The Secret Life of a Care Bear

I stumbled onto this teaching blog Friday after one of my very excellent ECE teachers from Parkland shared a post on Facebook. I spent most of the morning reading through various posts (yes, I was home sick AGAIN—subject for another post!).

So after pondering the difference between what he’s doing and what’s going on in my classrooms, I’m feeling better about the whole experience. I don’t feel like there’s much meaningful play or learning going on in my room right now and it’s been bothering me. I don’t know why I didn’t realize this before, but it hit me like a ton of bricks today.

DUH. I have barely any kids in my classroom right now. One of them can barely talk, and another is in the two or three word sentences phase. My poor preschoolers just don’t have very many peers to interact with! I’m used to a teaching approach that’s very emergent and based on what the kids are doing, but there are barely any kids!

Now that I’ve had this realization, I think I can make it through the next couple of months while I gain kids in my room without feeling like the world’s lousiest teacher. We are doing lots of discovery stuff anyway, but it’s definitely the lack of child-to-child interaction that I’ve been feeling in there!

Needless to say, I can’t wait until my new preschoolers start!

More songs I love right now:

Mark & I snapped up this album from Amazon MP3 right after we saw them on the Grammys this past week and I am loving it. I don’t think I’d ever heard of them before, but I was like, “WHO IS THAT BAND WITH THE GUY WHO LOOKS LIKE JOHNNY DEPP?!”. Admit it, he totally does.

If I so much as think of a few words of this song, I’ll be singing it for the rest of the day and I don’t even care. HOW’S THAT BRICKLAYIN’ COMIN’, HOW’S YOUR ENGINE RUNNIN’…

I have the album and I love it, especially Sounds Like Hallelujah.

Also, if you’re still not on the Adele bandwagon you really should be. That girl can saaaaang. Dang. I was quite pleased to see her walk away with half the Grammys, even though it means she stomped all over Mumford & Sons, who are also excellent. Sad for them that they were up against Adele!

I can’t stop listening to this song.

On Wednesday we discovered that all our favorite books right now are rhyming books. After talking about what rhyming meant and reading through to find rhymes, it was decided that we should write our own poem. So over snack, we brainstormed to come up with some rhymes. I think it was harder than Macy expected to think of rhyming words, so our poem doesn’t quite have a cohesive theme! I provided a little guidance here and there when she got stuck. I wrote out a final version for her (shown above) and left room for her to illustrate and write in her name, but I didn’t get to see the finished version because we ran out of time before nap and I had to go home.

I think we just found our first project!

Every time I watch this video I laugh forever, so I’m sharing it with you.

I’m slacking off on blogging, I know. So here’s a bunch of random unconnected stuff.

First up…Pam is blogging now! You really should follow her blog, she’s pretty darn awesome. She has a really awesome post about helping out in Joplin, MO up. Go read it!

Life update! My job at the day care should be starting soon! Things are moving along and we’ll be ready for our state licensing inspection soon, I hear. I’m still super nervous, but the logical part of me knows I can handle it. :)

We had 37 people at our Vineyard Church Peoria Memorial Day picnic. It was great and I met a couple ladies who seemed really fun. Hopefully they’ll be around more! I also got to hang out with the ladies on the team, which is always fun. I’m glad you ladies are as goofy as I am. :)

Amazon MP3 has a bunch of Broadway albums for $5 each! I may have purchased several…I may even be listening to The Lion King right now. Maybe.

I got a huge kick reading these posts of “Weird Things Customers Say in Book Shops“. Some people are special.

The Antique Name Illusion: In search of the Next Ava and Isabella: No one ever believes me when I tell them those names were not that popular in the past. Also, I like the name Evangeline.

And finally, I WANT TO GO TO THERE. It’s a whole room. FULL OF TRAMPOLINES. Yes, please! Also, bonus points to you if you got the tv show reference there.

Why yes, my sister and I did get up and watch the Royal Wedding live. I thought it was beautiful and fun.

But on a less related note I have seen this picture going around the internets/facebook:

When I first saw it, I was like, “Oh, that’s hilarious. Nice comparison.” It has now come to my attention that people think this is real, like somehow real life has lined up with the Cinderella movie perfectly. I will now set you straight, and I am passive-aggressively doing it here instead of facebook. People! Don’t you remember Cinderella?! These pictures are totally recolored. Cinderella was blonde!

Similarities, though.

No similarities really, except that there are two of them and they are wearing things on their heads.

I just watched a documentary on PBS where America’s Test Kitchen attempted to recreate a 12-course dinner from the Victorian Boston Cooking-School Cook Book by Fannie Farmer, called Fannie’s Last Supper. They used Victorian methods of cooking, including a wood stove and oven. It seemed like the perfect show to watch after I’ve been watching all that Downton Abbey. I must say, I have a whole new level of respect for those cooks now. They even made the gelatin by boiling calves’ feet! The food and presentation was absolutely beautiful! You should definitely watch this if you’re nerdy like me and you get the chance! There’s also a book available that talks all about the process. (Amazon link)

And now, pretty pictures!

This is Mock Turtle Soup. Apparently someone figured out that boiled calf’s head tastes like turtle. It looks tasty, but I don’t know if I could eat it knowing it’s calf’s head! The balls in the soup are fried balls of calf brain!

This is the Roast Saddle of Venison. It was flavored with salt pork. I guess wrapping meat in bacon is a timeless recipe! Mmmm

This is Lobster a l’Americaine. About a bazillion different stocks and sauces were used to make it. I can’t imagine how the kitchen staff could put that much into one dish when there are twelve different courses!

I was most impressed by the jellies. So much went into making them! The cook made the colorings, too, from natural sources. I love the spiral on this one. If I liked Jello, I would try to do a spiral one like this! The stripes are made of cubed Port jelly.

More beautiful jellies!

Mandarin Cake, with sorbet served in half a clementine peel, and a slice of a clementine & almond jellies layered in a clementine peel. This was the coolest part, I think. They had to scoop out the clementines while leaving the peel intact, then fill it with layers of jello. What?!

Beautiful food!

And on a totally unrelated note, here’s a link to a blog about an exhibit in Chicago of thousands of pictures taken by a nanny in Chicago in the 50s, 60s, & 70s. Really neat stuff. I read the post because it was titled “The secret life of a nanny”. :)

We are doing a Daniel Fast for lent and I have finally hit that point where I’m craving craving craving something all the time. Because I am a masochist, I will now provide photos of all the lovely foods that I want to be eating right now. Go eat them for me, but don’t tell me how delicious they were.  Also, I am not saying that I’m a hippo.

Exhibit 1: Philly Cheesesteak. I dreamed I was eating one yesterday. No joke. All that meaty-cheesy goodness…oh boy.

Exhibit 2: The Pioneer Woman posted a recipe for Spicy Dr. Pepper Shredded Pork on March 23 and I have been thinking about it ever since. Mmmm. That taco looks amazing. Throw on some lettuce, tomato, sour cream, and cilantro and I will eat that sucker in 10 seconds flat. NOM.

Exhibit 3: If you’re not aware, Panera makes UH-MAZE-ING mac & cheese which I’m sure has 10,000 calories per bowl, but MAN IS IT GOOD. I miss you, friend!

Exhibit 4: CHOCOLATE CHIP PANCAKES. You can never have too many pancakes! Actually, you can. Mark, Adam, Jenna, & I had an incident once with IHOP’s all-you-can-eat pancakes. We should have all stopped after the 3rd one. I would gladly go through that horrible stomach ache again for these pancakes! Ha.

Exhibit 5: Cake Balls. Yes, balls. Delicious balls of cake and icing, coated in chocolate. These are the red velvet variety, but I’d be happy with just plain chocolate! Mmmm. Someone please make these for me on Easter!

Appendix: I can’t forget my two loves, either! Diet Coke & Coke Zero, don’t worry, I will drink the heck out of you in 22 days!

As a parting gift, dear readers, here is a link that has nothing whatsoever to do with this post.

Okay people, what the what is going on here? Lady, you are kissing a monkey’s tongue. People, please tell me that you think this is gross. That monkey probably sticks its nasty little fingers down its diaper (yes, it’s wearing a diaper…) and scratches its nasty little monkey butt and then licks its hands. Lady, you are kissing a monkey butt. Please go look at the rest of the pictures on this Journal Star blog and see the crazy. Monkeys everywhere! Apparently it’s cute that they will go in your car and steal the keys out of the ignition and taunt you with them. I don’t know about you, but I would not find that very cute. If my kid did that, they’d probably end up in time out.

Granted, I might be a little biased because I am NOT a pet person. I would never in a million years want to brush a monkey’s teeth. That’s nasty. Similarly, I will not pick up animal poop, squeeze a dog’s butt glands, or pay ten zillion dollars so my dog can get skin grafts (yes, this happened in Peoria).  The way I see it, pets are like toddlers who never grow up, and I don’t need any of that.

Don’t worry, I probably think your puppy is adorable and I will be glad to pet it and play with it. I will even try to be sympathetic when it dies. You’re just never going to find one in my house. Also, I have the full agreement of Mark, who thinks that all dogs secretly desire to eat him.

PS – Didn’t some lady get her face ripped off by her pet monkey last year?