Wanna Help a Kid???

It’s almost time for our Fall Book Fair at school.  Last year I experimented with a Follett Book Fair instead of the book fair I’d always had by the red company.    One of the things I am so excited about this Follett Book Fair is this:  Gift Cards!  Yes, Gift Cards.  Here’s why:

Follett has a website where you can buy gift cards. The gift cards are “virtual”  I get an email telling me they exist.  This allows parents of small children to purchase a gift card at home, so sweet little babies don't have to carry money to school with them.  It’s really good for kids who lose things, or who may not be able to keep from telling other kids about their Book Fair money.  It also allows people from other places to buy gift cards for the Book Fair. For example, if little Joshua goes to my school. and his Great Aunt Sandi wanted to, she could buy him a gift card, no matter where she lives – and he can use it at the Book Fair at our school.   Isn’t that a brilliant idea? All people need is the link and an email address  – and they can buy a gift card for someone. 
Book Fairs are a  lot of work. The library is closed most of the time, a whole section is rearranged to make room, there’s the stress of dealing with money and worrying about things disappearing.  But there’s another stress factor that I never noticed until I was in charge of Book Fairs.  Here’s the awful thing – in every school in the world, there are kids who love books and love to read but don’t have money for books, even the value books at the Book Fair.  They sometimes come in and look, they “fondle" all the merchandise and have to put the books down and walk away, because they don’t have money. Some who love books don’t even come in and look, because what’s the point of looking if you know you can’t have it?  It’s heartbreaking. 
There are miles of research that show having books to read at home helps kids become better readers, which leads to them being better students.  I think we’d all agree that we want the future to be handled by smarter kids, as opposed to not so smart kids, right?? 
I have lots of books that were part of my classroom library when I was a classroom teacher,  Over the years, I’ve given a lot of them away.  I can buy used books to give to kids – and I do.  Used books are better than no books, absolutely.   But, there’s nothing like a brand new book that no one has ever read except you.  The crisp pages, the unmarked spine, the perfect cover. it just feels good. . .
So why am I telling you this?  Why do I want you to care that there are kids at my school who for reasons out of their control can’t buy books at a Book Fair? Because you can help.   You can be “Great Aunt Sandi” to a kid.  It’s true, you don’t know them, you may never see them. But you will do a greater thing.  You can help a kid have a brand new book that is his or her very own.  How do you say?  It’s simple – here’s a link:
https://www.giftfly.com/shop/follett-book-fairs
If you have a little extra, $5, 10, any amount you can buy a gift card. You can send it to me: sandijimmerson@gmail.com
I’ll use your gift card to let a kid who doesn’t have any money of his or her own, buy their very own brand new book in the Book Fair.
Here’s another thing – kids don’t understand sales tax (I’m not really sure I understand it either, but I know I have to pay it.)  I usually carry around a pocket full of change during our Book Fair – to pay the sales tax for kiddos who have $5 and a 4.99 book.  My volunteers have started doing it too – everybody comes in with jingling pockets.  If you want, you can buy a gift card and put “Sales Tax” on the “For” space – and I'll use your money to pay sales tax.  If you know me and live near me and wanted to bring me some change, that would work too, but I’ll take your gift card!
It’s hard for me to ask for help for myself.  I’ll almost hurt myself trying to do things on my own.   But, I’m not proud when it comes to my students. I’ll ask for help for them. So, do you want to help a kid??

Church Dinners

I love church dinners.  I have been a Baptist church girl my whole life long. That’s not lying – my parents took me to a Baptist Church almost as soon as I was born and until I was sick in the summer of 7th grade, I could count on my fingers the number of Sunday morning church services I'd missed.  So, when I tell you that I’ve eaten a lot of church food, that’s the absolute truth. . .

 “Dinner on the grounds” – that’s what we used to call it,  I think it’s called that because you eat on the church grounds. I’ve eaten in fellowship halls, in Sunday School rooms, on a blanket outside, standing, holding my plate in my hands.   When my daddy pastored at Evergreen Missionary Baptist Church, which is in-between Davenport and Loughman, they had and still have the best outdoor pavilion for dinner on the grounds I’ve ever seen. Do you know how much food can fit down that table in the center?

 There’s a unique set of smells that comes with dinner on the grounds. Of course, for most church dinners, you simply must have fried chicken.  Add in ham,  macaroni and cheese,  and casseroles – oh the casseroles.  Potato salad,  pasta salad, cole slaw, potatoes – scalloped, au gratin, it’s all good.  Butter beans, lima beans, green beans, it just goes on and on and on.

And then, there’s the dessert table.  There’s always banana pudding and chocolate cake. – it’s obligatory for Baptists.  Personally, I think it’s the 11th Commandment  -“Thou shalt have chocolate cake and banana pudding.”  One time at one of our churches, a lady made banana pudding specially for my daddy – and left out the bananas.  It might be better that way!  Mrs. Viola Wooten used to make a cake that looked like this:



It was fabulous!!! Those little tiny skinny layers and the  homemade chocolate frosting - I can still taste it.  My mama always made 7 Minute Frosting for her cakes  – it’s made with white Karo syrup and it gets crystal-ly after a while. Most ladies have their thing - certain recipes that they are known for. It's a slippery slope to make something someone else is known for. It can be a scary thing.  Personally, I only bring things Publix makes. Today I had some grape salad that I was sure Debbie C made, but she didn't.  I'll always eat Gail Thompson's potato salad - it tastes like my mama's. 

Of course, now, we call them “Fellowship Dinners." We eat at nice tables, with flower arrangements and cushy chairs. It's a lot different than eating outside in a metal chair that is sinking into the ground. Some things are still the same - you can still smell chicken when it’s over.  There really doesn’t have to be a reason.  Sometimes it’s as simple as the 5th Sunday of the month.  My church fed my family after my mother’s funeral and my dad’s funeral.   Today, my church celebrated our Music Minister’s retirement.  He’s been serving God and churches for 45 years. It was bittersweet - we are happy for him, but sad for us.  Sometimes it’s a happy reason, sometimes it’s sad but the food is always good.   
If you’ve never had dinner on the ground, you just don’t know what you’re missing. I love church dinners - there's nothing like them in the whole world. 

Back to My Blog

So I’ve decided to come back to my blog.   I originally started my blog as part of my assignments when I was taking classes in London in 2008. After I got home, I kept writing it, but lately, since I started my "new" job (I’m in the 4th year!) I just haven’t written much.  I really don’t even know why. I like writing this, even if no one reads it. I write about stuff that makes me laugh, makes me crazy, whatever.  It is sometimes just completely random thoughts from my head.    My mind is a crazy place and sometimes with no focus, it’ s an absolute mess.  I write just like  I think so I’m positive it’s not always grammatically correct, but oh well. It's mine and I can do with it what I want.
The title of this is “At Least We’re Not Being  Bombed by the Nazis.”  There’s a reason for that. During the 6 weeks, I was in London, we heard that during our Orientation to the FSU Study Centre.  There are tunnels and walkways underground that are used to get from one building to another during certain times of the day.  During World War II, those tunnels were used during air raids. The Director of the Study Centre said that even if you had to use them late at night,  and it was a little creepy, and a longer walk, at least you weren't being bombed by the Nazis at the same time.  When I made the blog, I just liked the way that sounded.  It also puts a lot of things in n perspective. No matter how bad things get and how crazy my life gets, at least we’re not being bombed by the Nazis. 

So, what’s going on in my life this week? I’ll tell you.  This week would have been my parent’s 58th wedding anniversary and my daddy would be 80 this week. That’s a little sad to me.  Also on August 30th, some dear, dear friends of mine celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary.  Today  Mr. Donald said to our kids in Junior Church  “It seems like just yesterday.”   That’s a great thing to say.  There are three couples I know who have been married 50 years this year. That’s quite an accomplishment. A lot of people don’t last to 50 days or 50 months, must less 50 years. It takes a lot of hard work.


I start checking out books to students this week, finally!   I’ve been moving textbooks for 2 weeks. I figured out one week we moved quite literally over a ton of books. It’s craziness what it appears it takes to teach little kids to read and write and do math. Yay for library time!!! Yay for seeing students besides at the bus!! Yay for reading!!! 

Textbook Inventory

So one of the things that happens in my job is I get stuck doing textbook inventory. That’s one of those things that technically isn’t my job, but it’s one of those things that people just expect me to do. It’s just like what it sounds like – I have to take an inventory of all the textbooks at my school.  Sounds pretty simple right?

At my old school, I could do textbook inventory in a day. Well, once I got rid of over 6000 books that we didn’t use any more that no one had gotten rid of for YEARS .  Tomorrow morning I’m going to collect the middle school books at my school.  It will take me a couple of hours.  So many of our books are online now, I only have class sets to check in and teacher’s editions.   Ah, but my school now is not just a middle school.  . . and elementary textbooks are a nightmare.

Our county uses Reading Wonders for elementary school. Let me attempt to explain what it takes to teach little kids how to read.  For Grades 2-5, every teacher gets 2 books per student – a literature anthology and a reading/writing workshop. Yes, 2 hardback books per student. Luckily, at our school we departmentalize for grades 4 and 5, so even though each ELA teacher teachs two groups of students, they only get one set of books. Each teacher also gets a Teacher’s Edition for each chapter. . .  That’s a LOT of books. 
Oh, but that’s still not all.  Kindergarten and first grade. Oh my!
Kindergarten doesn’t get textbooks for students.  They get big books instead. 43 big books for each teacher to be exact. Yes, I said 43. . . each teacher. Plus all the teacher’s editions.

But NOTHING beats first grade. It apparently takes 100’s of items to teach first graders how to read. . . They don’t get 2 books per students.  They get (are you ready for this???) 8 books per student. Yes 8!  4 Reading Writing Workshops – one for each unit and 4 Literature Anthologies – one per unit. They also get teacher’s editions – 6 of them. Then, just in case that isn’t enough, they also get 22 big books.  One of my first-grade teachers had 216 items checked out when she came to me.   This is what it takes to teach first grade. 

None of this even counts Math Teacher’s Editions- that’s the green books!   And we also are NOT counting Leveled Readers.  Tiny little books in 4 levels for each story in the book.  It’s unbelievable. Today, leveled readers almost pushed me over the edge. 

Now, here’s my question. I was a late reader.  I didn’t learn to read until the summer between 2nd and 3rd grade.  (Of course, I did start kindergarten when I was 4 so I was a baby.)   My teachers didn’t have all that stuff – but they taught me to read. I remember my kindergarten teacher having blow-up people for every letter – Mr. M had a  munchy mouth, Mr. F had Funny feet. and Ms. A said “Ah, ah choo!”  I don’t believe that kids today are dumb.  I don’t believe teachers now are ignorant.  What’s the deal?  I would be fascinated to see how much money our county spends on textbooks.

Now, why do I LOVE textbook inventory so much? So many reasons. I can’t ever do it fast enough to make people happy.  It takes a LONG time to check in that many books. You have to check them in, put them in storage and attempt to get them in some sort of order so you can give them all back out again.  And the storage rooms are hot. I was sweating before 8:30 and that was just the beginning.  And just for funsies?  I  get to take them all up, store them all, and check them all back out again in 8 weeks.  Yes, 8 weeks.  Seems like a lot of work for 8 weeks doesn’t it??