hit another child over the head with a rolled-up rug.

I opened the fruit cups.  The lead teacher drained the heavy syrup.  Our oldest student carried the fruit cups on a tray to serve classmates at the picnic tables.  This is a big part of a Montessori class. 

With just two cups left on the tray, our server tripped.  I gasped.  The lead teacher gasped.  He gasped.  Somehow in slow motion he held the tray steady as he fell.  The peaches did not spill.  It was a Super Bowl instant replay
moment,  absolutely golden as he realized he had saved the day!  It was as big a relief as finally landing at La Guardia.

I sat with a group of four year olds to eat and play name-that-food. 

Me:  I don't think these are carrots.
#1:  Yes they are carrots.
#2:  No, they are mangos.
#1:  They are carrots.  They taste like carrots.
#3:  I think I know I think I know IthinkIknowIthinkIknow...

Me:  What do you think?
#3:  Peaches! 
Me:  You are right.  These are peaches.
#1:  No they aren't.  They are raccoons.

Which reminds me of an old elephant joke:

What is the difference between an elephant and a dozen eggs?


If you don't know, I'm not sending you to the store for eggs!



[Raccoon at the Heard Museum, McKinney, TX, yesterday.]

 

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Career planning

The four year-old boys were chatting at lunch. 

M.  "When I grow up I'm going to drive a garbage truck."

N.  "When I grow up I'm going to be a dult."

Thank heaven I wasn't drinking root beer, as it would have shot out my nose. Growing up, my dad used to tell us to "be alert! The country needs more lerts."

Unfortunately, Dad is not being a lert, although our country needs lerts and dults more than ever. Dad is a mess at the moment, and I'm not sure he knows who I am.  So, I've got "Pagliacci" in the cd player.

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Celebrating without candycanes

The youngest music group, students ages three and four, stood up to sing their holiday songs.  The children sang (well a few sang, one rang a triangle, one pounded on a xylophone, and the rest just stared at the music teacher like deer in the headlice) a song about candycanes wrapped in cellobrain.  Or maybe they were in celebrains.

Their second song was about a Christmas train coming down the tracks loaded with sacks.  The pattern was, "Susie wants a dollie" or "Jimmy wants a drum".  Being able to come up with an idea, any idea, when your turn comes around is pretty challenging at this age.  Santa please disregard these requests for carrots, skates, and big cats.  Skates in Dallas?

Outside of the holiday music performance the children have been singing "Here We Go Round the Dining Room Table" to the mulberry bush tune.  They each get a turn to name something they will bring for a feast.  Amazing how the child who has resisted tasting any vegetable all semester suddenly contributes "sugar snap peas". 

When they handed out brains, I thought they said trains, and I missed mine. 

In kindergarten I always had to play the red rhythm sticks.  I wasn't deemed with it enough to ring the triangle, swish-swash the sandpaper blocks, clang the cymbals, or tap the tambourine.  Still not, but I know many good things to bring to the dining room table on a cold and frosty Christmas.  Ms. Nancy will bring green beans almondine, green beans almondine, green beans almondine.  Ms. Nancy still wants the sandpaper blocks...

© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder

Gratitude with raspberry vinaigrette

Our school harvest feast is always a major event involving placemats and napkin rings made by the students, and food more or less from the school garden.  The preschool and elementary kids "gathered together" the tomatoes, peppers, and basil.  They washed the vegetables, then hacked at them with plastic knives before cooking them down and putting them through a hand-crank food mill.  Then invisible Thanksgiving fairies transformed this into enough pasta sauce to feed fifty.

Each student had the pasta with sauce and cheese, a juice box just like the Pilgrims, and a cup of lettuce salad.  There were spritz cookies for dessert.

Much as the Pilgrims and Native Americans legendarily sat down together to celebrate, elementary students actually shared lunchtime with the preschoolers.  To begin we named things for which we are grateful.  We'd been prepping the little kids for a week, trying to get a handle on the thankfulness concept.  The first four year old to volunteer gave us all a long moment's pause:

I am thankful for the big crouton.

When I called my elderly father tonight he waxed poetic about his "beautiful surroundings" and ordering "the highest price item on the menu".  I even heard about the special dressing from what's-his-name.  My normally ill-tempered eighty-seven year old dad is thrilled about Paul Newman's honey mustard dressing in his skilled-care nursing home lunchroom.  Has he taken the Mayflower to la-la land?  For whatever reason, he is happy right now.  I, too, am grateful for the big crouton!

© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder

Gulf FlutterLarry

 

These photos of gulf fritillaries were taken at the Heard Nature Sanctuary in McKinney, Texas, not on my school playground. They show the beautiful butterfly, but not the red cypress vine flowers attracting it to our playground.   

The preschoolers are sufficiently impressed by the silver spots on the underwings to distinguish this butterfly from a Monarch.  Sighting a "flutterLarry" on the cypress vine can even distract them from their game of XTreme Duck, Duck, Goose.  Our kids' version varies slightly from other "extreme" versions described in the Wikipedia entry.  We seem to have at least three ducks and three geese running all over the playground.  Some of them seem to have special superpowers "with smoke coming out". 

I am XTremely pleased with any version that wears kids out for naptime!  Still, it is a shame to leave the fall noon playground with the flutterLarry on the cypress vine and skippers on the marigolds to go inside for naptime.

© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder

What's my line?

The recently-turned four-year old is telling me about something new in her lunchbox. I feel like I'm on another planet in an old black and white tv show. Everything sounds right, but nothing makes sense. A code is in place, and I haven't cracked it.



"I have a new timer."

Oh?

"It's made out of glass."

Ah.

"It sounds like coconut."

Huh??



The student demonstrated patiently, as I was clearly differently-abled. She clinked her fingernails on the side of her shiny new aluminun Hello Kitty wide-mouthed Thermos. The clinks did sound "like coconut" somehow, but my time was up. I never would have decoded her story in time to win the Thunderbird convertible. Instead I had to suggest she finish eating the macaroni and cheese in her new "timer".

© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder

Montessori Teen Insight

I was working with a four and a half year old girl studying teens and place value. You know, eleven is one ten and one unit. Thirteen is one ten and three units... So, I asked this little girl in her black crinkle patent go-go boots, "What does teen mean?"

"It means you are in a group!" Very true words from a little girl Teenagers are all about groups!

Besides her go-go boots, this little person has more interpersonal intelligence than I can comprehend. You've heard of Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences?

I can zip my boots, and I'm mighty glad I survived parenting teenagers. The teens mean many ten groups vs. ever-tired parental units.

© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder

Nutrition experts debate food pyramid

The first preschooler announces that Cheerios are in the Crust Group. The second student is sure the base of the food pyramid is the Brain Group. We've been talking about breads and grains.

Preschoolers have been prejudiced against bread crusts for generations. I bet the prejudice goes back to the true crusts of home-baked bread, and was held over during the Wonder Years. The crust was often drier and more difficult for a youngster to chew. Still, it could be useful for leaving a trail away from an evil stepmother.

Now, if you tinted bread crusts neon turquoise, added Sponge Bob zinger exploding crystals instead of oats and seeds, and packaged the entire sandwich in a plastic squeeze tube you would become famous. If you could freeze-dry it, then reconstitute it with added sugars, run a steam-roller over it, roll it up, get a celebrity endorsement movie tie-in, and package it in a single-serving plastic container with a tiny dollop of Ranch Dressing dip you would make a fortune.

© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder

What does a hedgehog feel like?

Having survived the 100th Day of School celebration, including a visit from the Creature Teacher, I got home and found a letter saying the insurer was about to cancel Dad's insurance AGAIN. Managing things for an elderly parent is challenging, but especially so when it comes to billing addresses that differ from places of residence. Dad's local agency never got the billing address corrected with the insurer, so I never got the bill. It is all groovy now, many phone calls and phone menus later. The curse of UNCWY continues!


I did not pull out my hair, but that is only because the Creature Teacher brought a hairless guinea pig for today's presentation. Yes, there are people out there who intentionally breed bald guinea pigs that look ever so much like hippo embryos. We love the Creature Teacher, aka Robyn Wheeler. The kids have a favorite free-time game in the puppet theater where they take turns being the Creature Teacher and giving a show with the animal puppets.

For extra excitement during the presentation, the pygmy hedgehog escaped from her cage and ran across the classroom. The student who got to pet the hedgehog reported it felt like "sporks".

If today was an episode of "Let's Make a Deal" I would hope to get the sporky hedgehog behind Door #3. I don't want the insurance agent or the hairless guinea pig.

© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder