Life's like that!

September 25, 2012

Video: Dancing the Place Values



(left hand stretch out) Who is on the left? HUNDREDS!
(right hand stretch up) Who is in the middle? TENS
(right hand stretch out)Little ONES is on the right!
(point index finger at teacher) Sing the song all day and night.
(move to the left) Hundreds, Tens and Ones (Clap, Clap)
(move to the right) Hundreds, Tens and Ones (Clap, Clap)
(Partners hold hands and twirl) Round and round, over and over
Hundreds, Tens and Ones! (Clap, Clap)

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Video: Teacher Tipster (Place Value Song)

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Video: Place Value to Millions

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Video: Super Base (WSHS Math Rap Song)

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Video: Teach Me How To Factor (WSHS Math Rap Song)

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Video: Gettin' Triggy Wit It (WSHS Math Rap Song)

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Video: All I Do Is Solve (WSHS Math Rap Song)

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Video: Do The Quad Solve (WSHS Math Rap Song)

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September 22, 2012

Fill Your Bucket by The Learning Station

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Go Bananas by The Learning Station

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Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed by The Learning Station

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Video: Monkey in the Middle by The Learning Station

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Growing - from the DVD "Read and Sing With Hap Palmer"

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Milk Song - Food Songs For Children



 SONG LYRICS:
I love my milk
I drink it for breakfast
That's when I like it
Best, my milk I drink it cold or hot
With or without chocolate
Tastes, so good
With my macaroni or even cannelloni
Don't forget
To drink your glass of milk
Before you go to bed!

Written by Wendy Wiseman and Sari Dajani

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Get Out and Stay Out! a fire safety song

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STOP (Children's Song) by Patty Shukla (DVD version)

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Sammy / I'm Glad I'm Me -- by Hap Palmer



Words and Music: Hap Palmer
Vocabulary and Concepts: - Recognizing and moving like a bird, fish, bug, and bunny. - Appreciating and accepting yourself as you are.
Action: Children move like the animal or insect that is named in each verse.

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September 19, 2012

I'm So Much More Than Just A TEACHER



I'm So Much More Than Just A...

TEACHER


I am a counselor and psychologist to a problem-filled child,
I am a police officer that controls a child gone wild.
I am a travel agent scheduling our trips for the year,
I am a confidante that wipes a crying child's tear.
I am a banker collecting money for a ton of different things,
I am a librarian showing adventures that a storybook brings.
I am a custodian that has to clean certain little messes,
I am a psychic that learns to know all that everybody only guesses.
I am a photographer keeping pictures of a child's yearly growth,
when mother and father are gone for the day, I become both.
I am a doctor that detects when a child is feeling sick,
I am a politician that must know the laws and recognize a trick.
I am a party planner for holidays to celebrate with all,
I am a decorator of a room, filling every wall.
I am a news reporter updating on our nation's current events,
I am a detective solving small mysteries and ending all suspense.
I am a clown and comedian that makes the children laugh,
I am a dietitian assuring they have lunch or from mine I give them half.
When we seem to stray from values, I become a preacher,
But I'm proud to have to be these people because-
I'm proud to say, "I am a teacher."

- By Stacy Bonino

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September 18, 2012

Video: Wakko's America United States States & Capitals song

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Book: Me on the map

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Book: There's a map on my lap: all about maps

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Video: The Seven Continents song



Tune: Are you sleeping, are you sleeping, Brother John?

The Seven Continents

There are seven, there are seven,
continents
continents
in between the oceans
in between the oceans
let's name them
let's name them

North America
South America
Europe, Asia, Africa
Europe, Asia, Africa
Australia
Australia
Antarctica
Antarctica

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September 16, 2012

Amazing plants

This zucchini plant has been growing out of the crack of a concrete walkway outside a portable classroom. It is an amazing reminder for me that we should be determined and focus like plants-when there is a will, there is a way.

Beautiful zucchini flowers coming out! Can't wait for the harvest!

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Video: Kimchi Chronicles

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September 08, 2012

Article: Background On The Brown Leghorn Chicken

Article extracted from this web site: http://www.the-coop.org/leghorn/history.html

Background On The Brown Leghorn Chicken

The leghorn is a lightweight, long tailed breed of chicken originating in Italy and highly refined in this country. It is known for its production of large white eggs. The poultry breeders of the last century created many varieties of leghorns. The American Brown Leghorn Club, incorporated in 1901, promotes the breeding and showing of light and dark brown leghorns in both the standard and bantam (miniature) types.

In the brown leghorn we find a rare balance between beauty and productivity. The small farmer, the hobbyist and the fancier agree that this breed of chicken exceeds their expectations in the laying pen, in the showroom or just strutting around the yard. Over 140 years of careful selection have ensured an overall high level of quality in today's birds.

Production: The egg industry today relies primarily on white leghorns for the eggs sold in grocery stores and used in restaurants. High productivity is a quality shared by brown and white leghorns alike, and while the brown's different colors make her undesirable to the factory farmer, for the smallholder they are an asset.

Brown leghorn breeders report consistently receiving large numbers of eggs from their pullets. The hens have been known to lay well into old age. Num-bers are not the whole story, however. A flock of hardy brown leghorns will maintain a high yield, even on forage alone. This is one of the premier free range breeds. They are lightly built, but sturdy: capable of moving swiftly and flying well to elude predators, but with a rugged frame that withstands the rigors of year round laying and supports a considerable quantity of meat for its size. On pasture particolored plumage particularly pleases passers by as well as providing protection for the pullet. The subtle earth tones help conceal the bird from predators. In fact, the light brown leghorn coloration is similar to the red jungle fowl, which is presumed to be the domestic chicken's wild ancestor. Given a suitable structure in which to roost and lay their eggs, leghorns will roam far and wide to procure their food during the day and return in the early evening. They also do well in a fenced enclosure, although if the birds' wings are not clipped the yard must be roofed or quite high to prevent them from flying out.

History of the Breed: The ancestors of the American brown leghorn appear to have arrived in Connecticut from Italy in 1853 and were known as "Italians." Widely bred in New England from that time onward, they were first called "leghorns" at Worcester, Massachusetts in 1865. This was a time when Americans were exploring the potentials of breeds from around the world to improve the domestic stock. Lightweight, active Mediterranean breeds, such as the leghorn, the minorca and the ancona were highly sought after for the year round production of white eggs. In those days the farm flock produced meat for the table as well. The leghorn breed, although not extremely fleshy, provided high quality, fast growing fryers for Sunday dinner. In fact, through 1938 the Pullman Coach Company bought only brown leghorn cockerels for fried chicken served in their dining cars.
To ensure the purity of each valuable type of chicken, breeders elected in 1871 to agree upon breed standards and to organize poultry shows at which the individual birds could be judged against each other according to these accepted standards. By the turn of the century competition at these shows was intense. Equally intense were the laying contests held to determine the most productive breeds and strains. Some brown leghorn flocks were able to hold their own in both.

In 1920 one brown leghorn breeder was able to advertise that his famous strain won the Great American Egg Laying Contest with offspring from show birds that had won Best Display three years in a row at the nation's biggest poultry show at Madison Square Garden. These great lines are the foundation of today's birds.

As the brown leghorn was coming into its own, around the turn of the century, breeders prized darker, wine colored male birds while preferring a light olive brown female. This eventually gave rise to two separate varieties. The Dark Brown Leghorns, male and female, are a deep shade of mahogany, accented with fiery dark red and lustrous greenish black. The Light Brown female is a warm olive brown color over the back with a breast of rich salmon.

The light brown male sports a bold combination of orange, bright red and greenish black. The females of both varieties should be stippled subtly with a single comb dark brown hen darker color and both males are extremely glossy. Each variety was further divided between common or "single" combed birds and those with rose combs.

Bantams: Each of these four types was later reproduced in miniature or "bantam" form, thus increasing to eight the varieties we have today. Bantam leghorns can be as vigorous and hardy as their large counter-parts, and although they don't lay those large eggs, bantam breeders proudly say that three bantam eggs equal two large fowl eggs. Their size and thriftiness make bantams ideal for the backyard enthusiast.

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Remodeled Chicken Coop

White Leghorn Chicken
 
Left: White Leghorn's section / Right: Rhode Island's section
 

Husband remodeled the chicken coop last weekend so that the white leghorn chicken can move out of the 3 ft. by 6 ft. cage. He also built a ramp for the chicken to walk up to the roosting area.

I hope the brown Rhode Island chickens do not harrass the white leghorn too much since she is their only neighbor. Allah SWT willing, we will move the brown leghorn chicks into the white leghorn chicken's section when they become six months old.

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Danish Brown Leghorn



All praise be to Allah SWT, husband and I bought the kids to the farm store in Haltom City to buy 4 Danish Brown Leghorn chicks.

They are one week old, and will need about 8-10 hours of daylight. Until they turn six weeks old, they will be eating chick scratch only.

DD1 and DD2 are fascinated byinterested to find out more about these cute chicks. I am hoping that when they lose their fluffy down, the girls will find their transformation even more fascinating.

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September 07, 2012

Structured Procrastination

Visit this web site http://www.structuredprocrastination.com/blog/

``. . . anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn't the work he is supposed to be doing at that moment." -- Robert Benchley, in Chips off the Old Benchley, 1949

I have been intending to write this essay for months. Why am I finally doing it? Because I finally found some uncommitted time? Wrong. I have papers to grade, textbook orders to fill out, an NSF proposal to referee, dissertation drafts to read. I am working on this essay as a way of not doing all of those things. This is the essence of what I call structured procrastination, an amazing strategy I have discovered that converts procrastinators into effective human beings, respected and admired for all that they can accomplish and the good use they make of time. All procrastinators put off things they have to do. Structured procrastination is the art of making this bad trait work for you. The key idea is that procrastinating does not mean doing absolutely nothing. Procrastinators seldom do absolutely nothing; they do marginally useful things, like gardening or sharpening pencils or making a diagram of how they will reorganize their files when they get around to it. Why does the procrastinator do these things? Because they are a way of not doing something more important. If all the procrastinator had left to do was to sharpen some pencils, no force on earth could get him do it. However, the procrastinator can be motivated to do difficult, timely and important tasks, as long as these tasks are a way of not doing something more important.

Structured procrastination means shaping the structure of the tasks one has to do in a way that exploits this fact. The list of tasks one has in mind will be ordered by importance. Tasks that seem most urgent and important are on top. But there are also worthwhile tasks to perform lower down on the list. Doing these tasks becomes a way of not doing the things higher up on the list. With this sort of appropriate task structure, the procrastinator becomes a useful citizen. Indeed, the procrastinator can even acquire, as I have, a reputation for getting a lot done.

The most perfect situation for structured procrastination that I ever had was when my wife and I served as Resident Fellows in Soto House, a Stanford dormitory. In the evening, faced with papers to grade, lectures to prepare, committee work to be done, I would leave our cottage next to the dorm and go over to the lounge and play ping-pong with the residents, or talk over things with them in their rooms, or just sit there and read the paper. I got a reputation for being a terrific Resident Fellow, and one of the rare profs on campus who spent time with undergraduates and got to know them. What a set up: play ping pong as a way of not doing more important things, and get a reputation as Mr. Chips.

Procrastinators often follow exactly the wrong tack. They try to minimize their commitments, assuming that if they have only a few things to do, they will quit procrastinating and get them done. But this goes contrary to the basic nature of the procrastinator and destroys his most important source of motivation. The few tasks on his list will be by definition the most important, and the only way to avoid doing them will be to do nothing. This is a way to become a couch potato, not an effective human being.

At this point you may be asking, "How about the important tasks at the top of the list, that one never does?" Admittedly, there is a potential problem here.

The trick is to pick the right sorts of projects for the top of the list. The ideal sorts of things have two characteristics, First, they seem to have clear deadlines (but really don't). Second, they seem awfully important (but really aren't). Luckily, life abounds with such tasks. In universities the vast majority of tasks fall into this category, and I'm sure the same is true for most other large institutions. Take for example the item right at the top of my list right now. This is finishing an essay for a volume in the philosophy of language. It was supposed to be done eleven months ago. I have accomplished an enormous number of important things as a way of not working on it. A couple of months ago, bothered by guilt, I wrote a letter to the editor saying how sorry I was to be so late and expressing my good intentions to get to work. Writing the letter was, of course, a way of not working on the article. It turned out that I really wasn't much further behind schedule than anyone else. And how important is this article anyway? Not so important that at some point something that seems more important won't come along. Then I'll get to work on it.

Another example is book order forms. I write this in June. In October, I will teach a class on Epistemology. The book order forms are already overdue at the book store. It is easy to take this as an important task with a pressing deadline (for you non-procrastinators, I will observe that deadlines really start to press a week or two after they pass.) I get almost daily reminders from the department secretary, students sometimes ask me what we will be reading, and the unfilled order form sits right in the middle of my desk, right under the wrapping from the sandwich I ate last Wednesday. This task is near the top of my list; it bothers me, and motivates me to do other useful but superficially less important things. But in fact, the book store is plenty busy with forms already filed by non-procrastinators. I can get mine in mid-Summer and things will be fine. I just need to order popular well-known books from efficient publishers. I will accept some other, apparently more important, task sometime between now and, say, August 1st. Then my psyche will feel comfortable about filling out the order forms as a way of not doing this new task.

The observant reader may feel at this point that structured procrastination requires a certain amount of self-deception, since one is in effect constantly perpetrating a pyramid scheme on oneself. Exactly. One needs to be able to recognize and commit oneself to tasks with inflated importance and unreal deadlines, while making oneself feel that they are important and urgent. This is not a problem, because virtually all procrastinators have excellent self-deceptive skills also. And what could be more noble than using one character flaw to offset the bad effects of another?

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