Recent Comments

1. about 17 hours ago on Peanuts Begins

   I like to think Lucy learned meanness from Violet and Patty, especially Violet. Lucy was always a fussbudget, but she wasn’t always mean.

2. about 17 hours ago on Zen Pencils

   Perfection

3. about 17 hours ago on Real Life Adventures

   Honestly? Mad Libs is how I learned the parts of speech. We used to do them growing up, especially when our cousins came for a visit. You know, what goes on at the Kids’ Table. I never could transfer that to the workbook stuff we did in middle school, however. I used them with my students to review parts of speech, and it was actually pretty popular in classes for a while.

4. about 17 hours ago on Real Life Adventures

   Tbf, I went to a Blue Ribbon HS (it wasn’t a thing then, but you get the idea) in the 70s, and the only time we did traditional sentence diagramming beyond nouns, verbs, and prepositional phrases was for a couple of classes toward the end of Sr. Honors English. Even then, I don’t think it was actually in the curriculum. There’s no time to teach grammar – even 20 years ago, before every student was required to pass the state tests. Where we were learning penmanship and underlining nouns and verbs, today’s elementary students are expected to write paragraphs and multiple-paragraph essays – and include evidence from the text. Even second graders are expected to use the text to support their answer – at their level, but today’s 2nd-grade reading level is at least what used to be 3rd grade back in the day. We love grandparents willing to teach cursive and grammar, but please understand, that’s what Writing was when we were kids. It’s far more complex now, whether the kids are developmentally ready for it or not.

5. about 17 hours ago on Heart of the City

   Ophelia is making a mess of things right now. I hope the roof doesn’t leak.

6. about 17 hours ago on Calvin and Hobbes

   Now you can do that electronically, including the high-stakes state tests.

7. about 17 hours ago on Rose is Rose

   I used to sit up in the attic and read from the box of my older brothers’ copies of Disney comic books.

8. about 17 hours ago on Luann

   Yikes!!! I’m not sure that adult-child ratio is legal at that age in my state. I taught in a preschool years ago, and 12 kids with an aide was plenty.

9. about 17 hours ago on Luann

   Noooo, but the way one tells about their real-life experience does benefit from imagination.

10. about 17 hours ago on Liz Climo Cartoons

    That’s the real gift: Dad & son bonding time while they look for it together.