Test Yourself

Boylee's teacher is clear about what she wants in her students' writing -- they don't need to worry about spelling, except for their sight works, which are simple, short words. All of the sight words are posted on the classroom walls and the kids are encouraged to look at them and copy the letters if they don't remember how to spell them.

For all the rest of the words they write, they're just asked to sound them out. When those sentences come home, the teacher frequently corrects the spelling, but just so the parents can understand what the kid has written. Here's a sentence Boylee wrote last week. And he got a 4 on it -- the top score. See if you can decode this mysteriously spelled message:

Grielus are nicic and fradle and et bunanas.

Guesses in the comments, please.

What Boylee Chose to Eat for Dessert Tonight

An entire yellow bell pepper.

LAUSD Budget Update

We won't find out for sure till next week, but it looks most likely that principals at schools with less than 300 students will now be assigned as half-time, not full-time jobs. So half the principals will be laid off, and the others, including ours who has a lot of seniority, will now be assigned to two schools at once.

I didn't realize it, but this has already happened with the assistant principals. Ours works one week at our school, and the next week at another school.

Another Random

Random

From That Same Day

She drew the pic.

Belated St. Patrick's Day

This is when we were hanging out in the classroom, the afternoon Boylee's girlfriend left school. This is the other girl he likes, and her ultra-cute younger sister.

And then...

...I heard him (okay, he was sitting on the toilet at the time) singing a made-up song. The lyrics? "I miss you...I miss you...I miss you."

POOR BOYLEE!

And Yet...

...Boylee cried at school this morning. Mrs. Richards -- excellent teacher and wonderful person that she is -- comforted him and told him he could be the one to read aloud a card that Alexandria had left for the class. Poor Boylee.

More Details

So what happened yesterday after school was that Boylee started to cry. Alexandria didn't cry at all, nor did her twin sister who is in the other kindergarten class. But Alex's mom saw that Boylee was crying, and then she started to cry!

Boylee ran back into the classroom...and there we encountered his second best girlfriend, Audrey. And one thing led to another, and we ended up spending about 45 minutes in the classroom with her, her mom and her two-year-old sister. The kids played a bit, and then Audrey and Boylee did their homework together, and then put it into a certain folder the teacher has -- and then laughed about the idea that they'd done their homework and turned it in without ever leaving school.

Then we all went out to Jamba Juice. So the sadness was mitigated...and I'm going to go ahead and presume that Audrey will now be his #1 girl.

Of course, Isa is really Boylee's #1 girl, but more in a sisterly way.

Update

There were tears.

I'm a Little Sad

Today is the last day at school for Boylee's special girlfriend. (Her family is moving to Utah.) Boylee didn't seem too sad about it this morning, but I wonder how he will feel after we say goodbye to her at the end of the day.

Snow!

We went to the snow today! We had so much fun! I forgot my camera!

Highlights:

1 - Snow

2 - The fact that at the first place we stopped (just a snowy spot by the side of the highway) some people already there had brought a rake, a shovel and a hoe, and they were grooming a lovely sledding trail.

3 - The fact that at the second (and final) place we stopped (a more beautiful spot, also by the side of the road) we were all alone.

4 - It was a lovely day, and we were above the clouds blanketing the city. The sky was bright blue and the temp was so warm we were soon running around in t-shirts. The snow was cold, so we did get wet and a bit chilly at times, but it was lovely.

5 - The fact that the friends we went with were driving their CR-V (just like mine) and they introduced us to an amazing feature that we have somehow not noticed in 6+ years of owning this car: it comes with a removable picnic table in the back! We removed it! We used it! It was amazing!

6 - The fact that Boylee discovered the best way to sled and invented a name for it: "nature's tushy slide," which basically means just sliding down a hill on your butt.

Yesterday's LA Times

Pink slips in L.A. Unified

The Los Angeles Board of Education voted to send preliminary layoff notices to nearly 9,000 employees this afternoon. The notices, approved in two separate actions, will be sent by Friday and will affect about 5,500 instructors.

Teachers union members are holding a protest against the notices. District officials said they are hopeful that they will not have to lay off that many employees. The notices will not be finalized until the summer. The district, the nation's second largest, is facing an anticipated $700-million shortfall.

Oy Vey!

ANOTHER kid is leaving Boylee's class.  This will be the 6th since late fall.

This family is leaving L.A. entirely and moving to Utah.  The worst part is that the kid -- Alexandria -- is Boylee's favorite classmate/girlfriend.  He's quite sad that she's leaving, and especially that she will miss his birthday party.  

Now we'll only have 17 in the class -- a beautiful, old-school teacher/student ratio, but one that has been difficult for the kids to deal with, since it has come at the expense of their friends leaving.

Quote of the Day

Daddy: "There's a free jazz concert at the Getty."

Boylee:  "I hate jazz."

(I'm pretty sure I said that to my dad all the time, too.)

Owl Follow-Up

(read the posting below about our neighborhood owls)

Okay, I love the internet.  I have discovered -- by the owls' style of hooting, which I know by heart -- that our owls are Great Horned Owls.  Here's a link so you can hear how they hoot.  And this is what they look like:

Thank you, internets!

Hootie Hoo

For more than 10 years, Scott and I (and then Boylee when he came along) have spent our winter nights surrounded by the hoots of three or four owls who live very, very close to our house. Sometimes we hear them in the backyard, sometimes in the front.  They start their hooting around dusk and continue all night long.  Sometimes it's just one, and sometimes they're all hooting on top of one another. We have no idea what they're discussing, but we love hearing them.  

But in all this time we've never, ever seen one.  Mostly because we hear them at night.  And then also because they're perfectly concealed in the foliage.  Usually if we even step outside to look for them they stop hooting.  They're clearly seeing us better than we see them.

But tonight as Boylee and I got home, around 6pm, and Scott came out to the garage to greet us, we heard the hooting in a big tree across the street...a tree that was perfectly backlit by the last remnants of the day's sunlight.  And within 30 seconds we had all seen our first owl!  We didn't get a great look -- it was a silhouette -- but we could see his body move as he (she?) hooted, and we could tell that he was a very, very big owl.  And then he took off, and we watched him silently flap his wings and disappear into the wooded area behind our house.  

I love this neighborhood!

Boo in Repose

Proof