Mrs. W's Last Day

 We were doing a morning meeting when a student from the other 4th grade class popped in.  She said she had some things for my students to sign.  I asked what it was that they were signing, and... she didn't want to tell me.  Drawing conclusions yet again, I figured that it had something to do with Kristy and me leaving.  So I asked her if she wanted me to exit the classroom so I wouldn't see what they were doing.  As I was leaving, I heard one of my kids say, "It's almost like she knows what this is for."  Someone else chimed in, "I'm pretty sure she knows what we're doing." So I was kicked out of my own classroom for about 15 minutes.  And of course, all sorts of people and teachers and classes walked past and saw me casually hanging outside my room with the door closed.  I heard them reading our Morning Message aloud in unison, so I figured it would probably be safe to go back in, but the door was locked.  I had to wait for someone to let me in.  But, I eventually made it back into the classroom, and a few hours later, the girl from Mrs. M's class came back with a card and some candy sweethearts to pass out to the class as a going away present for me.  They all wanted to point out where they signed the card and kept asking me what I was going to do with the card and where I was going to put it.  They thought I should put it in a box frame so I would see it all the time.  Right now it's sitting on my desk where I can see it as I do my homework.

So it was Kristy's last day with her 4th graders today, and boy did they have a party!  We could hear them on the other side of the wall raising a ruckus to beat the band.  I was this close to going over there to tell them to tone it down!  One of my 4th graders came up to me and said, "Miss Heintz, do they have a Wii? Because I'm pretty sure they are playing one in there.  It's not fair!"  Another student piped up, "Why do they get to play video games?"  "Because it's Mrs. W's last day."  "Wait, so on your last day can we play video games?"  I told them they should ask Mrs. J about that.  They were all really excited, but I don't think they realized that they wouldn't get the chance to ask her before my last day; Mrs. J is gone today, they don't have school Monday or Tuesday, and my last day is Wednesday.  Bummer.



We did kind of have a fun day today.  We watched The Tale of Despereaux in class because I read the book out loud earlier in the semester.  I wanted to discuss the differences between the book and the movie, but there wasn't enough time.  Mrs. M and I switched classes fifteen minutes early because the 5th grade classes were hosting a wax museum in the library.  After testing insulators and conductors with Mrs. M's class in science, we switched back, and I took my kids to the wax museum.

It was so cool!  Some of the students went all out with their costumes (and of course there were others who didn't dress up at all... ahem... the kid who was supposed to be Steve Jobs).  I think my favorite ones were Orville and Wilbur Wright.  The two presenters did their speeches together and had it worked out so one would say a line, and the other would pick up right where the first left off.  It was fantastic!  My other favorite was Laura Ingalls Wilder; she had a very well put together spiel.  I hovered around groups of students who were listening to the 5th graders, but after a while I had three students who pretty much stuck with me for the time we were at the museum.  I tried to get them to guess who the character was; I almost think it was more fun for me to try to get them to find the right answer than it was for me to guess the right character.