Lego Words

I'm going to try not to put too many teacher-related posts on this blog. However, as teaching takes up the bulk of my life sometimes I just have to share things that I do! This quarter for graduate school, I am taking a class where I tutor in the university's learning center. I have two students that I tutor, one gives me no trouble and I actually enjoy working with her. The other, a second grade boy, is making my life very difficult! I don't do so well with young children and he has decided he hates me and will not work for me. He literally throws temper tantrums in the middle of the tutoring center, which is very embarrassing! All the little boy wants to do is draw or talk about legos. So, I started looking on the internet for ideas with Legos. I tweaked an idea I found online and tried it out for the first time on Tuesday. It worked! Okay, I suppose I can't say that yet, because I don't have long-term evidence that it actually will help him with spelling/reading...but for me, it worked.

I got a Lego set and labeled each lego with a letter. I used short legos for the "short letters" (a, c, e...) and taller legos for the "tall letters" (b, d, f...). I used masking tape and a sharpie to do this (I figured the sharpie would smear on the plastic Lego). Armed with my bag of Lego bags (but struggling with a nasty case of Laryngitis), I was cautiously optimistic when I went in for our tutoring. I had told him about the idea the previous week (when I was searching for some sort of bribe!), so he was expecting the Legos.

We did his other homework first, and then I placed the Legos in alphabetical order. He had 9 spelling words for the week. I showed him how to pick out the letters and snap them together to build a word. This activity helped him by having him practice identifying letters (he really struggles with naming isolated letters, so searching for the correct letter was a task in its own) and of course practicing the words. He would build a word (with the list in front of him), saying the letters aloud a few times, and then he would add the new word onto his creation. When he had built all nine words, I had him take apart the mass creation he built. This reinforced the words again, because he had to think about which "chunks" were his words. I had him really look at the shape of the legos (for instance, blue has two tall letters and then two short letters). We took apart all of the legos and then I had him do four words without the list. Guess what? He got all four words right!

He really enjoyed this activity and was very into the idea of "building words," just like he would build a robot or a house. I am definitely going to use this idea with my children as a tool to get them engaged in making words before they enter into school. I highly recommend this activity!

Book Club List

At my last book club, we were discussing how in April it will be our two year anniversary! When I first decided to try to put my life-long dream of belonging to a book club in action, I didn't have very many girlfriends in Columbus. I asked one of my best friends, Tara; my sister, Amanda; my husband's best friend's wife, Kristin; and a few other not-so-close friends. These three, along with two people Kristin brought, came to my house for the first meeting. Now there are seven of us and almost all of them are my best friends. I look forward to our monthly meetings so much, not just to discuss the great book choices, but also to catch up. We all see each other outside of book club, as well; however, book club nights are always some of the best!



As we reflected a little on how book club has changed and grown, we realized we should have a "master list" of all the books we've read. So, that is what I'm listing below.

April 2010 (Jenna): Summer Sisters by Judy Blume
June 2010 (Kristin): Twenties Girl by Sophie Kinsella
July 2010 (Tara): Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
August 2010 (Heather): Grave of God's Daughter by Brett Ellen Block
October 2010 (Amanda): Bitter is the New Black by Jen Lancaster
November 2010 (Jenna): Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
January 2011 (Lauren): The Carrie Diaries by Candance Bushnell
February 2011 (Karly): The Help by Kathryn Stockett
March 2011 (Kristin): Breakfast at Tiffany's  by Truman Capote
April 2011 (Kelli): The Secret Life of Cee Cee Wilkes by Diane Chamberlain
May 2011 (Kim): The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls
June 2011 (Tara): The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
July 2011 (Jenna): Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
August 2011 (Amanda): Running With Scissors by Augusten Burroughs
September 2011(Karly): Are You There Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea. by Chelsea Handler (dinner and went to see The Help)
October 2011 (Kim): Room by Emma Donoghue
November 2011 (Kristin): Elegance by Kathleen Tessaro
January 2012 (Kelli): Summer's Child by Diane Chamberlain
February 2012 (Tara): One Thousand White Women by Jim Fergus
March 2012 (Jamie): The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman

Harry Potter Festivities

As I am newly obsessed with Harry Potter, along with many of my friends, I have been watching all of the movies (although so far from being as good the books, still entertaining). So, for the last two movies, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 and 2, I decided to have a few friends over for some Harry-themed food and drinks. We all had a blast pretending to be at a ten-year-old's themed birthday party!

What did I serve?
Ollivander's Magical Wands (pretzel rods with ranch and bacon dip)
Bat Wings (chicken wings)
Polyjuice Potion (white chicken chili)
Burrow Cornbread (cornbread muffins with Harry Potter picks)
Chocolate Frogs (chocolate frogs, melted green chocolate in a frog mold with candy eyeballs)

Bernie Bott's Every Flavor Bean (jelly belly jelly beans)
Butterbeer

(Adult) Butterbeer Recipe*
1- 2 liter of Cream Soda
1 1/2 cups of butterscotch snapps
Mix this together in a pitcher. Pour out into glass and add
1 tsp of melted butter
top with crushed butterscotch discs

*This was really delicious, but very sweet. I think next time, I would like to substitute the cream soda for root beer.