Another week, another dollar. We were at Woodlake and Northwood Schools this week. Biggest interruption  this week was a whole-school fire drill. Teachers hold up a green paper if all students are accounted for, red if someone is missing. Everyone is silent – mostly.

Are you wondering what else I did this week? I obsessed over a 500-piece jigsaw puzzle of Cinque Terre in Italy. Every spare minute. Sigh.

ELPAC testing can offer some humorous interactions with students. For one part of the test, I showed a first-grade student a picture of an Angora rabbit, then the student had to read the paragraph all by themselves with zero help from me. The student struggled with the second word for such a long time that I suggested she could skip it. Problem solved! She read the paragraph rather rapidly like this:

“The skip-it skip-it has skip-it that is skip-it skip-it and skip-it. The skip-it skip-it can skip-it up to skip-it skip-it. The skip-it skip-it skip-it be cut skip-it skip-it skip-it. The skip-it can be skip-it to make skip-it, like skip-it and skip-it. This skip-it, skip-it skip-it is skip-it skip-it.”

After she finished, I asked 3 questions to see how well she understood what she’d read.

We worked at Woodlake on Thursday, Valentine’s Day. There was an assembly in the morning, an art teacher (students with paint-covered hands), parties, rain, and a dental hygienist working nearby. Needless to say, we practiced patience and completed very few tests. Smile.