Famous Last Words: Week 13 What I am Thankful for

This week has been busy for most of us I am sure! The holidays always cause havoc on my schedule. I was able to travel home to spend the holidays with my family and for that I am very thankful! I enjoyed my much needed time off. My nephew’s birthday is this week and I was able to stay home to celebrate with him. I am thankful that I have got to watch him grow into a kind hearted little man. Even if he is only six, there is so much to say about the amazing things he has done. I learn from each and every day, nothing like a child’s perspective! He has conquered a diaphragmatic hernia, adhesions from the first surgery, and doctor’s appointments on doctor’s appointments. He was in the hospital for 3 weeks after he was born. His first surgery was at four days old. We were unable to hold him until after he was 17 days old. He fought for life each and every day during those three weeks. That is a big reason of why he is my inspiration for several things. Any time I think going to the doctor doesn’t sound like fun I just think of what all he had to go through and how one doctor’s appointment is meaningless. He was put through another surgery at four years old. The adhesions from the first surgery were wrapped around his bowel and it was 12 hours from bursting when he was transported to his surgeon at OU children’s hospital. Another reason OU holds a place close in my heart. They have taken awesome care of the one that is most important to me in life.

 I was also relieved that we were able to pull another bedlam win this weekend! Boomer Sooner!  

Baker for Heisman! 

Growth Mindset: Memes Week 13

One of the Growth Mindset challenges I have completed is finding memes. I have found several inspiring memes. I like the ones that have to animals. I have found that people really like to do commentary on their own cat or dog, which makes me happy because I do that with my own dog. I think memes are a quick way to tell someone to keep going or to give someone a quick laugh. I have liked using memes throughout my blog. Here are a few of my favorites.

 

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Storytelling Week 12: Tribe 321

Lauren is putting up the tree,

Hoping that underneath soon there will be,

Presents for her and all of us to see.

She has asked day and night,

Waiting for all of us to say without a fight,

Yes we will put up the Christmas tree tonight!

She claims to be Cindy lou hoo,

But the Christmas lights she chose were the color blue.

However, you won’t see a frown from Lauren

Not unless you catch her snoring

After all, a moment with her is never boring.

Then there is Hannah,

Who really likes to eat bananas,

Never does she swear,

Because after all she really does care.

She really likes to dance,

In her Mario Pajama pants,

She also likes to do hand stands,

Even though she can barely land.

She often causes a clatter

Which makes our downstairs neighbor wonder what’s the matter.

Occasionally she ends up on the bar

Because she thinks she is a star

Last but not least there is Shelbi

You never know where she will be,

Often she is hiding behind a dark corner

Ready to scare the living daylights out of a foreigner,

She too likes to dance,

Usually late at night,

Is the best time to see such a sight.

Watch out for her on the floor,

there she sleeps but she will never snore,

However when she is awake,

Everyone knows she is not fake.

Upstairs there is one that doesn’t belong,

He bangs and clangs all day long,

His steps are heavy,

His name is probably something like eddy,

We often bang on the ceiling,

Trying to make him understand our feeling,

We put up with the noise,

At least until august,

We’ve made our self that promise,

In our moments of despair,

We just have to scream it is not fair!

Now that you have met the tribe of 321,

You know how these rhymes once begun.

It all started from scratch,

That is when this sisterhood began to hatch,

For each other we would fight,

Against each other sometimes we just might,

Through burnt dinners and undone laundry,

We have learned to just laugh and have a party,

Different paths we may take,

Because after all life is no cupcake,

However I know that I can always count on my tribe,

Even without a bribe.

Author's Note:

I had a hard time trying to retell a nursery rhyme so I decided to make my own rhymes. The rhymes are about my roommates. Don't worry I read them all out loud to them so they know exactly what they say. While trying to write the rhymes I realized how difficult it can be. I also included what we go through with our upstairs neighbor. I hope that my rhymes at least give someone a good laugh!

Personal Photo of Tribe 321

Since one story did not inspire me more than the other here is the link to the Nursery Rhymes

Bibliography 

The Nursery Rhyme Book by Andrew Lang (1897).

Reading Diary A: Nursery Rhymes

I chose to read Nursery Rhymes this week.

A few things I noticed while reading these Nursery Rhymes: The alliteration used and the rhyming scheme. I always liked nursery rhymes as a child and I enjoyed the first reading of this unit.

A few of my favorites of the nursery rhyme tales

The Lion and the Unicorn

There was a Crooked Man – in this one the word “crooked” is repeated several times. It was used to describe his behaviors and objects he came in contact with.

I found the one about Simple Simon to be very strange. This rhyme did not have a significant ending to me.

In the proverbs I liked the rhyme If Wishes Were Horses.

I also liked the line about how laziness and wickedness take more hours of sleep. I think this is true because it is easier to be nice to someone then to work at being mean or making their life difficult.

My favorite from the Proverbs would be Monday’s Child. I think the rhyme sums how society feels about days of the week. I think it is strange that even from an old nursery rhyme we can see that Monday is not the best day of the week. We can also see how the rest of the world is perceived. 

Nursery Rhymes

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Storytelling: Week 12 The Mistress and the Witches

There was a knock at the door.

When she opened it she was surprised to see a dark shadow with a tall pointed hat and a broom near the side of the figure.

When the lightning struck she saw a horrifying face to the figure, which led her to scream at the top of her lungs and run backwards. While running she felt her leg hit the back of the sofa forcing her to fall and hit her head. It was then that the mistress lost her vision.

Meanwhile, at the door the witch took it upon herself to come into the mistress’s home. She found a few pastries the mistress had baked. She carried them to the couch by where the unconscious mistress lay. The witch had a seat on the couch and began to eat. She sat there slowly rocking back and forth slowly counting to eleven.

She was counting to for her sisters. After about five minutes one by one they showed up at the door.

“Hello sisters! It is time that we came here to finish our business. Someone get the kettle boiling!” said witch number one.

Witch number three and four each grabbed a leg that belonged to the mistress and started dragging her towards the fire place. They laid her there while the others gathered supplies for the pot of boiling water. They put different spices, leaves, and hair all in the water. One of them ran around the pot chanting a curse.

Slowly the mistress started to regain consciousness. She realized what was happening. The man she had been seeing had warned her that they would come for her. He was married to a woman that would not let him go. He rebelled by sleeping with women, but every time his wife found out he had another lover she would cast a spell. The spell involved one witch at first, but since the first day the man cheated the numbers have grown.

The witches gathered the body of the mistress and put her in a chair.

“It is time!” said witch number one.

Then the twelfth witch brought over a bowl that the witches had been cooking.

The first witch looked down at the mistress and said “This won’t hurt a bit. It is time you became one of us.” She then splashed the concoction onto the mistress’s face. Her smooth clear skin then turned to wrinkles and she began to grow a horn on her head.

The curse was now complete. The witches’ numbers had grown to thirteen and the wife was completely happy that the woman had become one the thirteen ugliest people in the world.

The Horned Women

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Bibliography 

The Horned Women by Joseph Jacobs from Celtic Fairy Tales (1892).

Author's Note: 

The original story made me think of how the witches would have appeared. I thought of how strange it would have been to be the mistress. It made me wonder why the mistress deserved this treatment. that inspired me to write of a cheating mistress and how the wife was able to seek revenge on every woman the helped her husband cheat. I thought the Celtic tales were very entertaining and could be interpreted in many different ways.

Extra Reading Diary: Celtic Fairy Tales

The Field of Boliauns

Characters:

·         Tom Fitzpatrick

·         Leprechaun

Setting: The hedge

When reading this story I could picture the leprechaun being a tiny guy that was trying to get away from the human. I think the leprechaun was probably scare of that was going to happen to him. That is probably what sparked the lie of telling Tom about the gold. I could picture Tom looking over the hedge to see something so small and how the leprechaun must have felt.

The Horned Women

Characters:

·         The witches

·         The mistress

Setting: The mistress’s house

I thought this story was very peculiar. It was weird to think that every time the woman answered the door there was a witch there. I thought it was fitting that the witches had horns because it reminded me of how witches are usually perceived. Most of the time they have warts or strange skin color when an image is provided. I sympathized with the mistress thinking how scared she must have been. 

When I think of a witch, the witch from the wizard of Oz comes to mind.

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Storytelling week 11: The Birth of Robin Hood

There once was a boy that had no family. He was raised by the wolves in the woods. He grew from a small boy into a man that respected the woods very much. It was his home.

When he was old enough to separate from his wolf brothers and their den he set off on an adventure to find a new home. He walked through the forest talking to the birds and other animals he met along the way.

He thought he would never run out of the dirt path through the magical place he lived. It was getting dark and he thought he should find a place to sleep. He climbed a tree and found a nice spot to rest his head. He gave a quick howl that echoed through the forest so his brothers could hear that he was safe for the night.

He drifted off to sleep when he heard a ruckus coming from below the tree. He opened his eyes and to his surprise there were others like him. There was a man and a woman having an argument below his tree. Robin Hood listened to what they were saying.

“Give me that purse or I will bring harm to you!” said the man.

“This is all I have and I am better off dead without it,” she screamed back.

The man then threw the woman against the tree Robin Hood was in.

Robin didn’t know much about humans. He had only been raised with wolves. Something inside him told him what was happening was not right. He had to take action against the man that hurt the lovely lady. He then grabbed a tree branch and let out a cry of war that he and his brothers used.

He then swung down from the tree knocking the man off his feet. He grabbed the bag and through it back towards the girl who was laying below the tree. He then crouched down like he did with his brothers before they were about to fight. The man pulled out a knife and pointed it towards Robin. He was not afraid he knew his brothers would be on their way. He then howled the war cry again and growled at the man.

The man did not know what was happening. He was scared because he had not seen this behavior in a human before he then dropped the knife and started running towards the town he had snatched the girl from.

When he got back to town he told the town about the boy that lived in the woods. The towns people wanted to know what he looked like and he told them about how he mostly wore leaves for clothes and had a funny shaped hat on his head. The towns people laughed at the thief and began calling the boy in the woods Robin Hood for his behavior of giving the poor girl her purse back, and for the way he dressed were you could not see anything but his eyes.

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Author’s Note:

I liked the original story of Robin Hood. The unit I read made him seem like someone else to me. I wanted to create a new image of him as well, which is why I created the wolf brothers. There isn’t much about how Robin Hood was raised so I wanted to explain his actions. I thought this would be a good time to make the audience see that he was not familiar with how to act with humans but he knew the difference from right and wrong. I also wanted to create a connection between the woods and how that life is all he had ever known. 

Bibliography:

“Robin Hood’s Progress to Nottingham,” by Francis James Child from The English and Scottish Popular Ballads (1882-1898).Story Link

Reading Diary A: Robin Hood unit

I chose to read about Robin Hood in the British unit. I was interested to read about Robin Hood because I enjoyed the fable as a child.

The first story/ ballad Robin Hood’s Progress to Nottingham was so different from what I was used to. It created a new image of Hood that I had not seen. I understand now why he stayed in the forest after seeing that he slayed many others. The language in this tale was very different from what I was used to reading. Some of the ballads were rhyming and entertaining. 

The other stories I read created several different views of how Robin Hood was perceived. It was always known that he stole from the rich to give to the poor. However, the stories made him seem more of a thug of the forest and that he was not always the giving person he was thought to be. He often wanted to battle others because he was very good at shooting his bow. This is a difference from the Robin Hood I knew because he was thought to be so modest.

I enjoyed this unit because I felt like I learned a lot about the legend of Robin Hood.

Robin Hood Unit

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Week 10: Famous Last Words

 This past week has been very stressful for me. I find myself playing catch up on Sunday evening because I chose to slack off. I was really struggling in another class and had to come to terms with it. I was also ill due to stress and allergies. Everything seemed to catch up to me all at once and it was a bit overwhelming.

It was also a busy week at work. Working with children around the time of Halloween requires a higher level of patience. We struggled with behavior issues and children that would not listen at all which makes things difficult.

I think this week will go better. I plan to stay on top of my assignments and not fall that far behind again. Writing in this class is something I enjoy. I struggle with wanting things to be perfect and not realizing they can be revised. I also enjoy the readings because most of them have a moral we can apply to everyday life.

The Native American unit was one of my favorites. I was proud of my story from the previous week, “The Deer Ghost.” I was able to relate to the story since I spend so much time in the woods. I liked being able to feel connected to the story because I hunt myself.

I like when I can make a connection to my storytelling. Rather it be a personal experience and I am creating an example, or if it is just something I am passionate about.

I think doing the Famous Last Words post will help me because I can evaluate how the week went. Hopefully this will encourage me to pick up the pace so I can excel in this course. I also plan to do more exercising and activities to relieve stress. I think time management is the key to success and is something I need to work on.

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Week 10: Growth Mindset

In the first Growth mindset post I wanted to explore how talking to my children at school about not having a fixed mindset would help them succeed. I help them with their homework and during the last few weeks their math has gotten more and more difficult for them. Seeing as I struggled with math myself I tried to give them an encouraging example of how you just have to keep trying and it doesn’t hurt to try something different. We used marbles as an example to help with the math problems so they would get a visual image instead of just writing it down on a piece of paper. I found that when they did not have homework they wanted me to write down math problems they could solve because it had made math “fun” for them.

I learned from this a better way to teach them and to help them succeed. I try to apply what works when I study to what might help them. Even though some days are more difficult than others, I think the children are starting to realize it is okay to struggle but it is not okay to give up.

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