A surprise visitor...

Yesterday held a number of surprises.  I was sitting at my desk in the classroom when a 5th grade student entered the room holding a bunch of balloons and a box of cookies.  It was his birthday and he had brought treats for his class.  He came right up to me and said, "this is for you."  I was confused because I didn't know him; I thought maybe he had gotten the wrong room. But he repeated his sentence again, "Yes, you."  Then he handed me a cookie and left one for Mrs. J too! 

Our other surprise took place in the afternoon around science time.  My dad had gone to pick up baby chicks for my siblings' 4-H project and passed right by the school where I'm student teaching.  He volunteered to stop by and show the chicks to my class.  Unfortunately, there's a policy prohibiting animals from being in the school, but Mrs. J cleared it with the principal so we could show them in an entryway.  I started science with my class a little early because of the disruption and I left my phone on vibrate on my desk so I would hear Dad when he called.  I prefaced the lesson with a vague disclosure, "We're having a visitor to our classroom, so my phone may ring while I'm teaching."  Immediately they began to guess who it would be.  Most of them guessed my dad, but they all thought he was bringing a bottle lamb.  When Dad called, a few of the ones closest to me could hear his voice over the phone, "It's a guy!" they shouted.  He pulled up right outside our classroom window, so they all struggled to peer out the window.  Five of them offered to go let him in the school.

We actually saw the chicks in a relatively organized manner.  The babies pooped on a few students, fell asleep in a few students' hands, and were peeping the whole time.  After my class saw/petted them, Mrs. M's class came for a look.  When all of them had gotten a chance, they went back to my classroom, washed their hands, and had a question/answer question with "Farmer Heintz."  Their questions were pretty good.  Some included, "What is your favorite job to do on the farm?  What is the hardest physical job on the farm? What do you like to do in your spare time, when you've done all the work?  How do the baby chicks get inside the egg?"

After school, one of the paras stopped me in the hallway and asked how old Dad was.  When I told her, she commented, "Wow, he did not look old enough to have a kid as old as you! He looks way younger than that."