The More I Learn

I had to state my "educational philosophy" on an online application recently.  Really--it was a required field.  When I applied as an undergraduate to BYU I had to do an essay on education and the first thing that came out was this poem.  I chickened out of actually submitting it as my essay back then, but I've basically remembered it to this day and I used it for my statement of educational philosophy for this app yesterday:


The more I learn
The more I know
The more I see
The more I grow

The more I grow
The taller I stand
The farther I reach
My doing hand

The more I do
The happier I am
The more I help
The more I can

And when I can
Do so many things
There's a word for me
"Freedom" rings.

The teaching job, by the way, is as an adjunct professor of Multimedia Production in the Music Technology department at Kansas City Kansas Community College (KCKCC).  I'm excited about the class.  It's basically about creating content for the web, namely websites, graphics, and video.

'Tis the Season

Christmas is definitely coming. 

On a less shameless-commercialization-of-Christmas-y note, We put up our tree much to the excitement of the kids and at their insistent votes and pleadings.  And they even decorated it all by themselves (the day after we got it--it was late at night and we made them go to bed).  They did the lights and all, basically before I or Amy had a chance to put our stuff from work down and oversee anything.  You've never seen a tree get all decorated up so fast.  But it doesn't look half bad.  And it smells good!

With some extra strings of Christmas lights, the kids also decorated their own rooms.

Thanksgiving Vokis

Addi's class created Thanksgiving vokis and our family followed suit last night for family home evening. Clayton let the kids design his and I love the fro!

Eli's Veterans Day Card

I just loved Eli's heartfelt card he made for our neighbor across the street who fought in World War II. He's a very sweet man and gives them ice cream and stuff all the time. He's 85. He loves them and they love him. We've talked about what he did in the war and it's wonderful to see they understand something of the meaning of what he did.

Treehouse

So after a couple of years of talking about it, and after promising the kids that this would be the year, we have built a tree house.

These kids aren't just posing with the drills, they were actually drilling holes and putting in screws with them. I was going to take them to the park, and they all voted to stay home and work on the treehouse. We made some good progress.

Jaime, our neighbor, was a great help and is seen here doing some measuring and marking for the vertical pieces.

We still have to do the railing on the west side, and add a rope bridge to connect to our nearby play structure, hopefully a pole to slide down on, and maybe a rudimentary pulley for hoisting stuff up and down. One day a zip line, I hope. The kids have a password for getting up, I can't tell you what it is, though. They'll tell you, if you come.

Addi and Jaime being pals.

Buoyancy

"I'm studying buoyancy!!" Olivia beamed and dashed back into the bathroom.  She kept showing me things she was going to test for their buoyancy and then went back in.  Here you see some of her experiments.

In other news, the other day the kids made a kite.  I'm afraid it never flew, and I talked to them about some things that would improve it (stronger material, instead of pieces of paper taped together, and a lighter string (they had rope).  The colored side was beautiful, though.  They'll get it.

Back to school - on the wrong foot

getting ready to walk to the bus - Our neighborAlex is in Addi's class this year

The start of second grade has been very anticlimactic. There was no pomp and circumstance before school started. I usually try to squeeze in one last fun thing, but school really crept up on me this year and no big plans were made. The first couple of weeks have been a series of unfortunate events. Beginning with Luna getting hit by a car the night before school began. Things seemed to have leveled out now and I am looking forward to smooth sailing the rest of the year. If you want more details about Luna and Eli's shenanigans keep reading.

1.Luna's accident

Unfortunately, the Sunday night before school started we were at the 24 hour emergency pet hospital with Luna. She had been hit by a car and I was planning on taking her in by myself and Clayton was going to put the kids down so they could get a good nights rest. The triplets were bawling and really scared for Luna and Eli swore that I wouldn't be leaving the house without him. I caved and everyone piled into the car. Thankfully she was OK. Nothing was broken. She was very sore and bruised. She didn't move a muscle on Monday. We had to hold her food and water bowl in front of her in order for her to eat and drink. I kept up with her pain medications every 8 hours and she started to perk up a little on Tuesday. We even had to carry her outside to go to the bathroom. She is still walking with a slight limp and other than that she is back to normal. I don't know what we would do if anything happened to her. She is such a beloved member of our family. the triplets call her "the royal dog" She wears the crown with pride

2. Eli vomited all over the music room

Last year Eli missed a couple days of school towards the end of the year due to an uncomfortable case of poison ivy. He started things off with a bang by barfing all over the music room his first full day of school and my first day of work at my new job! I received a call from the school nurse who finally tracked me down. She had to go speak with my mom to find me. I had not updated our records and Clayton and I both had just stared new jobs. He ended up staying home the rest of the week.

3. Eli embarrassed Olivia in class which ended with her in tears

There are only two second grade classes. This is the first year the triplets have not had their own classroom. We decided to put Addi by herself. She thrives on her own at school but if she is with one of her siblings she tends to let them take the lead and only wants to partner with one of them. She is not like that at home however. She takes her turn being the boss around our house. Honestly, I was a little worried about Eli and Owa sharing a class. I keep hoping they don't break out into a fight at school. At the back to school night they picked out their desk and I suggested they sit far apart from one another. Eli is better now but I had to have a talk with him about teasing Olivia. In math they were working on story problems and each student had to write one and then read it out loud and share with the class. Eli's went something like this: Owa kissed John 16 times. She kissed another boy 6 times. How many times did Owa kiss a boy? She was mortified and started crying. Then I found this paper (below) in his bag. In case you can't read his scrawl he chose the word tomorrow to use in a sentence and wrote: Owa will kiss Tanner tomorrow! I love how he ends it with an exclamation instead of a period. After, his lecture he hasn't caused any problems in the class. With three weeks of school under our belt we are totally getting into the grove. We just got off to a slow start.