Here We Go Again!!

I was watching the American Idol Dallas auditions again last night with Julie. During the short piece on Kayla Hatfield something caught my eye. See if it catches yours. It happens approximately 11 seconds into the video.

That's right. The Texas flag is upside down on the windmill vane. Kayla is from Campbell, Texas so I imagine this is on their farm nearby.

Thanks AdelaideCate007 for the YouTube video. Visit her website Daytime Confidential.

© 2008 Barry T Horst


This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Teacher's Life of Leisure

My desk here at the house is a mess.

It always gets that way at the end of the nine weeks period at school. That is when I get involved in student assessments and various other forms of paper work. Let's see; there is assessment data to enter in the spreadsheet, grades to complete, and report card entries to make. After report card entries are complete, the report cards have to be verified. After verification they are printed. After printing they have to have more information manually entered on them. Why in this day and age that information can't be entered on the computer I will never know. After all is said and done the report cards are sent home. And then I wait for parents to return them. And I wait. And I wait. Some never come back. Sometimes I wonder if they ever made it home.

Now that report cards are finished it is time to plan the next nine weeks. The kindergarten teachers gather and spread the Scope and Sequence for the 3rd Nine Weeks. Let's see there is Language Arts, Math, Science, and Social Studies. We begin by looking at the various objectives/learning standards in each subject and see which ones overlap. That way we can plan to teach those objectives at the same time and hopefully double the impact. We plot the learning standards on a calender and try to map out the entire nine weeks.

You see, in Texas we are blessed with the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS). This is the wonderful test by which life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is measured. At least in Texas public schools. Teachers must be sure that the students are prepared for this assessment and life in general. The TAKS has various objectives that have to be covered. To assist in this endeavor we are blessed with the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS). The TEKS are divided by grade level and subject matter. The TEKS have broken down the TAKS into more precise and logical learning standards.

Wow! During the 3rd nine weeks at kindergarten we have 127 individual TEKS learning standards that we have to address. Of the 127 standards, 67 are in Language Arts alone.

After mapping out the learning standards we then double check to make sure that we have each one on the calendar. It wouldn't do to get to the end of the nine weeks and then discover that we did not cover everything.

Once the double checking is finished we get to plan our lessons and write our plans for the following week. Next week in Science we are going to do some experiments that involve 3 to 4 steps and changes that take place with the application of heat. We are tying in Math by working on sequencing up to 4 steps. Fun! We are going to be using cornstarch one day and gelatin on another. FUN FUN!

Having said all of this; that explains why my desk here at the house is a mess. There is a stack of mail about four inches deep and I can't even begin to count the number of magazines that have not even been looked at yet.

I'm going now and will begin to attack the mountain. No doubt that I will have a full trash can and paper shredder tomorrow.

© 2008 Barry T Horst


This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Busy, Busy, Busy

It was pretty cool here in Robinson yesterday. I don't think it ever got above 40 degrees. Chris decided to clean out and rearrange a portion of the garage. I got home and she showed me what she did. WOW! It was like a new garage. Well, not exactly a new garage. It looked like an older garage that had been cleaned out with all the "stuff" rearranged in a good way. There was a lot of room in there.

She found a lot of stuff to get rid of. She asked if she could "load up the truck and move to Beverly.........." . Wait, it wasn't Beverly Hills; it was the Salvation Army. So we headed out to start loading. She went before me and dropped the tailgate......and there it went. The alarm on the truck was certainly working yesterday. I turned it off and we continued to load. As soon as this task was completed we headed off to the local Salvation Army.

It's surprising how high this old stuff can bounce in the truck bed when you hit a dip on the interstate going 65 mph.

On the way we got a phone call. It was one of Julie's coworkers. The told us Julie had passed out/had a seizure while at work. Chris told them we were on our way now and would check on her. By the time we got to the Dwyer Group she was better but had a headache. It seems that she tends to bump her head on the way when this happens.

She is doing better now and plans to go to work today but Chris will take her. Chris drove Julie home in Julie's car. I drove the truck home and stopped at the Salvation Army to unload. As I was unloading I heard a train going through town on the tracks on Mary Street. While I was at the Salvation Army I kept hearing a clanging sound. I looked behind the donation boxes and there was a fellow in the back yard area playing horseshoes. He was by himself and was having a good time. I don't know who won.

By the time I finished and finally got home Chris told that she and Julie just got home too. I asked why. She said she was stopped by a long train going through town. Imagine that!

© 2008 Barry T Horst


This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Did I Mention.......?

Teaching is great. It gives you a good feeling to know that you are imparting knowledge to the little ones who will eventually lead our country. Only problem, many of our kids don't get the supervision and rest they need.

Yesterday morning during our morning circle time we were discussing attributes of various blocks and sorting them. During this time several students were taken out for TPRI testing. I looked across the rug; one of the boys (Let's call him Hugh) was asleep. Hugh always tries to go to sleep during the morning. I woke him up and sent him for a drink of water. Then I had him stand up. We continued the lesson. I looked a few minutes later., Hugh was sitting down again sleeping. Two or three others were laying down also. I decided that we would go to the hallway and take a walk up and down the hallway. This would surely wake them up.

Back to class and begin Voyager. Nope! The same ones are down again. Wake them up and continue lesson. Finally we get to stations and groups. Yes. Now I start getting the inevitable, "I'm hungry. When is lunch?" "Pretty soon!", I say. We finish Voyager go to lunch and come back to the room for recess. Recess has been in the room this week because the older students are having 9 weeks tests and we don't want to disturb them. We work on floor puzzles. My kids love to do puzzles. They get excited when they finish one.

Yesterday was PE day. The kids came back tired. It was rest time. By the end of rest time and beginning of snack time 8 students were sleeping. No, we don't take naps in kindergarten. We rest and then have a snack; if we stay awake. Center time was next and half of us were still asleep. It's hard to wake up the little ones sometimes. By the time we started Science we were up and were learning about soil, rocks, and water.

Last week we picked up rocks from the playground. After we picked them up we weighed them, sorted them, and described them. Yesterday we added them to the Kindergarten Rock Garden. I suppose you could call it "der kindergarten felsen garten." I suppose that would be a close approximation. The kids enjoy it. They know each of their rocks, even when they look the same to us.

Did I mention the student that went to sleep sitting cross legged, leaning over with his forehead resting on the floor? No! That'll have to be another post.


© 2008 Barry T Horst


This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Will It Never End?

Checked the email yesterday.

Yep! I've won again.

I have the luckiest email I guess. This time I've won £850,000. That is approximately $1,669,227.15. Oh, it also informed me that I've won a BMW 550i. COOL! This email doesn't say which lottery. I suppose it is still the UK National Lottery like yesterday since I will be paid off in Pounds Sterling. Or maybe it is the Isle of Man National Lottery. They also use the Pound Sterling.

Does the Isle of Man have a National Lottery? Probably not. If they did, I'm sure this email wouldn't have been sent to me from Purdue.edu email account. And I'm certain the lottery official wouldn't have a hotmail account. You would think his email would be something like mrbigshot@uknationallottery.com or some other something like that.

Anyway, I know I haven't won anything. But it is fun to think about and write about.

Oh, by the way you might drop Mr. Cornejo Isoulath or Mr. Alex Hooper (Fiduciary Agent) a line at bmwclaimsdesk08@hotmail.com (This is the for real email address that they want me to respond to) to check on your BMW and cash. Or you can wait. I'm sure you'll get your email soon.

On a more serious note: I use Mailwasher Pro from Firetrust Ltd. They make some great products. Mailwasher Pro allows you to view all email on the email server before it ever gets to your computer. You can then delete any spurious email before downloading anything in your email client. Give it a look see. If you're not sure, they have a free version that you can try out. It's called Mailwasher Free 6.1.

© 2008 Barry T Horst


This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Good News--I've Won!

Got an e-mail today. Boy was I excited. The email said I was the winner of the UK (United Kingdom) National Lottery. It says that I've won GBP £550,000. WOW!!! That's about $1,079,703.70, give or take a few cents. This I've got to check out.

Yeah, it says my email has won. I guess I'm set for Easy Street now. The email says I have to contact a Mr. David Owen for claims. All right. I'm counting the money and think how to spend it about now. WAIT A MINUTE!! Why does the Claims Director for the UK National Lottery have a Yahoo email address? This bears further inspection. The email itself came from an email address with charter.net in it. It appears that charter.net is the email for customers of Charter Communications and Charter Communications is located in St. Louis, MO.

I suppose the UK National Lottery has moved to St. Louis instead of London, England now. After all, the dollar has dropped quite a bit. It has to be cheaper to operate in the US now. The director is even using a Yahoo address instead of a government email address. I suppose this cuts down on expenses for the lottery and they can sink more money into the prizes. That means more prize money for me.

Nah, I didn't think so either.

© 2008 Barry T Horst


This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.