Memorable Weather

The weather has been sort of boring all summer.  We talked about the heat (100s), but there's been only sluggish misery--no trees crashing, power outages, torrential rain, until now-- hurricane season.  We have been lucky enough for about 10 years to avoid recent storms, but it's hard to ever forget Hurricane Fran and Hurricane Floyd back in the 90s.

 Fran came to Chapel Hill at night in 1996.  Trees landed on neighbor's rooftops and across roads on our street.  There was no power at our house after that for 5 days!  The night of the storm was terrifying (kids slept through it, though), and I felt lucky to be alive the next day. 

Hurricane Floyd in 1999 did not affect the Chapel Hill area (except the kids got one day off of school).  Eastern North Carolina was hit with torrential rains, and devastating flooding. There were 35 deaths.













The hurricane in the news right now is Irene.  The path takes it inland a bit so the outer banks area is expected to take the brunt of the winds.  Heavy rain is predicted in the eastern part of the state.  I feel for the people living out there and hope they have taken necessary precautions---evacuating if needed.  I'm not worried at all about Chapel Hill--and currently am grateful for where we live.  I'll let you know on Sunday how this all turns out. 

County by County; State by State

Three more days until the influx of cute little kids.  I'm excited!  My caseload this year is slightly higher, but I'm happy with it--really happy.  I have a terrific speech pathologist to work with, an enthusiastic principal, and staff members at Ephesus who walk all kinds of lives.  It's like coming back home to family after a long vacation.
   Even though, I do love my job, since the kids aren't there, the picture below is what my life is like right now.

I have nothing more to say about work---it's hard to blog in an interesting way about faculty meetings.

So I'll talk here a minute about geocaching.  The world is big, and chances are, I won't get to every country in my lifetime.  There's a lot of them, and some don't welcome visitors, while others are very tiny.  Some are very far away and don't have many airports.  Some are expensive.  It's also time-consuming, and I do teach.  I don't know if my principal would approve a month-long vacation for me to take an African road trip just so I could geocache all of the countries of the sub-saharan area (do they have roads there for an actual road trip?)

  Since the world conquest seems a bit much right now, David and I have concentrated our geocaching efforts on finding caches in every county in North Carolina and in the states in the U.S.   David (being the tech guru) has actually charted the counties.  I'm lacking about 5 of them (the white counties below). We have had a great time touring most of NC, and have seen lovely waterfalls, sand dunes, bird walks, cotton fields, interesting urban settings, and decaying small towns, all throughout the state. 

I'm lacking 5 counties (out of 100)

The states of the United States have proven to be a bigger challenge.  We have vacationed in Oregon, Arizona, the Southeast, and the Northeast, but have many states in the midsection to go.  The Grand Canyon, the coast of Maine, Mt. St. Helen, and Lake Erie have all been visited, but less exciting states like Kansas elude us for the moment.  I'm sure Kansas is actually very interesting, but sites like the rocky coast of Oregon seemed a bit of a higher priority!  I realize that this seems as though geocaching has taken over, but the reality is that it gives David and me an excuse to see a close-up view of the country.  America is a great place with many, very interesting sites.  The world is next---I've been to a few countries (pre-geocaching) and want to see more.  I'll keep you posted!

States we've geocached in

AAC video

This YouTube video popped up in one of the blogs I follow.  Apparently it was made at an AAC summer camp. Nice visuals and statements of kids and AAC of all types.

Check it out!

Click HERE to view the video

For the Love of Asiedya

This is an article from the Chapel Hill News about a foundation being set up by her parents to supply iPads to other children with autism in her honor.  The foundation name is 'For the Love of Asiedya' and details are below.   

Published: Aug 17, 2011 02:00 AM
Modified: Aug 15, 2011 09:54 PM

New foundation to honor Asiedya
Parents of Chapel Hill girl killed in fire want to help other children with autism

Asiedya CONTRIBUTED PHOTO   HOW TO HELP To donate to The FLOA foundation, checks can be sent to Wachovia Bank in care of the FLOA Foundation/Sheryl Williams-Clement. For more information on the foundation or to help the family, call Pastor Veryl Howard at 910-644-1824

BY KATELYN FERRAL, Staff Writer

CHAPEL HILL - She was waiting for Christmas.She had already written Santa with her request: a Lalaloopsy doll, the modern rag doll with the matching personality and outfit. It came, early, laid with 7-year-old Asiedya Elizabeth Clement in the coffin she was buried in Saturday.
Asiedya was killed Aug. 6 when she became trapped in her family's condominium off Weaver Dairy Road as it caught fire and burned.
Now her parents, Gary C. Clement and Sheryl Williams-Clement, are starting a foundation in memory of their daughter, who was diagnosed with autism when she was 2.
The FLOA Foundation, an acronym of "For The Love of Asiedya," will raise money to buy iPads for children with autism.
"That is my passion now," said Williams-Clement. "Initially it was just an idea, but I think it's very befitting for her life, to expand it."
Asiedya got an iPad from First in Families of North Carolina, a Durham-based organization that helps children with disabilities and their families. The tablet opened new learning opportunities for Asiedya; she was always on it, speeding through applications and watching movies, her parents said.
She downloaded dozens of applications. Some taught her about exotic animals; others taught her reading and math through puzzles and games. She mastered the device in weeks.
"She took off with the iPad ... it was very interactive for her," said Gary Clement, who is a writer, photographer and television producer in the gospel music entertainment community. "We'd do writing, arithmetic ... she'd have to get through building a sentence with one app."
The second grader at Ephesus Elementary School was curious, energetic and ever alert. She loved to learn.
"She was very inquisitive about everything; she wanted to see how everything worked," said Williams-Clement.
Asiedya liked it best when the TV was on, a DVD was playing and she was scrolling through her iPad all at once. She especially enjoyed TV commercials; she turned up the volume whenever they came on.
"She was very high functioning, but we never knew where she was developmentally," Williams-Clement said.
The Clements want to use their foundation to give children iPads, but also to educate people about the importance of diagnosing autism early. It is rare to find autism in black females, but early diagnosis can make a big difference in the effectiveness of therapy, said Williams-Clement.
To raise money for their foundation, Gary Clement plans to tap his network of contacts, actors, athletes and artists from the film and television industry. He currently produces the show "North Carolina Backstage," which discusses political and religious issues around the world and airs on cable stations throughout the Triangle.
The morning of the fire, the Clements awoke to the sound of crashing glass in their living room and went downstairs to investigate.
When they tried to get back upstairs to get Asiedya, black smoke had overtaken the condominium in the Kensington Trace complex in northern Chapel Hill.
"She was just overtaken by smoke," said Williams-Clement, who is a health unit coordinator at UNC Hospitals. "We were screaming for her. ... She was just overtaken by smoke."
Fire department officials say the fire was caused by the mechanical malfunction of a freezer on the back porch.
Talking about their only child is still hard, but remembering Asiedya by helping other children with autism makes it a bit easier, Williams-Clement said.
"The iPad opened up a whole new world for her," she said. "I want to give other kids with autism the same opportunities [she] had."

kferral@nando.com or 919-932-8746

© Copyright 2011, The News & Observer Publishing Company
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Four iPads

Four iPads are not enough.  How could they be?  At our school, there are 450 kids, an army of teachers, and lots of other people like me (speech therapist) who all need their own little personal data device/computer/toy/camera to carry around with them.  We need piles of them--or so it seems!  Read on.

won't happen

Unfortunately, there is the money thing.  Even though iPads are cheaper than laptops, they are not free.  At $500 dollars each, plus money for the case and apps, supplying even a fraction of the school is not feasible unless Santa Claus appears.

Being a public school, we know that Santa won't step a foot into the door, so resourceful people need to look at other sources of funding.  That's why I am so grateful to the Public School Foundation and the Stroud Roses Foundation for generously funding four iPads for Ephesus Elementary.

Four iPads may not sound like a lot, but to a good teacher who knows the value of using an iPad as a tool for data collection, an iPad is invaluable.  In the hands of a teacher, all IEP data, intervention data, attendance for reading and math groups, and anecdotal data can be easily entered into Google forms, which then throws it all into a neat google spreadsheet. Four iPads translates into helping at least 100 kids.  Tracking progress is important!  Plus, for those kids who need an extra little nudge, there are thousands of educational apps out there for them to spend a little time exploring.   A teacher can build this time into a child's schedule.

I just filled out a purchase order today for these four invaluable tools, and can't wait until they arrive! 

For those of you in Chapel Hill, check out the website for the Public School Foundation!  This is a wonderful organization that is really making a difference in the education of our children. 

Little Things Matter (But are they really little?)

Tomorrow is the first teacher workday of the school year.  This is my 19th year at Ephesus--same job, same room.  Hard to believe....   My kids grew up at Ephesus (they are now adults), some of the former students there have come back as teachers.  Working there is more than a job but part of my life, and usually I come back excited and eager!  This year though is starting with a cloud of sadness--one of my students, Asiedya, died in a house fire two weeks ago.  Saturday was her funeral.  Although I've gotten over the shock of it all, and don't randomly wipe tears away at various times of the day (too much), I still think about her and the tragedy of it all quite a bit.   So, to ground myself in reality, I'm devoting this day's blog to very small moments documented in a few photos. 

Meet Lizard---taken on the deck by my daughter, Andorra, where she was housesitting last week.  Isn't he (or she) just beautiful!  Look at the little toes, eyes, nose, ear holes, and skin!  Great picture!

Another of nature's friends---dragonfly.  Can you believe the eyes?  and the delicate wing structure?  He kept coming back to us and sitting on whoever had their finger up like an antennae. Vicki took this picture.

Did you know that you can knit a seahorse?  Alana asked Andorra to do this, and she spent weeks making it just for her!





It is the little things---not really little, and not things--- but the qualities of being a friend, enjoying the outdoors, living life, and loving people that really matter.  So, I'll go in to school tomorrow remembering Asiedya, the angel that she always has been, and work on doing little things for the little kids that will still be there.  Hopefully, I can help make a difference in their lives, the way they make a difference in mine.

No Arms, No Legs, No Worries

Pretty amazing!  This gentleman was born with no limbs, but has not let that become a disability. The first video is about his early years.  The second is him now. Hopefully, he is helping others overcome their own hurdles!

Six Feet Over

In these rapidly changing times, apparently you need to put some thought into where you want your final resting place to be.  Geocaching brought us to a parking lot cemetery.  I'm sure these people had no idea back in 1828 what was to become of their homestead.

Quite literally 6 feet over

Graveside view

Satellite view---graveyard is the small rectangle in the middle

For additional information about Mary Ellis--the person in the cemetery---click here.

Little Things and Big Thing

 We are continuing with our road trip.
First the little things---count the grasshoppers that are in this shot taken from a small pond spot in Connecticut.

(They were jumping everywhere! Zillions!  These are but a small fraction.)

Now the big thing.  This is the largest sycamore tree in New England. Guess the circumference or read the link.

If you are an educator, and have an interest in adapted books, I'll send you a free digital one with a bingo game if post your guess (good for Pre-K to 2nd grade). 

Another geocaching milestone---2000

The hike

I know it sounds excessive, but today I found my 2,000th geocache.  I haven't and never will catch up to David (3200 about), and the most anyone has found (so far) is 55,367 caches. Seems like a lot to me!  I'll settle for being an amateur at this.

I wanted this find to be memorable, fun, and outdoorsy---the hike to the summit of Mt. Major in New Hampshire with David, my sister-in-law, and my nephew fit all three.  The mountain was encased in fog, and we all enjoyed the wild critters we saw.  The ammo box containing the log book and a few trinkets was an easy find, and afterwards, we munched on a few blueberries!

The summit

The route up

 

Along the way, we saw oodles of baby Eastern/Red-Spotted Newts!

2000!

Sad Times

I'm on vacation---hence the lack of posts about iPads, speech therapy, and school.  From a distance, I heard and read about the tragic death of one of my sweetest students in a house fire yesterday.  Did I say she was sweet---that doesn't cover it.  She was loving, funny, smart, wide-eyed, talkative, enthusiastic--everything you would want to see in a child.  It's hard for me to wrap my mind around this horrible tragedy.

Peace

Ruth

Cool! Literally!

David and I are still on our road trip---making a stop in Portland Maine.  I visited with an old friend from Kent State and the Kentucky School for the Deaf--Olivia.  She looked great, and we had a nice time talking, catching up, comparing lives and work, and enjoying the beautiful day! 

Speaking of beautiful days, after enduring the 100+ degree days at Chapel Hill, the temps up here are incredible!

5 Reasons to Geocache on a Road Trip

David and I are headed to New Hampshire--by car.  In the good old days, we aimed to drive as far as possible to get to where we knew we had to go--quickly. Anyone who is reading this with kids knows why--- 300-450 miles in a day were not uncommon.

Several years ago, my daughter, Vicki, introduced us to Geocaching which I wrote about in a previous post.  I don't geocache usually around home much--too busy with work or unmotivated.  Road trips, though, are a different matter.  My kids are not into it, others don't understand why, so I thought I would enlighten everyone why Road Trip Geocaching works for us (usually)

1.  We get to see things that we wouldn't ever think of seeing,

"Car Art" geocache in Erie

Jerome, Arizona, graveyard--a location of a geocache

2.  Geocaching offers an excuse to take a break while driving

3.  Geocaching gives opportunities for exercise---long walks are commonplace

4.  Geocaching has allowed me to learn identify most counties in Virginia (plus other states).  We have a few counties to go---we'll do some of them later on during this trip (headed to Virginia Beach in a week!)  For whatever reason, David feels obligated to keep track of these counties--we've cached in all of the ones that are filled in.  This seems a bit OCD to me---but that's what happens when a husband has too much time on his hands.

5.  I like to learn a bit of history and geography through Virtual and Earth caches.  Some places don't actually let you hide caches so the finder needs to either pose at a selected site, or answer questions about the history or geographical features.  I've learned a lot about all types of things that I never have thought about ranging from minor Civil War skirmishes to the geography of the Grand Canyon.  Usually, the final task for these types of 'caches' is to take a photo and upload it to the geocaching website.   Hence, this Grand Canyon shot from Christmas break.

That's all for now!  I'll be posting pictures from New Hampshire and Maine soon, along with other reasons for enjoying this hobby on a road trip.

Lake Erie

A little bit of geocaching!

That's where I'm at right now!  Visiting family in Erie, Pennsylvania!  We went to the beach at Presque Isle today for a late morning, early afternoon swim, then went geocaching with our nephew,  and had a picnic with the whole family.  It's really nice here and nice to see everyone. 

Cuyahoga River goop in the late 60s.

I reflect back to when I was growing up on the very same lake in the late 60s. I remember the fish kills--1000s of dead fish smelling up the beaches.  The Cuyahoga River in Cleveland at that time spewed toxic pollutants into the lake---and notoriously caught on fire.  I guess things can get better over time!