This is an incredible story – absolutely gave me chills!!

Now that is education! Totally awesome!

I found the most wonderful blog today, via Twitter!

Welcome to NCS-Tech!

There was so much good stuff on there that I felt like a kid in a candy store! There was a very helpful post about how educators can get Google Earth PRO for FREE – and I’ve already emailed that post to our technology guy in our school district.

I’ll come make this post prettier and the like – I just didn’t want to lose track of this awesome blog!

I recently watched this DVD, The Jewish Americans, and I absolutely loved every minute of it! And it was six hours long! It is a 3-part series, that is why it is so long. And I have to say, that I am rather embarassed, about how much I actually learned from the documentary. I’m thrilled to have learned so much about the history of Jewish people in America, but, I am quite disappointed that I knew so little about their experiences here in the ‘new country’.

I do not remember having learned about Jewish people inhabiting the early-American colonies, but, Sephardic Jews began coming to America in the mid 1600’s. The Jewish people coming over here wanted to assimilate themselves into the culture here, and yet, they also wanted to hang onto and still practice their Jewish faith and way of life. Many of them found this process very difficult – they felt as though they were being pulled in two directions, but, they adapted to their new lives here, even wearing American clothing.

They began to build synagogues, and that I found very cool. (I actually have a synagogue near me that is over 100 years old – it’s very beautiful.) One of the synagogues, though, I think in Rhode Island, was built to match the style of the buildings in the town. And then on the inside, Judaism was ‘loudly’ celebrated in the design and the layout. I was a little saddened by this, as they were working so hard to blend in, they felt they could only be themselves on the inside. I thought that was kind of a bummer.

Another interesting thing that I learned about was the participation by the Jews in every war that America has been through. During the civil war, the men who joined the military in the North, didn’t really know too much about slavery and they didn’t join to fight slavery. As they traveled farther north, during the war, though, they began to experience the horrors of slavery first hand. They realized how awful it was, and wanted desperately to free the slaves. And during the first world war, they didn’t know anything about the concentration camps. Someone told one soldier, along with his fellow soldiers, there is a ‘Jewish camp’ over there, the way they were directly headed. They wondered what the heck that person meant when he said, ‘Jewish camp’. When they came upon the first camp, they were absolutely horrified. I can’t imagine having found out like that. I had never thought about how Allied soldiers first found out about the concentration camps. Of course, finding out in any way had to be just terrible, but, I think being there, out in the field…oh, it’s just awful.

After the war, though, the most WONDERFUL thing happened. It was just four short months after the war, and a lovely young lady from New York, who just happened to be JEWISH – won the title of Miss America. I absolutely had chills watching this part of the films. This was, of course, the first time that a Jewish girl had won. What a wonderful affirmation of American Jews being fully integrated into our society – and welcomed, loved, and supported. Yes, it’s not of earth-shattering importance – the Miss America pageant, but, it was a symbol. And it meant a lot – to a lot of people.

That last paragraph reminded me of another thing I learned, too. A lot of Jews in America prefer to be called American Jews, and not Jewish Americans. One lady explained that, even though she loves the USA, she could picture herself living in England, or in Australia, for instance, but, she could never picture herself not being Jewish. They said – “It’s the noun!”

I really, really loved this documentary and I know that I will watch it again and again and learn something new every time. And I will have my children watch it with me, because, I’m sure that American history taught in schools just does not teach much of the Jewish American experience, if at all. I will let them watch it in separate sittings, though. I am sure they would protest six hours. I just loved it so much, though, that I did not want it to end. I was soaking it up like a sponge! And I could go on and on here and tell you about a hundred and fifty more things that I learned, but, you might get sleepy. So I’ll just let you just go watch it yourself. You will love it – there are many interesting people interviewed, and I think that is part of what kept it so interesting. There are regular people, and Hollywood stars, and all kinds of people. Just go watch it – you will see, you’ll love it!

Phonetic spelling and adorable little pictures! Can’t I just shrinky dink my kids for a day or two? I’ve been really aching for that time when my kids were munchkins. It was hard, yes. And it was exhausting, yes. But it was a BLAST!!! And the four of us were a crew, you know? It was us against the world! So much fun!

Mark and I were organizing photos over the weekend and the ache just got stronger. They were so adorable! I really and truly haven’t a clue – not one clue – how they just ZAPPED into teens and a pre-teen. It was like some magic spell or something!

And this morning, I came across something that made the ache palpable – the most adorable and sweet schoolwork done by a darling Kindergartner, named Mike. He is the son of Erika, otherwise known as Plain Jane Mom. His creations are here: Fun with the alphabet and crayolas. Go look really quickly, and then come right back here! I’ll wait….

Is that kid great, or what? “Wios” – I LOVE IT!!!

I think Kindergarten and First Grade are two of my favorite school years – I just love those little munchkins. I love it when their little eyes light up, and you can almost see the light bulb over their head as they begin to read their first sentences. And I love how they work so hard and so carefully at forming the letters in their special handwriting notebooks. Love it, just love it.

It is a precious, eye-opening time in a person’s life – discovering the wonder, beauty, and excitement of the written word. Absolutely precious.

I better just hush up with this right now, or I’m gonna start boohooing – or I might have to walk up to the school to read to the kindergartners, and I’ve got work to do today here at home. The craving gets so strong sometimes, I can’t believe it. A little while ago, I noticed out my window that I could see the little toddler play equipment in the neighbor’s yard and it almost made me run over there, begging to play with her adorable daughter.

Work to do, I’ve got work to do. Must not think of munchkins. No munchkins.

wah! but I love them, I love munchkins!

GET BACK TO WORK, MRS. LISA!!!

Oh my gosh! My son just missed a week of school. And it was a short week, since Monday was a holiday. And he has SO MUCH MAKE-UP WORK!! Which to me is really weird, since I have felt that the boys haven’t had enough homework at this school. I guess that just means that they just jam pack the school day full of work!

I have to say I honestly feel like keeping him home another day just so he can get caught up! He is still slightly feverish. He has asthmatic bronchitis. I took him to a clinic yesterday to have him checked out and get an antibiotic. I really liked the clinic. It was clean and neat and upgraded. It didn’t look like an old doctor’s office from the 60’s, like so many we’ve been to.

The doctor that saw him was really sweet and attentive, to both Shawn and me. That is definitely a plus – when the doctor can easily and comfortably converse with the parent and the child. She was really cool. She even had on sexy boots that were black and fishnets! That was a surprise to see! She had the outfit put together tastefully, it wasn’t tacky at all. It just made me feel more comfortable with her, to know there really was a ‘woman’ under that lab coat – and a cool one, at that!

I also forgot to get the doctor’s note for Shawn to have unexcused absences. If you have more than five per semester, you need a note. I’ll have to see if my husband can go by there tomorrow.

Back to this make-up work, though, oh my! I don’t know how I’ll get this kid caught up. I’m sure it just looks overwhelming on paper, and once we get to working on it, and once we talk with the teachers – everything will be alright. All of the seventh grade teachers said at the orientation that they are willing to work with the kids. Some of them come to school early and some of them stay late, and all of them are willing to give their time outside of class if a student needs it. So I’m sure as long as Shawn and I and the teachers stay in communication, we will get him caught up! Darn his asthmatic lungs, though!

You see, here’s the deal at my house – my hubby preaches ‘law school, law school, law school’ to the kids. And I preach ‘be happy, learn to love, be happy’ to the kids. So I figure we balance each other out perfectly in our parental preachings! They’ll go to law school – and be happy doing it!

Wouldn’t that be great if they went to law school and worked for one of those pro-bono places? And they were deliriously happy doing it? Or is that just my evil, I-told-you-so heart being snooty again?

Well, anyway, let’s say they (or any of them) decide to go ahead with law school. They have got their work cut out for them. Taking the LSAT is no walk in the park. Anyone considering it will need some serious LSAT prep help and guidance. And at Prep101, they are sure to gain a much more competitive edge. And we are assured of this by the money back guarantee, which says:

After taking our Comprehensive Prep Course your LSAT score is guaranteed to improve.

The LSAT Prep Course is so comprehensive, that I don’t think they’ve left any stone unturned! They even offer follow-up email tutoring from instructors and an Applying to Law School Seminar.

They also have a free repeat policy. You can take the course as many times as you need, until you feel ready.

I definitely think Prep101 would be awesome help for anyone considering law school.

My older son just finally got into the gifted program out here. I have been asking about it since signing him up for the school last year, but, through one communication gap after another, it was slow going. Anyway, he is just loving it. And the way that they do it, is to replace one of their academic classes with it, weaving that subject into the gifted curriculum. Last year, if you were in the gifted program, that meant you were in gifted social studies. This year, however, that means that you are in gifted English. My other son loves his regular English teacher so much that he didn’t want to switch. He might do it next year, though. He had the gifted teacher for another six-week long class, and he really liked her, too. And she was very happy having him in her class, as well. We went ahead and did the paperwork for him, so he can easily go in next year, if he chooses.

Anyway, Patrick has some cool projects and things coming up in his gifted class. And one of the things that he needed right away was a thumb drive, for taking material back and forth between home and school. Isn’t technology amazing? I just love it. It would be so neat to be in school during this exciting time! I think thumb drives are external hard drives, right? Anyway, it is just neat.

I’ll have to post some more about the gifted class and all they have planned this year – it’s definitely going to be cool!

That’s who I’m going to meet tomorrow – well, me and a couple busloads full of fifth graders. I’m so excited. I’m scared already, just from looking at the pictures. I mean, really – do you think these three boys ever have nightmares?

See, because, what I am seeing tomorrow is a cast replica – but, those sweet boys are looking at the real, for real, actual ….head of a T-Rex!

Maybe it didn’t help that I watched Godzilla with my son yesterday! The images of Godzilla are helping Sue ‘come alive’ for me, you know? I mean, good gosh! Sue’s hips are 12 feet high! Just her hips!

I have been doing some reading up on her and I am getting more excited with every page that I read. The Field Museum, in Chicago, Illinois, with the help of many sponsors – purchased Sue for $8.4 million!

Her debut was in May 2000, and she even had a special piece of music written just for her big debut, by The Chicago Chamber Musicians. The piece is called, “Tyrannosaurus Sue: A Cretaceous Concerto”. I just love the sound of that! I mean, the name, that is. I haven’t actually heard the piece. That would be really cool if I could find it on YouTube and then I could post it here for all of us to enjoy together!

Ok, I’m sure I’ll have lots of good stuff to report after ‘meeting’ her – so for now…

Recently I was talking to a friend about the magnet schools back home in Texas. I was really excited for Shawn because one of them had a culinary arts program. He would have loved that. And after graduating, he could have gone to Texas Culinary Academy – I was just looking over their website, http://www.tca.edu and it sounds like it might have been just perfect for Shawn. And he would have only been three hours away from us, in Austin, TX. And the magnet high school was actually in our school district! Here in our small town in Alabama, the closest magnet school is six hours away! Six hours?! Yikes! I have a neighbor friend who just sent her son there this year for the first time – he is a sophomore! Send my boy SIX hours away from me in the tenth grade?! That would be so hard – and both of my boys are expressing an interest in going. Oh no! Tell me again – why did I move to Alabama?

We had a very involved principal at one of our schools and it was so awesome! Actually, I think we might have a principal who may be just as cool at Sammie’s school, but, I don’t have time to be up there all the time like I was at our last school. The one I was talking about at first, though, was so cool, because he went out of his way to make everyone feel special. I don’t know how he did it, but, he would learn almost all of the children’s names and call them by name when he saw them. And it wasn’t just the kids that he treated special. He was very good to his teachers, as well. Every Friday, he and the assistant principal would go all around the school with popcorn machines, giving the teacher’s a yummy afternoon snack. When a principal gets involved like that, the whole school runs better – and there is a great community feel to the school, too!