The Great Purging of Post-Its

In response to a classmates story: "I liked the way you used excavation marks."

Visualize at will.

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Today I was talking to a class about reasons why people move. We focused on reasons why they landed here, in Annandale.

The discussion, as you can imagine, was lively and interesting - hearing all of these various stories about families: reasons why they moved to the U.S. or Virginia. It was clear for some students that they were spouting off stories told to them by parents... when they were mere babies during the transition. Regardless, I was intrigued... as was the class.

Some things we shared:

I heard about bombings,
mothers moving to go to college and falling in love with fathers
(and on to birth mini-4th graders),
parents moving for jobs, leaving mom and baby at home to move later,
moving closer to relatives,
planned relocations to the states for a new life in a rich country,
good hospitals and medical care (for a child with many surgeries in his past),
adoption,
military relocation,
and
"family want American dream."

I got goosebumps. I also went with a student-initiated tangent about military relocation.
We talked about why this area might attract military personnel, and why military bases are common around here as opposed to some other places in the country. Being from a Navy family, my first example was about a naval base.

Shoot forward 5 minutes - after we had moved on.

Hand raised. I call on it.

"If there are *navel* bases, does that mean there are Belly Button Bases? Because navels, in this one book I read, meant belly buttons."

Discovery: Navel does not mean the same as Naval. And no, there are no such things as Belly Button Bases. Brainstorming activity turned homophone lesson.