New Blog for "Restore the Room" at Bent School

Here's a new blog I created to pass along information on plans for restoring the 1st grade room at Bent Elementary school... http://restoretheroomforkoch.blogspot.com.

The room is coming along quickly... Painting, flooring, rewiring. It will be completed more quickly than originally planned, which is AWESOME. BUT, that means we need to kick butt on collecting money for Mrs. Koch's gift card for the School Shoppe. We don't want them to move into a beautiful new classroom with no supplies, decorations, books, materials, workbooks, carpets, pictures, bulletin boards...

The other big plan is a bookfair at Barnes & Noble on Sunday, March 15th. It usually takes 6-8 weeks to plan a bookfair, but B&N is stepping up and making this happen much more quickly. Vouchers (they kind of look like coupons) will be available very soon (downloadable from the "Restore the Room" blog, here on my blog, will be sending by email, available on Facebook, handing out at schools in the area and at groups and to friends and to family... The vouchers will need to be brought in that day and given to the cashier at the time of your purchases in order for a portion of the proceeds to go to Mrs. Koch. What we're REALLY hoping is that people won't just purchase books for themselves that day, but buy books for Mrs. Koch's class. When that happens, the kids win on both ends... They receive new books from friends/relatives AND Mrs. Koch receives a portion of the purchase to buy MORE books.

Also, the REALLY cool thing is that these vouchers can be used at ANY Barnes & Noble store in the nation on that day. If you live in Florida, you can take the voucher into a B&N and a portion of your purchase will go to Mrs. Koch's class. SO COOL!!!!! If you live in Indiana, you can take the voucher into a B&N and a portion of your purchase will go to Mrs. Koch's class. SO AWESOME!!! If you live in Chicago, you can take the voucher into a MEGA B&N and a portion of your purchase will go to Mrs. Koch’s class. SO UNBELIEVABLE!!!

So we're really hoping that between the donations being received this next week for the School Shoppe gift card (PLEASE donate if you are able by contacting Laurie at lauriesexton@verizon.net) and the Barnes & Noble event on Sunday, March 15 Mrs. Koch will be well cared for.

I read on Facebook tonight about a church near Bent School that is taking up a special offering for Mrs. Koch this weekend... I LOVE IT!!! Thanks Mark Savage!!!

Almost there

99,997 ... Almost there.
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Classroom Fire at Bent Elementary School

Many of you are already aware of a tragic event that took place at Bent Elementary School Saturday, February 21st. For those of you who aren't aware... Bent Elementary School was broken into and a classroom was vandalized and a fire started. Due to this senseless act, Mrs. Koch and her 26 students have lost all their materials and supplies for teaching/learning. The class has been temporarily moved to the music room at Bent School unil their room can be restored. (For more on this story see The Pantagraph)

However... the loss for Mrs. Koch and the students is significant. Mrs. Koch has been teaching for 25 years... She had accumulated a tremendous amount of materials, resources, books, supplies, etc. for her teaching. Student records, lesson plans, portfolios, pictures, bulletin boards, carpets, etc. have all been destroyed. Daily worksheets already copied for the remainder of the school year, workbooks and reading books are gone.

Many tears were shed on Saturday and Sunday when the tragedy was reported to teachers, parents and students. But, when I took Savannah to school on Monday morning (she asked me to walk into the school with her)  I was very impressed with the setup of the "music condo" (what Mrs. Koch and the students are calling their temporary home). Wall decorations, pencil/crayon boxes on every desk, computers... it appeared to be a completely supplied classroom. Mrs. Koch was smiling and eager to start their day.

However, there is a lot missing from this classroom and it's an incomplete learning environment... The parents of the students effected by this incident want to make sure the environment, supplies, resources and materials are returned to normal or better as quickly as possible with as little learning loss to the students and burden to Mrs. Koch. But, we're going to need some help in doing this.

Two things are being organized:

1. Collection of donations for supplies, materials, resources and room decorations through a local school supply store
   
2. Bookfair/gift card purchases through a local bookstore
   

All of this is having to be planned quickly due to the complete loss of supplies, materials, resources and books. Like I said before, we want to return the classroom to as normal a learning environment as it was before, or better. Mrs. Koch had 25 years invested in her classroom... she had the "daily operations" down to a loving routine. But that routine has been severely interupted.

As we finalize the above plans I will pass on the information for how the community (and beyond) can help.

The Stethoscope

Self Portraits

I don't like to take photos of myself, but... when I need a subject, I guess "I'll" do. Did these today while working on some Photoshop self-taught lessons:

Butter Bunny

Tumnus loves to throw his own toys... And sometimes they end up in some pretty funny places. Luckily he's yet to break anything. Today he topped all previous throws by landing his bunny from a triple pike into the butter tub that was sitting out on the kitchen counter... SO GROSS!!! And of course, I was getting ready to use it to butter my pancakes. Needless to say I did some scraping before I used it.

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Doin' the HM Thing On the Wii

I love watching Savannah play her Hannah Montana game on the Wii... She really gets into it! And of course, she REALLY likes to shop for her in the game, too. Imagine that... A girl that likes to shop :-)
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Full cup

Sometimes I fill my cups a little full... Which can make HOT coffee a little dangerous to drink... Hmmmm, there's a good illustration in there somewhere.
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Recent Photo Shoot

Last week I had the opportunity to do a photo shoot for Doug Rutter, our teaching pastor at Eastview. I haven't done very many photo shoots, so I feel a little awkward at times... sometimes I'm just not really sure what I want for a pose or a "look." Or if I do know, I'm just not sure how to ask in a way that's clear and doesn't sound absolutely stupid and/or embarrassing.

And then there's the editing... WOW... so much to learn, remember, write down, save, re-save, re-re-save, delete, OOPS I accidentally deleted, retrieve from "trash," etc. I won't bore you with all the details, but at times I feel very overwhelmed with Photoshop (if you've used Photoshop, and especially if you've tried to learn on your own, you TOTALLY understand what I mean)... and then all of a sudden it clicks. Then I'm on to the next project "lesson" and within 30-minutes I'm feeling like I've taken two-steps back. But, with a little perseverance and patience (a couple of disciplines I tend to forget to use) I've taken three-steps forward. I definitely feel like I'm in school again trying to learn photography and editing, but I'M LOVING IT. 

So, anyway... here's a slideshow of the "finished" photos I gave to Doug (not sure yet if these are the final products or not).

If any of you have comments & criticisms on the photos, PLEASE SPEAK UP by commenting to this entry below or on the photos themselves at flickr.

Daddy-Daughter Lunch Date

This week is Savannah's "Special Week" at school, so I picked her up and took her out for lunch at the restaurant of her choice... Of course, she chose McD's.

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Citrus Bloom

Woo hoo! First bud on citrus tree since it's heavy winter pruning. Now THAT makes me happy :-)

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Blue Tongue Disease

Ewwwww!!!
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