Showing posts with label School. Show all posts
Showing posts with label School. Show all posts

Friday, September 3, 2021

19 Back-to-School Crafts To Prepare Kids For School In An Exciting, Fun Way

Many of you have already sent your children off for their first week of school, but some have not yet started. What better way to prepare them than to start crafts at home and have plenty of material for the upcoming year? And GRANDPARENTS, if you're looking for fun activities to do with the grandkids at home, you should try these craft ideas as well! Check out these fun activities, brought to you by letscolorimaginations.com



                              http://www.letscolorimaginations.com

Friday, January 10, 2020

Wonderful Winter Writers Series: Guest Post By Stephanie Jankowski

I'm so excited to feature my friend and author Stephanie Jankowski on the blog today with a sample chapter from her new book, Schooled. Several of my adult children are teachers, so I can relate to many of the funny stories in this delightful book. I've known Stephanie for quite some time now and have always enjoyed her hilarious blog "When Crazy Meets Exhaustion." She is such a talented writer and I'm just thrilled to share a portion of her book with you today!


SUMMARY:

In this collection of hilariously frank essays, high school English instructor and popular parenting blogger Stephanie Jankowski throws open the classroom door to the victories, challenges and WTF-moments of today's teachers.
Laugh and commiserate with Steph’s no-holds-barred commentary on lighthearted subjects such as being mistaken for a high schooler as a first-year teacher, accidentally saying the “c-word” at a school-wide assembly, and navigating tricky student questions like “Are Trojan condoms named after those soldiers in the Odyssey?”. You’ll nod along as she tackles more serious topics like race and education, the death of a student, and teaching with empathy.
Anyone with a pulse will enjoy this book, but it should be required reading for every passionate, dedicated educator who’s felt like banging their head against the blackboard. Schooled shouts: “I see you, fellow teacher…and you’re not alone.”

EXCERPT:


When You’re a 22-Year-Old Teacher and Your Students Are 18

Hall Duty, 2004. 

Because my colleague had to cover another class, I was canvassing the halls solo that day. It was eerily quiet, the usual suspects nowhere to be found. I’d grown accustomed to multiple trips around the building—front to back, up and down the steps—and learned that changing into comfortable sneakers was a necessity. Heels stashed under my desk back in the classroom, I was business on top and Nike runners on the bottom as I walked the halls of our high school that day.

In retrospect, it made sense: a young-looking female, tennis shoes, hair pulled back in a low ponytail. I should’ve seen it coming.

Rather, I should’ve seen her coming.

Passing the copy center, I continued down the long empty corridor, removed from the steady lineup of classroom doors. As I rounded the corner leading to the gym’s back entrance, the most remote part of the building, I heard a quick shuffling behind me. She grabbed me by the arm just above the elbow, spinning me around to face her. Stunned, I couldn’t find words; there was no time. Her hot breath flooded my face, our noses mere inches apart. “What do you think you’re doing? Get back to class!”

Sighing loudly, I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, hi. Barbara? We’ve been through this. I work here. I’m a first-year teacher.”

This was the eleventeenth time our school nurse had intercepted me in the hall with accusations of cutting class. I’d run out of fucks somewhere around our third confrontation. 

Barbara released her death grip and took a few steps back, studying me. Her eyes widened in surprised amusement to find me on the receiving end of her mistake once again. “I just keep thinking you’re one of the students!” I fought the urge to roundhouse her. This level of stupidity was ridiculous. Not to mention the fact that she put her hands on me—again. She’s lucky I wasn’t one of the students, because I’d seen enough of them throw down with one another in those very hallways and one even try to fight our principal. Either our nurse was unaware of her handsy repercussions or she just didn’t care. I was leaning toward the latter. 

So many bizarre and blatantly inappropriate things happened during my first year of teaching, most of them simply because I was a young woman. Beginning a career at the age of 22 is a daunting task for anyone, but when your subordinates are only a couple years younger, and when those subordinates are actually juniors and seniors in your English class, situation and circumstance are complicated in a way I never learned about in college.

Like the day my students were working in pods. To accommodate the desks, I had to move a cluster of them close to the door. The move was against my better judgment, as I was all too familiar with the risks of desk-to-door proximity. No teacher in America can compete with the temptation that is The Hallway. I’ve seen students break their necks for just a quick peek into the enticing abyss outside the classroom. Voices, footsteps, the bang of a locker—teachers don’t stand a chance. And if someone knocks on the door? Mayhem. 

Unfortunately, I had no choice that day; the pods were a necessary evil. I ran interference as best I could by physically standing between the students and the door, but because it was approximately 105°F that September, the door and windows had to remain open if there was any chance of survival.
P.S. Ms. DeVos, please do something useful like equipping schools all over America with air-conditioning. Or resigning. Thank you.

Moving on.

One of the usual hall wanderers was in full effect that day. I didn’t realize it, but he was lingering just outside my classroom and any time I stood in front of the door, specifically when I bent over a desk to help students, this young man was . . . how do I put this delicately?

He simulated . . . no.

He pretended to . . . not quite right.

He . . . okay, fine. I’m just gonna say it.

He air-humped me. And I was completely oblivious, chatting up students about the author’s purpose in the text. Not until one of my female students quietly motioned toward the door did I ...... ***WANT TO READ MORE? BUY THE BOOK HERE




BIO: 


English teacher by trade, smack talker by nature, Stephanie Jankowski subscribes to the mantra, “Life is too short, laugh!” She finds the funny in everyday life on her blog, WhenCrazyMeetsExhaustion.com, and in education on sites like We Are Teachers and Hey, Teach. Steph lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with her husband and their three children. Schooled is her first book and writing it gave her the nervous poops.
Links: 
BLOG
TWITTER
INSTAGRAM
FACEBOOK

Tuesday, July 17, 2018

Please Don't Let Me Be The Oldest Mom In The PTA: Guest Post by Sharon O'Donnell


   Good news! There's a brand new book out for mid-life moms who still have school-age children. I'm so excited to introduce you to humor writer Sharon O'Donnell, who is on the blog today to share a few excerpts from her wonderful new book, Please Don't Let Me Be the Oldest Mom in the PTA. Please welcome Sharon to Meno Mama's site today with lots of comment love! 



A brand new humor book
for mid-life moms!
Please Don’t Let Me Be
the Oldest Mom in the PTA
by Sharon O’Donnell




                                                              Available now!

Sometimes breastfeeding & menopause aren’t that far apart! In this new humor book, award-winning columnist Sharon O’Donnell shares funny & poignant stories of being an ‘older’ mom. Nothing like buying diaper rash cream and age spot cream at the same time or having hot flashes on a college tour with your teen. She includes that awful moment when someone mistakes you for your child’s grandmother and that moment when you realize you might be the oldest mom in the PTA. Sharon is also the author of humor book House of Testosterone. More info at www.sharonodonnellauthor.com

                                                                    "The PTA Meeting"

So there I was finally, walking into a PTA meeting filled with parents who probably couldn’t even vaguely remember the Nixon administration and first watched The Brady Bunch in syndication, rather than the original run of the show on Friday nights on ABC.  I was from another generation there amidst the cute, bubbly women in form-fitting jeans and capris with tans and no age spots. Moms with no spider veins.  Moms who didn’t need to hold the meeting agenda at arm’s length to be able to read it. Moms with genuine enthusiasm for the upcoming magazine fundraiser. Before the meeting started, I hung around near the back of the room, trying not to draw attention to myself.  
I enjoyed the performance, although I realized, as all the younger moms aimed their state-of-the-art mini VCRs at their little American Idols, that I had forgotten my own clunky video camera at home. That’s another thing about being an older mom with age-gap kids:  with my older boys, I was so prepared for things like school concerts— battery charged, extra tape, the whole works. Yet, with the third child, I’d had other things on my mind like helping my middle son study for a science test or picking up my oldest son from basketball practice; remembering a video camera on the way out the door is sometimes simply too much to ask. In the future, I will have to explain to Jason why there is a lot more video of his brothers’ school programs than his. 
After the school concert at the PTA meeting, there were some brief business topics discussed and something about new playground equipment was voted on. Afterwards, everyone was invited to have cookies and punch and to mingle. I didn’t want to be anti-social, but I really didn’t feel much like mingling that night, particularly with other moms who might not even have been born the year I graduated from high school. 
And then I saw her across the crowded room, sitting near the stage. (Cue violin music). A kindred spirit. She was an attractive brunette, but it was obvious from some wrinkles and bit of turkey neck sag that she was at least as old as I was. Maybe—dare I say it—older??  My heart started beating fast like it used to when I’d see a cute guy taller than me out at the nightclubs. I had to meet her. 



                                                       "School Days"  


Having my youngest son, Jason, nine and six years after my two other boys meant that the school years would seem to drag on indefinitely and that we’d have sons at multiple schools at one time. There were several years when Jason was in elementary school, our middle boy David was in middle school, and Billy, our oldest was in a new high school that he had been reassigned to when it opened. When Billy was 15, he rode the bus, but it didn’t always come at the same time each morning and was unreliable. So a few times I’d have to take him to school, which meant I’d have to wake up Jason and have him ride with us. 
  To get to Billy’s high school, we had to drive through back roads; although the traffic is heavy due to the proximity of a Research Triangle Park, Billy’s high school was located in the middle of nowhere with no fast food places or gas stations along the way. On one particular morning during the first few weeks of school, Billy’s bus was late, so I pulled kindergartner Jason out of bed and put him in the van so we could drive Billy. We were about five minutes away and running late, when Jason yelled that he had to poop. It wasn’t like I could pull into a Shell station and let him run in because nothing was nearby. Nothing. And I’d taken the portable potty chair out of the SUV the previous year. 
  I was racing to try to get Billy to school on time, so I shouted to Jason the only advice I could think of at the moment:  “Squeeze your butt cheeks together!” Every time Jason would protest, I’d shout again, “Squeeze your butt cheeks together!” as I drove like a mad woman through the stretches of two lane, winding roads. By the time we arrived at the school, Jason had fallen asleep, poor little guy. With squeezed butt checks.

When we got back home, he woke up and went immediately into the bathroom. Later that day when Billy got home he said, “Mom, I was sitting in class and I started thinking about you yelling at Jason for him to squeeze his butt cheeks together, and I almost laughed out loud.”  Yes, I live only to make my children smile. At the time, though, it was a very serious situation. Actually, “Squeeze your butt cheeks together” isn’t bad advice if you think about. It always makes you look skinnier in jeans. 



Author Bio:  Sharon O’Donnell is a writer from Cary, NC and is the author of two humor books: Please Don’t Let Me Be the Oldest Mom in the PTA (released in July/2018) and House of Testosterone: One Mom’s Survival in a Household of MalesShe has written articles for Good Housekeeping and Better Homes & Gardens, and was an award-winning columnist for The Cary News for 12 years. She lives in Cary with her husband of 30 years and their youngest son, 17-year-old Jason, with frequent visits from sons Billy, 27, and David, 24. And of course their male long-haired dachshund, Fenway. You can find her at sharondonnellauthor.comwww.uplit.org , momsofboys.com, or @4boysanddog 

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