It's Dilovely

Dear colleagues, I know I haven’t written about what you’re going through in a long time, not since the post that unexpectedly deflowered my blog three months ago. I want you to know that it’s not because I’m ignoring what’s going on; I think about it every day. (Well – and I did have that [...]

Sean and I have always used the scientific words for certain body parts when talking with E. There are reasons for this. For one thing, we both know that personally, we would feel like tools if we used words like winkie and hoo-ha or whatever. (This is why I never got the immensely popular “Once [...]

So, lovely Di-hards, how do you like the new look? Isn’t it pretty?? I’d like to declare a huge thank you to my big brother, Uncle Ben, a.k.a. Eupharos, for taking a nice theme by NodeThirtyThree and customizing the whole thing according to my inexperienced ideas. He’s got skillz. And he’s even going to help [...]

When you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up? When I was little, I wanted to be a ballerina. After that, I wanted to be a novelist. It didn’t occur to me to want to be a teacher until later. As a homeschooling kid, I didn’t even have teachers other [...]

It’s interesting, the things that kindergartners say about their mothers. I recently overheard a fragment of conversation at kindergarten snacktime, involving one of the kids I like to call “pop-up children” (teachers, you know the ones I’m talking about). This is what I heard: “…and then she punched me! In the face! My mom!” Wise [...]

Imagine a 12-year-old boy with a chip on his shoulder. He moves from an inner-city school in a large metropolis to a well-to-do urban school in a much smaller city. He has been moved, for the most part, because his mom doesn’t have a clue how to control or improve his behaviour. The administration at [...]

Today, I was whooshed back in time to my own kindergarten experience – twice. I was a homeschooling kid. I went to public kindergarten, but only a couple weeks of Grade 1 between that and Grade 9. My memories of kindergarten are few, but seminal. I often wonder which are the moments my students will [...]

It’s December! I wasn’t planning to blog today. I was all like, whew. November’s over. Then when I got home, E was out gallivanting downtown with Auntie Em, so I went to pay the bills. Then I felt rather stressed, so I thought a blog post might do me some good. Just a little one. [...]

I took a gamble and brought my kindergarten class to the Remembrance Day assembly today, just after 11 a.m. We had talked about it beforehand, especially the minute of silence, and I think they were excited to take the challenge. I told them I’d spoken to the principal about it, and we both believed they [...]

The other week at my school, Grade 5s and 6s participated in hypothetical democracy: student “elections”. I put that in quotes because they don’t actually get to elect anyone – there is no student council or anything – but they get to hear speeches and platforms and read campaign signs, and then vote. One of [...]