A BIG OLD FISH

Imagination is alive and well in Miss Moyer’s third grade classroom. 

Call me pushy, I didn’t wait for an invitation before stopping by for a visit one morning last week. The class was fully engaged.  





Students were hanging on the words of their teacher as she read portions of a fabulous picture book called Jangles by David Shannon.  The story was delivered with great animation, Miss Moyer offering small snippets of the tale and reading each section twice.  The students were left to imagine the pictures which might accompany the author’s vivid description and they were writing furiously as they chose key words from the book.

During this movie-themed section of learning, popcorn kernel-shaped stationary is apparently required.  While listening intently, the boys and girls placed words and phrases that “popped out” at them onto these shapes.  Some students were verbose with their kernels while others kept it simple. As the story neared its end, the stash of paper printed with extra kernels grew shorter and shorter.  Eager students were adding words so feverishly; it became necessary for them to jump up and race to the front of the room to retrieve a fresh page.  Who was going to get the last piece of popcorn?!  This is something I wonder when sharing a buttery bucket with my husband at the theater as well.

Miss Lizzy, an industrious student, was regarded as “popcorn crazy” filling SO many kernels with words, her pencil could barely keep up!  

When each “listening” part of the exercise was done, tiny scissors flew as the kernels were snipped and attached to waiting composition journals.  I’ve always disliked those little scissors, probably because I have vivid memories of my kindergarten teacher chastising the boys for taking flight in the classroom while holding them aloft.  “BOYS!  You’re going to put your eye out and your mother will blame me!” I never did like conflict.... Rest assured, there was no running with scissors in Miss Moyer’s third grade while I was present.

Josh carefully cutting out his kernels.

Each child hears a story differently during a visualizing comprehension activity.  As the students began adding their own pictures based on the words they’ve placed on the popcorn, this became increasingly evident. 

The students would get to see the real illustrations at the very end of the activity and most could barely stand to WAIT for the big reveal.

Jacob’s journal was as though underwater and I suspect Jacob’s fingertips are permanently blue from the serious magic marker work he did to make it so. 

Michael’s journal entries were colorful, his kernels marvelously detailed. 

The book is about a big old fish but as soon as the word decorations was tossed out there, Morgan and Hasel’s minds went directly to Christmas trees. It apparently doesn’t matter that it is October; these two are just like the department stores, getting a jumpstart on the holiday.…

Abigail was focused and methodical while dear above-mentioned Lizzy was so busy writing and organizing the abundance of kernels she'd collected, she didn't crack open her journal the whole time I wandered around the desks!

I freely admit- phrases like “big old jaw”, “flipping fishes” and “dragging whole turkeys around the lake” sparked my own imagination.  

My affinity for words caused me to wish (not for the first time) that I, too, could be a student in Penn View’s third grade. What a book! The author’s description of what could only be a smelly old tackle box was made to sound like such a magical treasure-trove; I suddenly felt a longing for some fishing supplies of my own.  There is nothing like good writing and a creative teacher to get the imaginative juices flowing.

Markers down!  Popcorn kernels in place! And smiles wide.

More than 45 years after my brain was permanently etched with the traumatizing scissor reprimand, it is lovely to find that learning has gotten to be such a lot of fun.

WHY NOT A PICCOLO?

For more than a decade I have ended my workday with carpool duty.  Carpool is NOT an entertaining place to be when temperatures dip below freezing, when the rain is driving sideways with gusto, or when the wind is impolitely and forcefully turning my umbrella inside out.

But in the recent beautiful sunshine of an October day, it was exactly where I wanted to be. Allow me to explain.



photo credit Courtney Reynolds

Holly Lewis (parent of one of our sixth grade students) was sitting patiently in the carpool line.  She was dutifully following carpool procedures by inching her car down the hill while she waited for her son to emerge from the building.  

She was almost to the bottom of the hill when she and I finally spotted Ethan. Our eyes were drawn immediately to the ginormous black instrument case with which he struggled.  He was attempting to direct the weight of the case onto two puny wheels which could only have been teasingly installed by the case manufacturer.  He was smiling broadly and when I glanced to my right to measure his mother’s reaction, she was wearing a face of sheer disbelief. 

“The instruments he brings home are getting bigger and BIGGER!”  Apparently, this was the third instrument in just three weeks. First it was a trumpet.  A baritone came next. And now, this unexpected monstrosity… I jokingly remarked that I believed the object precariously rolling toward us might in fact be a TUBA, and to his mother’s dismay, it turns out I was correct! 

Our remarkable band director Shelley Berg is an enthusiastic encourager of students and coworkers.  I see now she is an optimist, too.

The first thing Ethan handed his accommodating mother was a bulky instrument stand.  Her good-humored response: “Anything that requires help from a stand like this is TOO LARGE.”

With combined rigorous effort, Ethan and I barely managed to lift the hefty load to the trunk of his mother’s car.  Once aloft, we pushed and shoved at several rather ridiculous angles until we managed to stuff the cumbersome thing into the trunk at a slant so we could successfully close the door.  It’s a good thing MY children played saxophone, violin and guitar because there is no way that tuba would have ever been transported by ANY of the vehicles at my house without the aid of an automated lift, roof rack and some bungee cords…



The muscle man must have attempted removal on his own since his mother was snapping this photo!

Still grinning, Ethan tried to console his longsuffering mother.  “Mrs. Berg says she is trying to find a smaller one…”

I could barely wait to hear how much Ethan’s mother enjoyed his first practice notes from that mammoth brass beast once they effectively managed to remove it from the trunk…

Oh how we love her, but really Mrs. Berg, why not a piccolo?

HEART BEATS

There is something awe-inspiring about sitting quietly with ears tuned to the marvelous lub-dub sound of a beating heart.  With the help of 18 disinfecting wipes and my trusty stethoscope, our developmental kindergarten (DK) students had just that opportunity this week. 

Enthusiasm was palpable as they took turns listening to their very own rhythms. 

It is one thing for our heads to understand that hearts are constantly keeping time.  It is quite another to pay attention to one’s personal God-given tempo and to realize just how industriously our own chief muscle is constantly at work.

One of my favorite tasks each year is visiting with the early childhood (EC) students.  Our smallest Penn View students are delightful and to a child under age 6, the school nurse is still a celebrity figure!  I will admit that I receive this adoration shamelessly because I know from experience that when these same children cross the threshold into middle school, they will cease making eye contact with me.  I no longer take this personally…

Giving the "thumbs-up" upon hearing the tick-tock of his heart

At the invitation of teachers, I read books with the EC classes.  This is by design so that the tiny ones (some as young as 3) will have seen my terrifying school nurse face before they are sent to my office with a boo-boo or fever. 

A bag of nurse-tools accompanies me on these visits and the children are excited to help identify the objects of my profession as I pull them individually out of the bag.  Eyes grow wide in the DK group when we reach the topic of vaccines.  Each child seems to have a “shot story” to tell and many refuse to hold that dreaded syringe despite prior removal of the needle. (Others, of course, are champing at the bit to “vaccinate” the classmate sitting on the carpet nearby…)

Missing from photo, our "smile cheerleaders" Madison, June and Hailey

Every year there is one in the crowd who recognizes ALL of my tools and practically bursts at the seams to impart their knowledge to the entire class.  (These children are occasionally sons or daughters of someone in the medical field but more often the child is a wonderfully inquisitive smarty-pants who has taken hundreds of blood pressures on siblings, parents, dolls, and/or the family dog with his /her Fisher-Price medical kit…)

Listening to those little lub-dubs is one of the greatest joys of my occupation. What a privilege to share moments of discovery with a curious child. 

NERIKOMI

Clearly I am sheltered in my little antiseptic world. I had no idea people were using rolling pins in the building for reasons other than pies… 

This week in the far end of Middle School, our resourceful art teacher was directing a pottery class for eighth grade girls.  The clay in their imaginative hands was forged by nerikomi method, the art of combining two low fire clays. 

This creative process is no small undertaking.  It began when our sister school discarded some dried-up old white clay. The undertaking progressed when local potter Royce Yoder shared the white clay with aforementioned art teacher Mrs. Keppley and taught her this unique method.  For people like me who try to eschew manual labor, the “method” these enterprising folks used sounds perfectly and horribly exhausting.  It involved a physical workout of slab cutting, clay stacking (the old white with the newer more user-friendly red earthenware) adding water, and slamming around some unwieldy 25 pound cubes of this newly combined material to attain a workable united medium. (Strenuous work, but it sounds like a constructive way to release angst, no?)

The slabs were ready to go and our students were hard at work in all stages of marbleized slab pot formation when I stopped by to see what was happening. 

Several girls were industriously rolling out clay, some imprinting their soft earthenware clay with freshly picked maple leaves.  

Others (somewhat entertainingly) were visibly suffering with rolling pins in hand. Sydney, for one, was attempting to flatten a particularly thick and stubborn slab of clay. Undaunted, she fought with that clay for the entire length of my visit.  The tenacious clay was not easily beaten into submission and Sydney’s biceps will likely be painfully recalling her efforts tomorrow. 

Olivia’s pot was fabulously adorned, having been transformed through the pressing of actual lace onto her clay.

Amy and Shaina’s pots sported smooth straight walls. 

All of the pots will twice be glazed and sent into the kiln for firing.





As a school nurse who has never managed to coerce a recognizable shape from a canister of malleable Play-Dough, watching these young artists and their teacher was a wonderfully enlightening ten minute diversion from Band-Aid application.