Never Eat Soggy Waffles

There are many ways to remember the cardinal directions.  Me, personally, grew up with the sentence 'Never Eat Soggy Waffles' (North, East, South, West).  I am well aware that nowadays there are many more options such as: Never Eat Sour Watermelon, Now Edward Screams Wildly, etc.  The list could go on and on.  I, however, choose to teach my students in the way that is familiar to me.  Because lets just be honest, they learn better in the way that I learn best.  Maybe that's a selfish way to think...  Promise I'm just trying to make them successful though!

Anyways, we covered the unit on Maps & Globes back in the first week of school.  Yep 16 weeks ago.  Not to mention 14 years ago when I learned this in school the first go around.  What I'm getting at here is that my kids know their cardinal directions.  And today, in front of all 30 plus my co-teacher, I made it clear to all of them that I have yet to catch on.

We are now studying the Explorers, specifically Henry Hudson.  We were reading this AWESOME book as I tried to be the proactive, effective and engaging teacher that I am...  I pulled down the world map and directed all eyes to me.  I placed my finger on England and as my co-teacher reread the directions taken I traced my finger up to Greenland.  As she said "But their voyage began to take a turn toward the North East", I moved my finger in that direction.  

Or what I thought.

As I confidently showed the class the direction in which Hudson sailed I heard eruptions of my students saying things like: "EAT." and "Wrong way." as well as "North East, Ms. Peters".  

I looked at what I was doing and sadly, could not figure out what they heck they were talking about!  I turned around and looked at my co-teacher and she said, "North East" with her sweet smile she often gives me that is overflowing with compassion and understanding- I know it far too well.  I turned to my eager students and simply said:

"Just wanted to make sure you guys knew which way to go."

And turned back towards the world map to hide my bright red face.

Top 10 For December

Back when I was in the prime of my blogging career the posts I looked the most forward to were the ones I would do at the beginning of each month.  I created lists for each month of things I was looking forward to.  See here for the first one ever.  And another one, if you're interested.  I'll stop now... You get the point.  

Now for this month's list; Drum Roll, Please........

1.  Going to the Atlanta Botanical Gardens for the walking Garden Lights, Holiday Nights tour!
2.  'Winter Holiday Break'- aka Christmas Break as I use to be able to refer to it as.  2 whole weeks of nothing but sleeping in, bundling up and no work.
3.  A sweet sorority sister/great friend's Winter Wedding!
4. For my girl MoBat to be back in the good ole States!  She married herself a Man of Honor and is now stationed across the pond in Germany but is coming home for the holidays!  Basically, I can't wait to be able to talk to her at any given time for 13 days straight.
5.  Meeting Samuel Wesley Hunt.
6.  The smell of Christmas trees, the magic of white lights and sitting fireside at N. Holly Lane, again and again. 
7.  Trip to Birmingham.  Where my heart still resides. 
8.  Sipping on my Big Train Vanilla Chi Tea that is on the way to me.  Every two months.  Thank you, amazon.com Subscribe & Save AND to my wonderful co-worker/great friend for introducing me to this sweet nectar. 
9.  Attending the Hope 4 Christmas Party and visiting Brensha at her new work!
10.  Time well spent with family from here, Charleston, Conyers, Indiana and Kentucky; with friends both old (gotta love holiday time simply for reunions) and new; and loved ones on a daily basis.


What are you looking forward to this December?