Elwood Goes to Lewisville

What would have happened if inpatient V. Van Gogh had been scheduled for twice daily rabbit therapy? Could Vince have gotten his act together while petting a nonjudgmental animal in his room at the Saint-Remy asylum. As a starving artist, Vince must have filled out applications to qualify for the sliding fee payment scale.

I can see Jimmy Stewart and Harvey doing hospital volunteering--you know, chatting with the inmates, helping them mark their meal menus. Elwood P. Dowd has some grand pookah rabbit healing powers.

This afternoon I get to go to the "bunny farm" to get supplies for the classroom pet. Or maybe I just misunderstood when the nice young men in the clean white coats said, "funny farm".

They're coming to take me away, ha-haaa.

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

October Open House wreath

This was my dream. In the beginning there was a giant corrugated cardboard circle with the middle cut out. Then children began making orange and ochre paper rings like they do at Christmas for tree chain decorations. But they were gluing the paper rings onto the cardboard circle. When the whole cardboard circle was covered in rings, the children began thinking about initial sounds and prefixes, to make a wreath of October work for the school Open House.

Now in the musical, "Fiddler On the Roof," Tevye tells a dream like this:

All right, This was my dream. In the beginning, I dreamt we were having a celebration of some kind. All of our beloved departed were there. And the musicians...Even your great uncle Mordichai was there. And..and your cousin Rachel was there. In the middle of the dream in walks your Grandmother Tzietal, may she rest in peace.

Golde: Grandmother Tzietal? How did she look?

Tevye: Well for a woman who's dead 30 years she looked very good. Naturally, I went up to greet her.

Now in no way am I comparing meeting the families of my students at Open House Night with greeting Grandmother Tzietal, but the song did pop into my head. These things can't be helped. I'm not even thinking about Orack Borama.

But back to the October wreath, I dreamt that all the students made prints of an owl or an octopus, and each hung one print on the wreath. Then we could add some of our overwhelming okra harvest. We could take funny photos of the smallest students turning the lights or faucets ON or OFF, and let them trace those letters to add to the wreath.

Slightly older students could cut out red octagons and make STOP signs to hang on the wreath. Some of these students have been doing work about opposites. They could draw OPEN & SHUT, OVER & UNDER, INSIDE & OUTSIDE, and OLD & YOUNG, or do math work about ODD & EVEN numbers. Young observers might consider OPAQUE & TRANSPARENT. We could hang their drawings on the wreath, or weave them in and out of the paper rings.

We have been studying occupations since the semester's onset. Some students would be happy to draw opera singers, oceanographers, organists, Olympic athletes, opticians, astronauts in orbit in outer space, baseball outfielders, ornithologists, orthodontists, mommies and daddies working at "the office", and surgeons performing operations.

Montessori students love studying animals, so they would be glad to draw an okapi or ostrich, an otter or ocelot, an orangutan, oryx, or ox. A teacher might share her photos of Phil, the patio opossum.

The music teacher must surely have some ideas about ocarinas, octaves, opera singers, and orchestra conductors. The art teacher could contribute outline drawings and Georgia O'Keeffe orchids to the olio. The elementary teacher might offer students some opportunities for studying Ohio, Oregon, Oklahoma, Oahu, Omaha, and Odessa, TX. Her assistant would contribute original recipes with oregano, olive oil, or onion.

I hope an octegenarian great-grandparent will attend Open House to observe our community of learners. "Our" is a very important word for the school. Students come from diverse backgrounds, but at school we are one community.

Parents at Open House could hang other "O" words on the wreath--oxygen, opals and obsidian, ovens or ogres, omelets at one o'clock a.m., Oman, ounces or orchards. Sure, someone might need to oversee and organize the project, but there are some outstanding options.

I've obviously gone overboard. I'll start my little outboard motor and putt-putt offshore.


© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Practicing 5s

A small student is struggling to write the number five. I feel her pain! Next to eight, five is the most difficult number. Making a handsome 5 was a huge endeavor for me back just after the dinosaurs died out. This was slightly before I learned to zip my jacket, and well prior to my struggles spelling "kitchen" and "squirrel".

You can find memory devices and practice worksheets for 5 on the internet. Some lucky kids are able to master this fiendish numeral by remembering "straight neck, fat tummy, wearing cap". Forty-five years later, I can't recall if my beloved first grade teacher, Mrs. Erickson, helped me personalize the writing process, or if it was one of my schoolteacher aunts. Maybe I was inspired by the frequent sight of my dad sitting on a metal rocking lawn chair wearing his hat and counting the time between lightning flash and thunder boom.




© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Wednesday attitude adjustment

This in from the You Just Thought Your Day Was Rough Department:

When I left work at 5:15 or so, I turned on the car radio. My NPR station was still in its fall pledge drive, so I switched over to WRR 101.1 for some classical music. But, no, my favorite soap opera was still on the air. The Dallas City Council convened today at nine a.m., and WRR was still broadcasting live from the meeting.

The Council was considering Agenda Item 55 at that moment, and Deputy Mayor Pro Tem, Dwaine R. Caraway, was calling for the men "with the motails in the back row to please stand up." Now Councilman Caraway from District 4 is best known for his anti-sagging pants campaign, and he once appeared on Dr. Phil's t.v. show to promote it. The slogan for that campaign is, "Grandma says: Pull 'Em Up!" That's why I thought a "motail" was likely either a fashion statement or a bad hairdo.

The Deputy Mayor Pro Tem was actually asking the men in the back to rise so he could commend them for their plan to build "an unseedly motail," an extended-stay hotel that "meant quality." Don't know about you, but just contemplating this Candlewood Suites in all its unseedliness brought a smile to my tired face.

Next, Agenda Item 54 was reopened for consideration. Seems there hadn't been a proper request for speakers opposed to a drive-through bank in Subdistrict B-2 of Planned Development District 749, aka the Baylor Hospital Special Use District, the first time around. The opposed speakers were even more agitated than they would have been if they were called the first time, if that is possible, and even further off the topic.

The first woman directed her fury at the Council for "sitting up there eating your grapes and your prunes and not letting us comment..." The next speaker went off about Baylor Hospital, and how "they are killing people up there with surgeries they don't even need and the security guards threw me in jail when I walked out the back door of the lunchroom with a plate lunch even though I had a paycheck in my pocket and $8000, so I didn't even need to cash my paycheck, like I couldn't pay for the plate lunch, and they're killing people in there, I know 'cause I worked there."

I spend a lot of time trying to get my preschool council members to eat their grapes and their prunes. They tell rambling stories that often have nothing to do with the agenda item. Some of them have a lot of trouble pulling up their pants and remembering to flush. Still, most of them can tell the difference between a drive-through bank and a hospital.

I'm humming a little WWI ditty:

Pack up your troubles in your old kit-bag,
And smile, smile, smile.
Tuck in your motails, and smile, boys, that's the style.

And [Note To Self] next time, remember to buy the unseedly grapes at Albertsons!

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Preschool Occupational Outlook Handbook

My students are learning about occupations. Occupations are what grown-ups have so they can pay for groceries.

Occupations are different from "work". Work is what Montessori students choose, receive individual lessons on, and do much of each school day. Work is both a noun and a verb for the students. They may repeat a work as often as they need until they master it.

Occupations are different from "jobs". Jobs are responsibilities in the classroom that the older preschoolers do for about ten minutes at 1:35 each afternoon. Jobs are feeding the fish, pushing the carpet sweeper, passing out papers, watering plants, wiping around the sink and making sure the toilets have been flushed, dusting, straightening books ... No heavy lifting required. All the members of the class depend on each student to perform his/her job.

Work requires initiative. A student must take action to choose a work from the shelves, receive instruction, and follow through with the required learning task. Work ranges from stringing wooden beads to learning about biomes and continents, or carrying in addition. Work is a personal responsibility for growth. The students who continually challenge themselves in their work choices are usually the happiest kids.

Occupations are for grown-ups. When I was a kid each school year seemed to include a unit on "Our Community Helpers"--firemen, policemen, teachers, garbage men, doctors, and dentists, plus Mr. Toothbrush. My classmates were briefly impressed that my dad (and at one time my mom) was an engineer. Then I had to explain that he didn't drive a choo-choo train. Bummer.

The best I understood it, my dad went to a smoky-smelling office where he drew on big paper to figure out how to make buildings stand up. He got to use mechanical pencils and a T-square. I knew he kept his "brains" in his shirt pocket, with all sorts of block-printed letters and numbers. When he left the office to catch the bus home he said good bye to Faye, a strange lady with odd yellow hair and a candy dish on her desk who wasn't a mommy. Sometimes Dad brought big rolls of sweet-scented blueprint paper home for us to draw giant pictures. Other times Dad took me along when he went to watch construction workers to see if they were doing a good job following his instructions. I was sure that failure to follow instructions led to building collapse.

Dad was still an engineer when my sons were born, but not when they were old enough to appreciate blueprint paper and construction sites. My sons had a tougher time understanding what their father did at the office. Based on visits to their father's place of employment, their dad got money to buy our groceries by burning popcorn in the microwave and drinking Diet Coke.

Although I was a homemaker, I got to speak at the first grade Career Day once. I was very involved designing and sewing costumes for the local children's theater. It was an avocation, something I loved doing.

During the calm afternoon "Line Time" before the classroom jobs today, we chatted about occupations. I told students the names for occupations, and they guessed about the jobs involved. We started off with -ologists, and moved on to -icians. Mathematicians, musicians, and magicians, dieticians (who do not bury dead people!), herpetologists, geologists, and paleontologists...

One student explained his parents' occupation thus:

They get a bag of broken money to fix. Then they fix it. They make it better. Then they put the money back in the bag and give it back.

It sounds like an easy work-from-home laundering job, and better than wiping up around the sink and making sure the toilets are flushed. So, basically, if you are the parent of a preschooler, it might be good to help your child understand what you do for a living before the FBI is called in!

Self Evaluation:

Occupation **

Job **

Work ****

Career *

Avocation ***

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Don't touch the hot _________!

Guess that appliance!

The preschoolers are struggling with the kitchen nomenclature work this week. "Kitchen" is a vocabulary word you surely must know, and don't call me Shirley. "Nomenclature" is a weird vocabulary word that should be defined as "some darn chunk stuck halfway down my throat," as in "We had to slap Joe Billy Dean on the back when he couldn't swaller Ma's deep-fried nomenclature."

Actually, nomenclature means a system of terminology. The word derives from the job description of a Roman steward, the Nomenclator, who announced visitors [called their names] and prompted stumped politicians to recall names and pet causes of constituents. You just can't make this stuff up in a Presidential year.

It's difficult to prompt politicians if you've got some greasy chunk of hush puppy stuck beyond your uvula, which is also known as "that hangy-down thang" in your throat. Because I'm learning the Spanish names for fruits along with the students, "uvas" is my word for the day. Uvas = grapes. That hangy-down thang is named for a "fancied resemblance of the organ to small grapes."

The point of this story is that our young-uns these days are better at naming the current president [George Washington] than they are at naming that hot thing with four burners and a Tollhouse cookie-baking oven. The kids can name measuring cups, microwaves, sinks, pans, and sponges. They know that refrigerator begins with Fffff -- fuh, fuh, fuh, fruh, fridj. So far, no child age 3-5 has been able to name that stove.

Home-cooking ain't what it used to be back in Bobbie Gentry's day!




© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Cupcake destickification

Miss Inez Baker would never have allowed it. The purpose of school is education, she would have explained. Birthday parties are not a function of education. The realm of education does not encircle frosted cupcakes. Amen!

I do wish the former principal of Eastridge Elementary School could have been in command this week. Three preschoolers were celebrating their birthdays. Three days parents sent hyper-iced cupcakes. Three days we dealt with stickiness and post-pastry crabbiness.

A cupcake is a nice thing to share for a birthday. At your home. Or your neighborhood park. Or roller rink. Your swim pool is good. Kids can jump in and wash off.

At school kids can't jump in and wash off. There are no fire hoses to spray down the classroom after two dozen preschoolers have sensory cupcake experiences. Cupcakes are the birthday equivalent of Dr. Seuss's Oobleck.

Let me enumerate the ways that preschoolers consume frosted cupcakes at school although they surely eat like little ladies and gentlemen at home:

1. The Face Plant is a technique for smashing one's face full-contact down into the frosting until hitting the cake layer. Danger of suffocation noted.


2. The I Want To Go Play Now method requires stuffing the entire cupcake into one's mouth. It usually leads to a prolonged period of sitting in one's chair until chewing and swallowing are completed.


3. Paper And All is for bold, yet undiscriminating eaters. Like my grandma who ate the tails of shrimp at Norfolk's Broasted Chicken restaurant, eaters are not deterred by a bit of roughage.


4. You Got Chocolate, But I Got Vanilla--nothing gets past these observant preschoolers. They also notice that you got a Disney Ariel Mermaid ring in your frosting, but they got Mulan. There is a circle in hell reserved for parents who send a mixed batch of decorated cupcakes to school. Just ask Disney Dante. The darn rings must be exhumed from the frosting, washed, and dried, then distributed. Nobody wants the princess they were dealt in the luck of the draw.


5. Total Paralysis occurs in children who are terrified of getting something on their fingers. They cannot remove the paper muffin cup from the cupcake. They cannot pick up the cupcake. They cannot pass Go or collect $200.


6. Circuitous Nibbling is for children who can remove the muffin cup, but want to eat the cake part in a revolving manner while getting the frosting stuck on their nose. This method reaches an inevitable infrastructure cave-in. Preferred by future geologists.


7. The Smear Campaign is a share-the-wealth policy of some students who manage to spread their frosting largesse onto an amazing number of classmates and teachers. They will be the glad-handing politicians of the future.

Should your preschool child have an approaching birthday, please invest in a mini-muffin pan or a shaped cookie cutter. The teachers will love you!

Good birthday classroom snacks:

• Mini blueberry, cranberry, or banana muffins


• Cheese cut in shapes, with pretzels and an apple slice


• Oatmeal raisin or ginger snap cookies


• Two graham crackers with frosting in between


• Fresh fruit kabobs


• Apple juice with fresh-popped popcorn


• Unsalted blue corn chips and slices of bell pepper


• Toasted English muffin quarters spread with peanut butter or honey


• Very small servings of fresh fruit smoothie


• Trail mix with seeds, pretzels, raisins, and about 2 M&Ms per child


• Something you grew in your home garden

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Early Rabbit Warning System

The brain is an amazing thing. Somewhere in my subconscious there's an indication on my Permanent Record that I'm Very Afraid the class rabbit will get out of the school building on my watch. So when my subconscious wanted to alert me to a malfunctioning air conditioner at twelve midnight, an escapee rabbit went running amok in the parking lot of my dream. Little dream preschoolers were all screaming in Edvard Munch horror, "The rabbit is out! The rabbit is out!"

Dang! Instantly I was sitting straight up, wide awake, feeling the adrenalin race through my body. Pour a pot of truck stop coffee right into my veins and bark, "Timmy's in the well!"

The a/c was running, running, running the same way the rabbit was running dream loops around the parking lot. Over my pounding heart I could eventually hear the dripping of the over-worked a/c condenser coils down into my closet and light fixture. Not again! My fight-or-flight rush helped me put buckets under the drips, adjust the thermostat, pour bleach down the condensate drain, and check the furnace filter.

Friday was an extremely oppressive, hot and muggy day with dreadful air quality. The poor air conditioner had done its best in the battle. I would be wide awake for three more hours to appreciate its efforts, and to worry and plan the fall art class syllabus. Thanks to the Early Rabbit Warning System, the dripping was into a bucket. Condo ownership nightmare averted. Munch mission accomplished.

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Loud worms

It's quiet here. Not too quiet. The lurking trenchcoat detective in the shadows would soon pick up suspicious sounds.

Soft sounds, but still, not the silence I expected having read Peter Spier's Gobble, Growl, Grunt to children for a quarter century. On the next to last page of that beloved picture book, the quiet animals get their moment in the spotlight. Rabbits, worms, goldfish, salamanders, and mute swans are noted with a old-timey librarian's "SHHHHHH."



This week my condo holds loud worms and a bagpipe bunny. There are so many worms in my ten-gallon Rubbermaid vermicompost bin that I can hear them wiggling through the dirt when I pop the top. Like Horton hearing the Who, I hear little red wigglers singing karaoke Paul Simon:

Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence

The condo is calm on this rare rainy day. The rabbit is making funny muffled squeezy sounds. Yes, the preschool class rabbit is vacationing at my combination scenic serenity spa and elderbunny hostel. [Don't alert the paparazzi!] Norton is the celebrity featured facilitator. Last night adoring autograph-seekers and fabulously gorgeous twenty-something women petted him late into the night. Denying the way of the flesh, he keynoted a contemplative workshop this morning. When he eats his fresh basil, celery hearts, cilantro, and fresh plums, Rinpoche Norton makes satisfied audible ommms and hummmms.

With two long ears to the dirt, life is good.

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Vegetable tastings against my will

When my sons are home, I learn about the popular culture and television that I usually avoid. This summer I've been introduced to "No Reservations," on the Travel Channel. The host, writer, chef, and grump, Anthony Bourdain, travels to different parts of the globe with a willingness to eat whatever weird food item is part of the local cuisine.

Of course, my sons also watch "Dirty Jobs" on the Discovery Channel, hosted by Mike Rowe. At first I didn't distinguish between the two shows, and thought the New Orleans Norwegian rats caught on the one were being wok-fried on the other. Please be patient. I've just arrived on this planet. I still think Rachel Ray has a sister named Evoo.

The preschoolers give me plenty of opportunites to clean up dirty jobs without special infrared night vision goggles. The school garden has provided two episodes for my own culinary growth show, known as "Severe Aversions."

We grew a brussel sprout plant that provided close to one hundred fresh mini-sprouts in July. The little students had to be really strong to pull the sprouts from the stalk. Cooked with enough garlic and olive oil, the two I willingly ate were quite tasty.

Now I understand why Southerners grow and eat okra. The last few weeks have been brutally hot, but the okra plant is thriving. It's a bush really, and about as big as those inflated Christmas Santas. The blossoms are a lovely creamy yellow with alizarin crimson centers. Today we sampled our pickled produce, and I'm sad to report the okra was slimy and disgusting.

So perhaps on pay-per-view brussel sprouts knock out okra.

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Plum bunny loves me

The preschool bunny might be up for some Bohemian plum dumplings. He's decided that I'm his buddy again after a considerable period of indifference. The reason for his change of heart? Irrational rabbit rapture for plums eaten way down to the pits!

These delicious plums came from the grand opening of the Sprouts Farmers Market grocery store at Coit and Campbell, the latest destination in my summer "staycation". I've been eating the plums at lunch or snack, then letting Norton nibble the leftovers. To let me know he's appreciative, he snuggles up next to me while students do their reading aloud work. It's great fun, since the children think Norton has come to listen to their reading, and we all read better with an audience!

A rabbit lets you know he cares by galloping around your feet in tight circles and occasional figure eights. This hilarious cross between figure skating and lagomorph rodeo might have been the inspiration for one of my favorite picture books. Oh, I will be so disappointed if Rabbits On Roller Skates, by Jan Wahl, has been culled from my library's shelves!

Driving home after the vigil service about eight tonight, the sun was setting in a luscious, intensely glowing, plum color. True, the effect was probably due to all the particulates and ozone in our air, but I'd like to think that my student is reading to a happy rabbit out there somewhere.


Somebody loves me, I wonder who
I wonder who he can be
Somebody loves me, I wish I knew
Who can he be worries me
(Buddy DaSilva / George Gershwin / Ballard MacDonald) 1924

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Eleven never again

At the end of an extremely sad and stressful week, I walked up the sidewalk to the church to attend the visitation and vigil for a student. A young man in a black suit came along behind me and said, "Miss? Miss?" I thought he was going to tell me I had dropped something, or ask me about the baby bird nearby that must have fallen out of its nest on this 104 degree day.

"Did you know the deceased, miss?" Well, yes. That is generally why one goes to funerals.

"Friend or family?" Teacher.

"How would you describe, uh," he checks his Blackberry, then says the child's name.

"Sweet. Excuse me, I have to go now."

"Could you describe her or your reactions to her death for us? We're from Channel 11 News and we just want to get some impressions of her so others will know." A chubby guy with a big camera on a monopod appears from behind a parked car.

"No. I could not do that."

"Are you sure?"

"I absolutely will not do that."

They turned back to set up their approach to the next mourner.

Life isn't fair. My student didn't make it. The baby bird on the hot sidewalk didn't either. Walking back to my car after the service, the baby bird had been covered with a white paper napkin held down around the edges with a border of twigs and pebbles. Maybe you can see it on CBS 11 at ten. I won't.

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Day Three at the Larry Book Festival

The Larry movement is building momentum. If Barack Obama had a lick of sense, he would name Larry the polar bear as his running mate.

Larry is the Classroom Motivator. He's about Change and Making Things Happen. I tell a preschooler in a low voice, "Hey, I hope you can get this work done so we have enough time to read about Larry." The work gets done!

Today we read At the Hotel Larry. It is difficult disguising a nine and a half foot tall polar bear to take him to the Pancake Palace. You have to dress him in a very big coat, hat, and sunglasses, and pretend he is your uncle from Milwaukee. Preschoolers understand pancakes!

Tomorrow, I will take a very big coat to school, along with a beret, so the kids can put on a disguise. We will look for Milwaukee and New Jersey on the map. Now I just need to find some dark sunglasses.

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Larry Festival Day Two

Backtracking to the beginning of the story, we shared Young Larry during afternoon line time. Larry, the polar bear creation of Daniel Pinkwater, was a middle-sized bear when his mother indicated he should fend for himself. Larry and his brother, Roy, were each nine and a half feet tall.

How tall is that? What does nine and a half feet look like? We found that it looks like two and three quarters preschoolers placed head to head and toe to toe on the rug and measured with a ruler. A full-grown male polar bear would be about three and a half preschoolers tall standing up on its hind legs.

Charged up from attending a weekend literacy workshop, I'm ready to let the students sit closer to the picture book when I read, and intent on reinforcing listening comprehension after stories. We spent a lot of time discussing jobs--Larry's job as a lifeguard, our parents' jobs, our own classroom jobs. Then we spent time considering swimming and muffins. Larry wanted a job so he could get money to buy muffins. What do parents buy with the money they earn at their jobs?

One student has learned to alphabetize simple words, giving my cataloging heart great joy. To demonstrate the power of his new skill, we spent time in the index of the great big book of animals. We looked up lemurs and polar bears. I'm very fond of both animals, as I spent so much time watching them with my little sons at Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo.

It is only Day Two of the Larry Book Festival, and already I'm feeling cool and refreshed. If I can teach just one child to use an index, it will help preserve civilization such as it is. Remember the ancient proverb:

Give a kid a fish and he can feed a polar bear.
Teach a kid to alphabetize and he can look up "polar bear" in the index.

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

The Larry Book Festival

As it is not possible to spend this week floating on a chunk of ice about as far north as one can go from Texas, I have reached the only logical conclusion. It is time to host "The Larry Book Festival" in the preschool classroom.

This event won't be patterned after the Texas Book Festival I was fortunate to attend two years ago in Austin. For one thing, Barack Obama and Maureen Dowd won't be speaking. There won't be any authors signing books, or vender tents selling Lemon Snow and Brats-On-A-Stick.

"The Larry Book Festival" won't be McMurtry, either. Driving back from Lubbock in the fall of 2004, I went out of my way to visit Booked Up, Larry McMurtry's collection of stores selling used and antiquarian books around the town square of Archer City. To be honest, all Booked Up did for me was activate my dusty moldy book allergy with a vengence.

The namesake of "The Larry Book Festival" is the charming, smart, clueless, preadolescent polar bear creation of Daniel and Jill Pinkwater. Larry the polar bear is the lifeguard at the Hotel Larry, owned by Martin, Semolina, and Mildred Frobisher. Larry is the brother of Roy, one of the polar bears at the Bayonne, New Jersey zoo. Ever since Larry and Roy's polar bear mother hit each of them on the head and told them to "Get lost. Go and fend for yourselves," I have had a fond, chilled place in my heart for this fending bear.

I discovered Larry, Roy, and their mother polar bear at the library where I worked when my three sons were charming, smart, clueless preadolescents, more or less. It was a good reminder that a parent's job is to prepare teens to get lost and go fend for themselves for the most part. Nature is harsh. It makes sure parents and children keep that end goal in mind. Seems to me a lot of human parents these days need a hit on the head to remind them of the end goal, which is self-sufficient adult offspring.

So this week I'll be sharing a Larry picture book with my students each day, while I give my brain a little iceberg floating time. We started with Bongo Larry today, and practiced cool beatnik finger-snapping. Tomorrow we'll learn about blueberry muffins. Maybe on Friday we can have them for a special literary Larry snack!



© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Nibbling away the plus signs that make up a dull day

The classroom rabbit appeared in a dream eating all the green plus and equal signs the students use for addition manipulatives. It was an extremely vivid dream, to the point that I believed it really happened, and checked the math center the next day. Norton nibbles on the occasional shoe or pant leg, but addition isn't really his cup of tea.

Like many of Phil Gramm's whiners, I feel like the plus signs have been eaten in my household budget, and the equal signs are showing tooth marks. My Albertson's is selling the store brand of milk for $4.99/gallon. I won't carry on, as you can probably sing along with different words to the same song.

Time Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way.
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way.
Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain.
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today.
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you.
No one told you when to run,
you missed the starting gun.

Pink Floyd (Mason, Waters, Wright, Gilmour)

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Elvis Skipped Hobby Lobby

I met up with him in the beads and doo-dahs aisle at Michael's Craft Store this afternoon. He had the sideburns, the hairdo, the slimy black outfit. I knew it was him. The King. Elvis.

I was looking for doo-dahs to commemorate the preschool summer school study of the United States and our state of Texas, and possibly our future unit about the Olympics. Elvis seemed to be looking for sequins and sparkly stars. He seemed nice enough, for a deceased rock icon, but a bit preoccupied.

I'd already browsed JoAnn's Craft Store, the Dollar Store, and Hobby Lobby in my unsuccessful search. At Hobby Lobby the employees were setting up the Christmas display. That kind of nauseated me, so I was feeling a tad "peaked" when I got to Michael's. Elvis didn't resemble his later life postage stamp, so he must have been off his feed. Neither of us could be described as "puny", although we might not have been "up to par". Elvis and I aren't exactly wearing petite sizes these days, even if he is a mere shadow of his former self.

puny adj. Of inferior size, strength, or significance; weak.

peak-ed adj. Having a sickly, pale, or emaciated appearance; drawn.

off one's feed Have no desire to eat, have lost one's appetite. Originating in the early 1800s and first used only for animals, this colloquial term later was applied to humans as well.

up to par At the usual or expected standard. When your work is up to par we can review your salary again. Are your computer skills up to par?
Usage notes: often used in the form not up to par: She hasn't been up to par since the beginning of last week.

Kind of scary, really. Ashen Presley impersonators golfing and shopping for baubles.
Sure hope Elvis had more luck on his shopping trip than me.

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Peter Rabbit On Steroids

I love sitting in as Crowd Control in the summer music classes. The last time I felt this good about my musical aptitude was in Mrs. Ballard's morning kindergarten class of '60-'61. I could play a mean pair of red sticks in rhythm band back then, but it didn't lead to a recording contract.

Thankfully, the students have finished singing "Did You Ever See a Lassie/Laddie" in music class. The kids took turns imitating a peer leader who either stood still while staring into space, or went totally berserko dancing in the middle of the circle.

Now the kids are doing a call and response folk song about "John the Rabbit":

John the rabbit, OH YES!
John the rabbit, OH YES!
He has a mighty bad habit, OH YES!
Of jumping in my garden, OH YES!
He ate all my tomatoes, OH YES!
And sweet potatoes, OH YES!
And if I live to see next fall, OH YES!
I just won't have any garden at all. OH YES!

This is an old play party song, so there are many different versions. John the Rabbit seems to be both trickster and Everyman, pro- and anti- tagonist. John isn't Peter Rabbit, or Peter's cousin, Little Benjamin Bunny. John is Peter Rabbit crossed with John Henry, Casey Jones, and Paul Bunyan. John the Rabbit is "Big Bad John," the mythic, mysterious giant miner hero of the 1961 song* recorded by Jimmie Dean, Johnny Cash, Tennessee Ernie Ford, and many others. I kid you not.

John the Rabbit is a steel-driving spinach leaf thief.
He's been pumping iron, but giving no grief.
Drove that golden carrot spike and had a big ox.

Big John the Rabbit, OH YES!
Big John
Big bad John

One Sunday morning, in the driving rain
Around the bend came a passenger train.
In the cabin stood Big Rabbit John
Noble engineer but he's dead and gone.

Big John the Rabbit, OH YES!
Big John
Big bad John

This old engine makes it on time
Leaves central station bout a quarter to nine
Hits river junction at seventeen to
At a quarter to ten you know its travlin again:

Peter Rabbit don't you call me, 'cause I can't go! I owe my soul to the company store.

As far as I know, John the Rabbit is not linked to the recent murder-suicide-love triangle of the female weight-lifting champ, the steroid dealer, and the former Cowboys player here in my own North Texas suburb. Still, I'm having nightmares about big blue bicep bunnies, freight trains, coal mines, and brussel sprouts.

*Big John
Big John
Every morning at the mine, you could see him arrive.
He stood 6 foot 6, weighed 245.
Kind of broad at the shoulders, narrow at the hip.
And everybody knew you didn't give no lip to Big John.

Big John
Big John
Big bad John
Nobody seemed to know where John called home.
He just drifted into town and stayed all alone.
He didn't say much, kind of quiet and shy,
And if you spoke at all, you'd just said hi to Big John.

Big John
Big John
Big Bad John
Then came the day at the bottom of the mine,
When a timber cracked and men started crying.
Miners were praying, and hearts beat fast
And everybody thought they had breathed their last
cept' John.

Big John
Big John
Big Bad John
Through the dust and the smoke of this man-made hell,
Walked a giant of a man that the miners knew well.
Grabbed a sagging timber and gave out with a groan,
And like a giant oak tree he just stood there alone.

Big John
Big Bad John
Big John
And with all of his strength, he gave a mighty shove.
Then a miner yelled out, 'theres a light up above!'.
And twenty men scrambled from a would-be grave
now theres only one left down there to save,
Big John.


© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Arabella Miller

Found this fresh, fun picture book on the New Book Shelf at my public library, and checked it out for my preschool class. The kids loved it, and I couldn't wait for them to ask me for an encore reading. You might say, "It has a good beat; you can dance to it," if it were on Preschool Bandstand with Dick Clark. The large format and clear, vibrant illustrations made it perfect for circle time.

I returned the book before I learned that "Little Arabella Miller" is a favorite British nursery rhyme and finger play. Clare Jarrett's picture book expands on the nursery rhyme to show the life cycle of the caterpillar.

There are several online sources for the words and actions of the nursery rhyme:

Little Arabella Miller had a fuzzy caterpillar (Tickle palm with two fingers)
First it crawled up on her mother (Walk fingers up left arm)
Then upon her baby brother (Walk fingers up right arm)
They said, "Arabella Miller! (Walk fingers up over head)
Put away your caterpillar!" (Hide hands behind back)

It would be fun creating a finger play for Jarrett's new verses. I hope Arabella arrives on your library's New Book Shelf. Check it out!

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

The Preschool Zone

Working with preschoolers involves a lot of time spent bending. When John Cusack got off the elevator on floor seven-and-a-half in Being John Malkovich, his back entered The Preschool Zone. We seem to work in the same building.

Working with preschoolers also involves bending time. While I've never read that Einstein taught preschool, I'm sure that's where he first formulated his theory of general relativity.

Space and time bend and curve in Einstein's theories. Space and time bend and curve when you enter a preschool. Gravitation and acceleration spice up both. The closer the student is to the ground, the slower time goes. It is impossible to accelerate the process of six three-year-olds going potty and washing up for snacktime.

Did you ever jump up and race down the stairs in the dark at the end of Act I at the Dallas Opera's Carmen, risking life and limb in your fancy high heels in a vain attempt to beat the line at the ladies' restroom? And the line was how long when you got there? LONG. VERY LONG.

Did you ever attempt to use the womens' restrooms between innings at the old Texas Rangers Stadium in Arlington? Or maybe at half-time of a sub-freezing Cornhuskers football game when everyone's wearing multiple layers? SLOW PROGRESS. SLOW.

Remember enclosing yourself in the reflective triangle made by tri-fold fitting room mirrors? Imagine the entire Rangers restroom line trapped, bent, refracted, multiplied, and snowflaked inside that triangle of mirrors. That's the experience of washing up for preschool snack! Don't even contemplate glancing at the clock!

• The ticking rate of a clock depends on the motion of the observer of that clock.


• Clocks tick more slowly the closer they are to a gravitational mass like the sun.


• Einstein was thinking of gravity as equivalent to acceleration, as a geometrical phenomenon, as a bending of time and space.

Further decelerating the process is the preschoolers' limited understanding of the flush capacitor. That is almost, but not quite, the same as the flux capacitor Dr. Emmett Brown and Marty McFly used to time travel in the "Back To the Future" movies. When you ask a preschooler, "Did you flush?," you get the same look and speed of reply as when you ask Dick Cheney if he orchestrated blowing Valerie Plame's CIA cover.

In The Preschool Zone each and every weekend is a disruption of the space-time continuum. There's always a disconnect from Friday afternoon to Monday morning. Rose Mary Woods once again erased 18 1/2 minutes of Nixon's White House Watergate tapes. Dubya is back to sounding out the words in his goat picture book.

Small children have to rediscover how to work the soap and paper towel dispensers. The lower you are, the longer it takes!

"May I go to the restroom?," a preschooler asks. "Yes," I say. Dinosaurs have evolved into birds when that student comes back to report a problem.

• Open the pod bay doors, HAL.
• I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.
• What's the problem?
• I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do.

She's afraid, she can't do that. What's the problem? One toilet hasn't been flushed. Can she use the other toilet? No, somebody left the seat up on that one. That Einstein! He always forgets to flush!

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder