passionately curious

Cicada Waning

For the last several weeks, the Chicagoland area has been invaded by the 17-year cicada.  Although school finished before my students could see them in full invasion and there were few to be found in the Hyde Park neighborhood, we learned a little about these curious insects.  Cicada Mania offered several resources, including this beautiful time-laspe video.  We also enjoyed the poem, Cicada, from Paul Fleischman's Joyful Noises: Poems For Two Voices. Finally, here are the instructions to make an origami cicada (pdf).

My own children and I were lucky enough to have two encounters with the cicadas in the suburbs.  That was enough for me and for the next 17 years, I'll enjoy the solitary buzz of the perennial cicada over the drone of millions.      

What lessons can be learned from the 17-year cicada?  Here's a 10 bits of wisdom from Phil Vettel, restaurant critic for the Chicago Tribune:

10 Bits of Wisdom
By Phil Vettel
Published June 24, 2007

Savor every moment. Good times can be farther apart than you know.

Whether you consider it clean or dirty, you still don't want to get too  close to a dog's mouth.

It doesn't matter that you fly badly. Only that you fly.

Be patient. Even bottom feeders get their day in the sun.

It's amazing how little you really need to throw a good party.

Stupidity and ineptitude are not insurmountable when you have numbers on  your side.

Make all the noise you want, but it's common decency to quiet down during  bedtime.

Beware excessive pickiness. Spend too much time looking for your perfect  match, and life will pass you by.

Persistence pays off.

It can seem like forever, but 17 years can come and go in a hurry.

Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune

Summer Slide

At the end of the school year, I always recommend that my students continue to read everyday over the summer. I hope that they are learning to love reading; that they'll curl up under a shady tree, at the beach or in the backseat on a long car trip with a book that they just can't put down. I know for some, this will be a chore.  It's amazing, however,  how much can be lost or forgotten over a few weeks, let alone a few months.  This advice comes from my personal experience and knowledge as a teacher.  It's always seemed like common sense and I never felt the need to find supporting evidence.  In looking at recommended summer reading lists, I recently came across an article at Reading is Fundamental called Keeping Kids Off the Summer Slide that reinforced the importance of reading over the summer.  Here's what that authors of a 2002 report done by Johns Hopkins' Center for Summer Learning said,

A conservative estimate of lost instructional time is approximately two months or roughly 22 percent of the school year.... It's common for teachers to spend at least a month re-teaching material that students have forgotten over the summer. That month of re-teaching eliminates a month that could have been spent on teaching new information and skills."

The "summer slide" impacts reading progress and growth over the summer as well as into the next school year. I want kids to begin their new academic year with solid reading skills.  Although, I alos hope they make gains in reading over the summer, I don't want my students to lose any ground with all they've learned in second grade. 

There are many summer reading lists out there.  Here's one the fabulous librarians at my school put together.  RIF's 2007 Summer Reading Guide also has other wonderful reading lists, incentives and tips for kids and grownups to prevent summer learning loss.  Happy Summer Reading!

  enjoy your summer reading 
  Originally uploaded by lucy96734