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Oh great. We're switching from a 7 period day to an 8 period day. I just lost 5 minutes from my 50 minute hour. So now it's a 45 minute hour, which really is a 40 minute hour because we clean up and organize and sign papers and such at 5 minutes to the bell. Beats having utter chaos and kidding myself that I have 5 more minutes when I don't.
If you are a new teacher and are reading these rambling musings and thinking I'm a bit too obsessive about procedures and beginning of the year organization, just start adding up those missing 5 minutes. We have, what, 170 school days? Something like that. Times 5. That's 850 minutes. That's more than 18 days of class time I just lost. I just lost 3 + weeks of instructional time. And, yeah, I can milk a lot out of 5 minutes.
Fine fine fine. Let's just see how many classes I have now, and whether they are all Latin. How many weeks until school starts????? sheesh... less than 3.
So, before I work myself into an anxiety attack or palpitations (hey, midlife hormonal issues are so much fun), let's change the topic.
Who plays "slug bug no slug back"? You know, when you see a VW beetle? Coccinella is slug bug, according to my twin. I couldn't remember it for a long time until I realized it rhymed with Cinderella, and even then I had to see it written to see that connection. (And now that I have a mnemonic for the word I'm teaching it! See comments on the previous entry....)
coccinella nulla coccinella retrO.
but wait, you have to identify them by color! How well do you know your colors, Latin teachers? We are notoriously bad on colors and numbers over 20. (If you play cards at all, start counting the deck for practice to at least work on numbers up through 52.)
I'm still looking up some colors. But common beetle colors are
flavea - yellow
Atra - black
veneta - blue
caerulea -sky blue
alba - white
argentea - silver
pulla - grey (I had to keep looking this one up)
I made up convertibilis for when it's a convertable. And this is how I play it with my kids--I have to say it in Latin with the color before they say it in English to win.
coccinella flavea nulla coccinella retrO.
That's a mouthful. But I can do it pretty darn quick now. Just takes practice and a determination*. Why do it if our textbooks (the old ones or the adopted ones that the state legislature hasn't paid for) don't use colors? Caesar, after all, doesn't go around talking about the colors of flowers. But I like to know. Students *want* to know. They want to know how to do stuff their friends are doing in Spanish. And I want to starting *thinking* more in Latin. I want to be able to write lots of simple little sentence about stuff. And then I'll move onto more complex ones.
For instance, (as long as I don't float) I am going to label all the desks in my room with business cards with mEnsa (actually table, but I use it for desk because it's related to mesa in Spanish) and OrdO info. That is, prIma mEnsa, tertius OrdO. Kids will note what row and what desk they are in. And each time we talk about gender and agreement of adjectives they can look down at their desk and see it in action. All of my bulletin boards in the room will be a different color and I can instruct students to go to the tabula pUblica rubra or flavea for different information. Some file cabinets (I'm going to use arca, I think) are veneta, some pulla, some "tan" which I better go look up. I could use fusca, I guess.
I want to BOMBARD the students with lots of Latin this year. I want to BOMBARD MYSELF with lots of Latin. It's going to be a lot of work, but I can't wait for the results!
And I may give students extra credit for playing slugbug in Latin. I dunno.
Maybe I'll give them extra credit for playing I PISCATUM (go fish) in Latin. "habEsne ullAs quaterniOnEs?" "nOn habeO. I piscAtum!"
satis.
------------
*I'm thinking up a new poster based on something in _Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince_. When students are learning to apparate, they are taught the three D's: Destination, Determination, Deliberation. Why not a poster that has the three D's and says something like, "Learn to apparate. Where do you want to appear in the future?" After all, isn't this a life lesson as much as a lesson about learning how to do something difficult, frightening and new? Destination, Determination, Deliberation. Hercle, sed Rowling est mIrAbilis!
If you are a new teacher and are reading these rambling musings and thinking I'm a bit too obsessive about procedures and beginning of the year organization, just start adding up those missing 5 minutes. We have, what, 170 school days? Something like that. Times 5. That's 850 minutes. That's more than 18 days of class time I just lost. I just lost 3 + weeks of instructional time. And, yeah, I can milk a lot out of 5 minutes.
Fine fine fine. Let's just see how many classes I have now, and whether they are all Latin. How many weeks until school starts????? sheesh... less than 3.
So, before I work myself into an anxiety attack or palpitations (hey, midlife hormonal issues are so much fun), let's change the topic.
Who plays "slug bug no slug back"? You know, when you see a VW beetle? Coccinella is slug bug, according to my twin. I couldn't remember it for a long time until I realized it rhymed with Cinderella, and even then I had to see it written to see that connection. (And now that I have a mnemonic for the word I'm teaching it! See comments on the previous entry....)
coccinella nulla coccinella retrO.
but wait, you have to identify them by color! How well do you know your colors, Latin teachers? We are notoriously bad on colors and numbers over 20. (If you play cards at all, start counting the deck for practice to at least work on numbers up through 52.)
I'm still looking up some colors. But common beetle colors are
flavea - yellow
Atra - black
veneta - blue
caerulea -sky blue
alba - white
argentea - silver
pulla - grey (I had to keep looking this one up)
I made up convertibilis for when it's a convertable. And this is how I play it with my kids--I have to say it in Latin with the color before they say it in English to win.
coccinella flavea nulla coccinella retrO.
That's a mouthful. But I can do it pretty darn quick now. Just takes practice and a determination*. Why do it if our textbooks (the old ones or the adopted ones that the state legislature hasn't paid for) don't use colors? Caesar, after all, doesn't go around talking about the colors of flowers. But I like to know. Students *want* to know. They want to know how to do stuff their friends are doing in Spanish. And I want to starting *thinking* more in Latin. I want to be able to write lots of simple little sentence about stuff. And then I'll move onto more complex ones.
For instance, (as long as I don't float) I am going to label all the desks in my room with business cards with mEnsa (actually table, but I use it for desk because it's related to mesa in Spanish) and OrdO info. That is, prIma mEnsa, tertius OrdO. Kids will note what row and what desk they are in. And each time we talk about gender and agreement of adjectives they can look down at their desk and see it in action. All of my bulletin boards in the room will be a different color and I can instruct students to go to the tabula pUblica rubra or flavea for different information. Some file cabinets (I'm going to use arca, I think) are veneta, some pulla, some "tan" which I better go look up. I could use fusca, I guess.
I want to BOMBARD the students with lots of Latin this year. I want to BOMBARD MYSELF with lots of Latin. It's going to be a lot of work, but I can't wait for the results!
And I may give students extra credit for playing slugbug in Latin. I dunno.
Maybe I'll give them extra credit for playing I PISCATUM (go fish) in Latin. "habEsne ullAs quaterniOnEs?" "nOn habeO. I piscAtum!"
satis.
------------
*I'm thinking up a new poster based on something in _Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince_. When students are learning to apparate, they are taught the three D's: Destination, Determination, Deliberation. Why not a poster that has the three D's and says something like, "Learn to apparate. Where do you want to appear in the future?" After all, isn't this a life lesson as much as a lesson about learning how to do something difficult, frightening and new? Destination, Determination, Deliberation. Hercle, sed Rowling est mIrAbilis!
from dm
Date: 2005-07-29 11:43 am (UTC)The big argument we always have is whether parked vw's count ... always an issue when the fight breaks out as we pass the volkswagen dealership.
Re: from dm
Date: 2005-07-29 01:14 pm (UTC)