inventions

This first invention of mine is one I thought of years ago.  And I'm not even a shower singer.

• The shower Karaoke machine:  Adjust the non-fogging screen to accommodate your lack of glasses and enjoy the acoustics of your shower while you sing along to your high school favorites.

These next two are feasible. My friend vb and I have discussed some of the "inventions" for which technology exists already.

• The meet-up GPS:  Set the destination of your cell phone's GPS to the phone number of your friend's cell phone, then let the two phones help you meet halfway between your current locations, taking into consideration any detours or stops either of you may make.

• The flexible answering service: Set your phone to ring not only in different locations based on your schedule (Google Voice will do this) but to not ring after 10:00pm.  Instead set it to take messages from 10:00pm to 6:00am.  Unless there are emergencies, for which the caller should be able to override this set-up.

This is the one I most want to obtain.

• The prescription screen: Adjust your computer or cell phone screen to your eyeglass prescription and put those reading glasses away.  I'll let the person who develops this one deal with my astigmatism.

No, I'm not an inventor.  If you wish to invent any of these items, feel free. I wouldn't mind a financial kickback if you make a fortune off any of them however.  And if they write your bio, you could mention me as your inspiration.

blame the Tooth Fairy

Pook is home sick.  He woke us to tell us of a sore throat, and despite a clear strep test, he's now feverish and miserable.  I blame the Tooth Fairy.

Yes, the Tooth Fairy still visits our house. As far as I can tell, we've missed the way out and will be keeping the Tooth Fairy on the payroll forever-- as well as her buddies Santa and the Easter Bunny.

While I'm pretty sure that Pook, and maybe the quite skeptical but also gullible Bug, know about these visitors, they also want to stay enmeshed in the pretend, so they won't admit that they know.  I'm not sure how to bring it up and change the routines.

I'm happy to give Santa gifts, and our routine of Christmas stockings wouldn't change, meaning that giving up Santa is really a moot point.  The Easter Bunny might still bring some candy in a basket but probably wouldn't hide eggs any more.  The Tooth Fairy, well, I'm not sure how to 'sort of' do the Tooth Fairy.  They each have six to ten more teeth to lose, then it'll be done anyway, right?

Meanwhile, I need to reinforce the need to keep one's fingers out of one's mouth.  No wiggling of teeth!  Wash your hands!  One week back in school and Pook has wiggled the first virus of the year right into his mouth.

floating now

They've lost my boy.  The paid-job school called and said that the little boy who I was going to teach has dropped out of the program.  The mom has been worried about sending her baby to school for the first time, so they didn't seem too surprised that she'd changed her mind.  No "cute as a button" for me any more.

But, they still want me.  I'm going to "float," help out and substitute until they have a student for me.  It'll happen; special needs kids get identified all the time. I think this is a desirable program, certainly expensive, and possibly hard to get into.  I'm sorry I won't be starting up on the first day, but I suppose I'll have a chance to do things like learn my way around the campus and get to know the teachers and routines better first.

I'm antsy.  I worked two days last week and spent part of one at the boys' school helping in the library.  This week I only go in once, to take another class there. I'm eager for my school year to begin, even if I still can't jump in to swim!

the looney bin

"Where did we get you?!" is a common, exasperated question we pose to the boys here.  At some point we provided the answers:  Pook is from the Funny Farm and Bug is from the Looney Bin.  Really, it explains so much!

I can't remember how it came up, but at some point on our vacation, Bug decided to tell us about his memories images of the Looney Big.  "It's like a gigantic tea cup with a fence around it and people running around inside it." 

Enough said, right?

don't jump in yet

I spent my first day of work learning the philosophy of the school.  It was like going to your first SCUBA class, swim suit on, and learning that SCUBA stands for "Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus" but not learning how to put on the gear or to go underwater.

The school uses a "Reggio Emilia inspired." philosophy.  I'm sort of familiar with the idea.  Instead of being a teacher-led classroom, it becomes child-led as the interests of the children guide the group activities.  They talked a lot about how much planning it takes to make this work, but never said what exactly "planning" entails.  They explained that teachers had to be researchers to "learn how the children learn," but didn't explain how they take data.  Best I could tell "data" refers to photographing and filming the kids in action.

So, I'm a bit confused.  But there were about twelve of us who were new,  joining a preschool of 80 teachers and 20 facilitators (of which I'll be one) so I can't have been the only one who really just wanted to get in the water.  We have a few more dates for orientations, both with the preschool teachers and alone with just the special ed. facilitators. 

Another question.  When you toss a child into a child-led classroom, you expect them to explore.  Kids are curious and they'll mess with stuff, ask questions and see what their peers are doing.  All of that will lead them to do more exploring.  But, toss a special needs child into that room and s/he is likely to either (a) hide under the table (b) climb the bookshelves or (c) wander away.  How do you let a child lead when the child doesn't want to lead or leads inappropriately?

I will learn this all in due time, apparently.

I'm to be paired with a little boy whom I believe I will call "Danny" for purposes of this blog.  I have not yet met Danny, but was told he is "cute as a button."  (All I really need to know, right?) According to his file (which I was given on my way out of the meeting) he is three years old. He has a thin corpus collosum, poor fine motor abilities, sensory issues, hypotonia (floppiness) and feeding problems.  His mother and father are well educated and mom writes that he is "high functioning."  He sees a developmental pediatrician, a GI doctor, a neurologist, two feeding specialists, a geneticist, a speech therapist and a physical therapist.  I have now learned that I will be part of an established team as his two teachers and I join that long list.

Also in my file folder is blank assessment form.  The Hawaii Early Learning Profile, which I have seen and maybe even used before.  Cool, I get to assess him then.

See what I can learn all by myself?  Who needs orientations? Throw me in the water; I can swim.