It's the Little Things...

There was another soccer game after school, so all but one of my students stayed afterwards.  I got more accomplished than I had expected, especially after they left to go warm up.  My outside door was propped open to let some cool air in our sweltering classroom, so I could hear/see people coming and going.  One third grader and his first grade sister came walking up the steps to my room.  I could hear them before they got close, "Of course she's in there.  Let's go say hi to Miss Heintz."  They come running in, say hi, and then scamper off to do something else.  A few minutes later the boy comes back in carrying a paper plate and a small Tupperware container. 

"Miss Heintz, I got a surprise for you."

His brother (one of my 6th graders) had been squishing box elder bugs against the side of the school today, so I was a little leery of this third grader's surprise.

"Is it a good surprise or something that might be kind of gross?"
"A good one.  You can eat it."  He opened up the container to reveal an apple dessert, fresh from the oven (his mom baked it before they came over to the game).  He told me he was going to give some to his teacher, but Mr. D left for the day, so he'd have to find someone else to give it to.  This third grader was so prepared!  He had brought plastic forks and plates.

So he scooped out a piece for me and plopped it on the plate.  It wouldn't slide off the fork, so he used one grubby finger to put some pressure on his surprise for me.  Internally wincing, I noticed all the layers of dirt he had on his hands as he pulled the fork out.  But... I ate it anyway.  It was delicious.  There were of course apples, with a crusty bread-like top sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar.  Did I mention it was warm from the oven?  Yum. 

After delivering the other piece to our principal, he and his sister came back swinging Lunchables, their supper for tonight.  I made them sit at one of our back tables so they wouldn't get food all over the place.  They kept talking the entire time they were eating.  And they kept trying to give me their food too (I made them eat it all). 

The sister kept calling me "Mrs. Heintz" until her brother finally yelled at her, "Her name is Miss Heintz! She's not married!"

Of course his sister had to ask, "Why not?"

Hmm.  How to answer that question.  "I don't have a boyfriend, so I can't get married."
"Well how come you don't have a boyfriend?"
"I don't know any cute boys."
"Really?"
"All the cute boys I know are about this tall." (I held my hand about waist height).

The third grader piped up, "I'm cute!"  I just smiled at him. 
Then they noticed the flowers on my desk one of my 6th graders had picked from a bush on the way to school.  Of course they wanted to know who they were from.  Then the third grader announced he was going to bring me a rose tomorrow.  And his sister chimed in, "Me too!"  Then they both ran out to go play.

I don't know if they're going to bring me a rose or not, but either way, it was a pretty good end to my day.

Doozy of a Day

Well this has been an interesting day. 

This morning I woke up from a dream where one of the 7th grade girls (the most pushy of them all) was screaming at me in class and I was screaming back at her.  I don't remember if there were other students around, but either way it was stressful.

The 7th and 8th graders had a test in Science today (and one in geography tomorrow).  Since they haven't been trying very hard on their homework, I thought I'd print off their grades so they know how they're doing.  In summary, not so hot.  I left a note on the whiteboard saying if they didn't like their grades, they should come talk to me about them before or after school.  Only a few people came to talk to me.  Most of them wanted some extra credit worksheets or assignments to do.  They kept bugging me about them all day and I didn't get the chance to print some off, so I'm going to have to do that tomorrow before school.

I was run ragged by the 1st and 2nd graders at afternoon recess.  They kept asking me to give them an "under-fish" (another name for underdog).  Since I'm taller than the 3rd and 4th grade teacher, I can push them higher.  We have four swings and I was in demand for pushes on all of them.  Whew!  I escaped only to be caught by two sisters who were digging in a sand hole by the playground.  They started screaming because they saw a little spider.  I convinced them that it was just a baby one and it couldn't hurt them.  They ended up naming the little guy, and while they were deciding on a name, I sat back, congratulating myself on changing the world, one spider-lover at a time.... and then the girls screamed again.  They saw a daddy long-legs.  I said, "Girls, that's just a daddy long-legs.  I thought you liked spiders now."  "We do, but we only like little baby ones, not big ones like that creepy daddy long-legs."  Then they started screaming some more as it crept toward them.  Thanks Lord for showing me humility.  I herded it to the grass away from the girls.  "Miss Heintz, is it gone?"  "Yep, it's in the grass."  "Good.  What are we doing for art today?" 

That was the question of the recess.  I'm pretty sure I got asked that question by at least four 1st and 2nd graders.  The answer was watercolor masking tape trees.  It's a super easy project that looks awesome.  First you put masking tape in a shape on your paper (we did tree shapes).  The hardest part of the project was getting the tape torn just right and stuck on the page.  After they had their tape situated, they could paint over the page with their watercolors.  A bunch of them were mixing colors to make some darker shades.  All of them were super careful with how they were painting.  That kind of surprised me; I modeled how to put the paint over the tape tree and was kind of painting sloppily.  One little boy said, "Miss Heintz, why are you scribbling?"  I didn't really know what to say to that, "Because I can" isn't the best response for any student.  I think I ended up saying something about wanting to get all the white around the tape covered with paint. 

They all wanted to take their tape off right away, but I told them they had to wait until it was dry.  One boy (who wanted his tree to look EXACTLY like mine) kept touching his paint, "Miss Heintz! I think mine's almost dry!  Can I take the tape off?"  "I think it needs more time to dry.  Why don't you finish painting the page before you think about peeling your tape off?"  I can't wait to see what their trees look like!  My 6th graders saw my example and got really excited, "Do we get to do that?  I think we should do that next.  It looks really cool."

Our test during 7th and 8th grade science went well behavior-wise.  I haven't corrected them yet; I'm kind of dreading it.  I think a lot of them just gave up on answering the questions and wrote down random stuff.  Since this test was a unit test, covering two chapters, I mishmashed a bunch of questions from both chapter tests together and the numbers didn't match up.   This really confused one of the eight grade boys; he kept flipping from one page to the next looking very perplexed.  Finally he raised his hand and I walked over to hear him, "Didn't you say there were two extra credit questions?  Well, where is the second one?"  I flipped to the second page and pointed to the number.  "What! There's another page?!"  Apparently he hadn't realized there was a second page.  Or a back to the second page. I don't think he was very excited about that. 

Volleyball practice was interesting too.  I did a drill with the older girls where I would throw the ball to them and they'd bump, set, or spike the ball.  It went fine until it came time to spike.  Then I had to dodge the balls!  The whole time I kept thinking, "Wow, Emily, what a great idea.  Give your students the perfect chance to hit you with balls as hard as they can.  Perfect payback for giving out bad grades and difficult tests."  I thought about making a joke with them about it, but decided I didn't want to give them any ideas, just in case.

After practice, I tried to catch up one of my students with her science vocabulary words.  She's over 20 words behind! I have no idea how this slipped under the radar.  Of course, her dad is sitting in a chair waiting for us to finish so they can go home.  He's hearing me load on the homework (that she should've been doing over the past two weeks), so he probably thinks I'm an evil teacher giving out tons of homework to make my students suffer.

Finally everyone left and I just wanted to go home.  But first I had to pack up and decide what I needed to correct.  My car has been having some transmission issues and I've been calling around trying to figure out what's wrong with it.  My dad gave me the number for the Ford dealer near my hometown, so I gave them a call to see what they would say.  I won't bore you with the details, but I ended up needing to check my transmission fluid.  So I head out to the parking lot with some paper towels, still in my volleyball clothes, ready to check this puppy out.  And then I couldn't find the transmission dipstick.  After calling Dad, asking him if he knew where it was, and reading the owner's manual, I learned that my vehicle doesn't have a place to check the transmission.  Wonderful.  Finally I called the guy I bought the vehicle from to ask his opinion about what I should do. 

He said I should just get the filter replaced and change the transmission fluid (with an additive in it).  He could do it and he could do it this weekend when I go home.  Perfect.  I drove home, finally ready for a break. 

I walk into my apartment and dump my stuff in my room.  And then I notice my alarm clock.  No lights are on.  "Nooo! My alarm clock died!  Now I'll have to buy a new one! But I love this one!  I don't want to change!"  Grasping at straws, I tried it in a new outlet.  And another one.  And another one.  None worked.  Then I thought I should try turning on my lamp to see if maybe the outlet was the thing that was bad.

My lamp didn't turn on.  Neither did any of the lights in my apartment.  Then I noticed my fridge wasn't running and there was no time showing on my microwave.  What did I do?  Checked the fuse box, flipped some switches.  Nothing happened.  Called Mom.  She told me to call the emergency maintenance number for my apartment building.  They said they'd be out soon.  Soon turned out to be forty minutes.  I tried to find something to eat, going in and out of my fridge quickly so the cold wouldn't escape.  It's quite a challenge to put a meal together without using electricity.  I ended up with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  Except it was frozen because my bread was in the freezer.  Not the peaceful evening I had envisioned.

The maintenance guy finally came and said the electric company had a power outage and they would hopefully have it fixed soon.  Sigh.  They joys of technology.  Now my power is back on.  I've eaten supper.  Some of my papers are corrected (not as many as I hoped).  Lessons are planned for tomorrow.  I think I'm going to call it a night.

Summary of the Week

To back up a few days, our class fundraiser on Sunday was a success!  Our class served treats after church for free will donation.  Each 6th grader was in charge of bringing treats or juice and stayed after to help pour coffee/look pretty/serve bars/smile at the people who walked past.  A few of the older congregation members commented that it was nice to see such young faces helping out.  All together we raised $40 to go into our field trip fund.  (Next Friday we're going on a trip to the Pipestone National Monument and the Jeffers Petroglyphs.)  This coming Sunday is our school's Pork Chop dinner and Silent Auction and the following Sunday we'll do the same fundraiser again.

Yesterday was our school's first home soccer and volleyball games.  We played against Trinity Lutheran from Janesville.  All day, students were asking me if I was going to go to the game.  Yes, I was.  Since I had to coach volleyball after the soccer game, I decided to change out of my teacher clothes and in to jeans.  When I walked out to the field, I heard the goalie say to another player, "Is that Miss Heintz?"  I guess they don't recognize me out of dress clothes.

It was great to see the students putting all their moves together; I've seen them practice every day during lunch recess.  One very cool coincidence at the game was that I saw some of my old students from Janesville.  The semester before I did student teaching, I taught 3rd grade reading, math, and religion at Trinity.  The 3rd graders are now 4th graders and a bunch of them are playing soccer and volleyball!  Two of my former students sat behind me during the volleyball game and said, "Hi Miss Heintz!"  It's nice to know I'm not forgotten. :)  They've changed so much in one year! 

The Worst Goalie In the World

Everyone at this school LOVES soccer (except me; I'm not the biggest fan).  But I've been putting my opinions aside since it is soccer season, and all my kids love playing it.  At recess we've been playing variations of the game- this week it's been mini-soccer.  The past few days I've been able to avoid playing, but today we were short one and it's already hard to play soccer with only six people.  So they put me as goalie.  Yeah.  Dress clothes + teacher shoes + no skill= a very interesting soccer game.  I actually did much better than I thought I would have, given the circumstances.  After a while, one of the boys on my team made me start kicking the ball after it went out of bounds by our goal.  I wasn't expecting too much, but the ball actually took off!  As this sixth grader chased the ball he yelled, "Nice kick, Miss H!"  It totally made my day.  Maybe I'm not the worst goalie in the world.

In reading, we're reading a story about the discovery of Machu Picchu, which is located in Peru.  I remembered that one of my friends from college lived in Peru for a summer and is currently teaching English in Chile.  I facebooked her to see if we could Skype during school.  Her schedule was open and today we Skyped with her for about a half an hour!  My sixth graders came up with a list of questions and took turns asking.  We found out about the food, clothes, climate, animals, and landscape of both Peru and Chile.  We had so much fun!  Our internet connection wasn't very strong, so we had to keep trying to call her back.  The video didn't work so well either, but we made the best of it and still learned a lot.

One of my students brought in some Native American artifacts borrowed from a family friend.  There were a few old buffalo bones along with some authentic glass trading beads.  Some of the beads were green (they looked like watermelons) and red.  Those ones were pretty rare and are the most valuable.  The other ones were blue or a grayish color.  There was even a beaded belt.  We didn't have very long to look at them, but the time we had was well spent.

After school I spent some time helping the preschool teacher figure out how to put pictures on the school website for her class.  I was also snagged to take pictures of the basketball uniforms so we could send them to the uniform company to make extras.  I guess I'm the go-to tech person at our school.  But I don't mind. 

Goodie Basket

On my way into school this morning, I met one of my students' parents leaving my classroom.  She had dropped off a whole bunch of stuff from their family friend (the one who donated the lab table).  He had buffalo bones, buffalo teeth, Indian trading beads, a bunch of chemistry glassware, and a big map of insects.  Today was a science day, but tomorrow we're going to take a look at the Native American artifacts he's loaning our class.

The 7th and 8th graders were having another good day.  Not quite as good as yesterday, but still much better than the previous days.  Mr. E said he didn't say anything special to them before they came to my class, but he had had a talk with them about behavior in general while at school.

After school, we had volleyball practice, but before that, I helped the preschool teacher figure out how to put pictures on her computer.  She had lost her camera cord, but the one for my camera also fits hers, so she was able to borrow mine.  Now she wants to put pictures on the website.  So tomorrow after school we're going to work on that together. 

Mr. D, the third and fourth grade teacher, had heard that I wanted a poster of the periodic table of elements in my classroom, so he found his at home and brought it for me to use until I get my own.  I did a little looking on the internet last night, and found a huge one (about 5ft 4ft) for $50.  Of course that's the one I want.  I hung our tiny poster up and pointed it out to the 6th graders.  One of them came up with the idea to have each of them bring in $10 so we could buy it for our class.  I said they could go for it, but then they wanted me to send a note home.  I'm pretty sure the parents wouldn't be as excited about this project as my 6th graders.  So I said they could tell their parents if they wanted to, or else I'll just put the poster on our wish tree.  Mom? Dad? Early Christmas present?

So Much Watermelon!

I've been browsing the internet (and Pinterest) for the past hour trying to find recipes involving watermelon.  One of my students' parents brought a huge watermelon to school for me.  I shared half with the 1st and 2nd grade teacher, but my half is still huge!  It barely fits in my fridge!  I scooped a whole bunch out for supper tonight (and I'm going to share some with my sisters).

Today was the first soccer and volleyball game of the year.  It was away- in Truman, MN, so I didn't go.  I really, really wanted to though!  However, I did get a lot done around school.  I'll just have to wait until tomorrow to hear how it went.

To practice, my six 6th graders played mini-soccer at recess.  Basically it's just regular soccer, except with mini goals and a smaller playing field.  The teams were pretty evenly matched and everyone was running and getting some exercise in the crisp autumn air... and it was really crisp today!  I actually wore my jacket outside for recess!  But I'm not quite ready for the cold.  Winter can stay away as far as I'm concerned.

I was completely shocked today during my time with the 7th and 8th graders.  They were little angels!  I wonder what their teacher said to them before we switched.  I did hear him say, "Now be on your best behavior," but I don't think that would be enough to get this much of a behavior change.  I wonder if it had something to do with the soccer/volleyball games tonight.  Either way, they sat in their seats, raised their hands to answer questions (there was still some blurting of answers, but 90% better from their average day), and actually participated in class!  I did catch some girls taking notes from the book instead of paying attention, but no matter what I'd say, they would still be taking notes.

Even now, I'm completely baffled by their good behavior.  The only thing I did differently was to confess that I think what we were learning now is boring too (Our text book was published in 1995.  I was barely in school when it was wrote!).  I don't remember exactly what I said, but it was something along these lines, "I know this stuff we're learning is pretty boring.  I don't think it's very interesting either, but we have to get through these chapters in the book.  Just bear with me for a few more days and then we'll move on to more interesting stuff.  I promise it will get better.  We just have three more sections, then a test, and then it starts getting better."  I don't really think my speech was motivation enough for them to suddenly toe the line.  I'll have to ask Mr. E about it tomorrow before school...

Plants, Plants Everywhere!

I had a great weekend.  I hung out with my sisters for a while, went to the Renaissance Festival (somewhat of a disappointment, but I'm still glad I went), and had a bonfire.  Altogether a fun fall weekend.

When I got to school, I walked into my classroom to find a big box full of plants.  The school nurse had donated a bunch of her spider plants and other assorted growing things.  There are 10 spider plants, enough for each of my students to have one, plus some extra!  We also have a bush thing, aloe vera, a hanging viney plant, and a flower planter thing.  (Can you tell I know plants really well???)  We're starting an observation experiment with these plants.  Each student picked one and put it in the room where they think it will grow best.  They are in charge of making sure their plants get watered when they need it.  I taught them how to tell if a plant needs more moisture, but I'm not sure how many will be able to apply it to their plants.  Oh well.  It's a learning process.

I kind of got in trouble with the 7th and 8th graders.  Somehow we got on the topic of euthanasia, which led to a moral discussion about whether it's okay to kill humans if they're in pain or are too old.  I made the comment that animals don't have have souls, which is why it's okay to euthanize them.  About half the class started yelling at me, saying their animals are going to heaven.  I told them to ask Pastor the next time they have confirmation class.  Yikes! I had no idea that would push so many buttons!  Part of me thinks they were just doing it to react to something (they kind of like talking out of turn). 

The 6th graders and I started reading in small groups today.  That left three people independently working, and some of them were not happy that they didn't get to Read to Someone with their best friends. 

In 1st and 2nd grade art, we made "polka dot butterflies" using pointillism (aka, lots of dots).  I showed them how to draw an outline of a butterfly and reminded them to use symmetry with the colors on the wings.  They drew them a lot smaller than I imagined, so I told them to just add a few more butterflies on their page.  Some of them really enjoyed it!  A few students asked me for more paper so they could keep making them.  One girl got really excited when she got the idea to give it to her swimming teacher. 

After school, Lori, the head volleyball coach, told me she wasn't going to be around for practice and would I be able to run practice by myself?  Of course I said yes; I didn't want the girls running all over the school, waiting for their parents to come pick them up, not to mention we have our first game tomorrow.  I think some of the 7th and 8th grade girls were not too happy I was running practice.  First, I switched up the drills we did.  They wanted to scrimmage the whole time since our game is tomorrow, but I wanted them to work on fundamentals like bumping, setting, and spiking.  I also made them switch partners a couple times, which made the older girls pair with some of the younger (not as good) players.  However, I did notice the older girls giving the younger girls pointers.  Everyone got to serve at the same time instead of wasting time waiting for them to go one at a time.  Everyone had a ball; some were a bit flat, or weren't as soft as the girls would've like, but everyone had a ball.  We did scrimmage at the end (A squad vs. B squad) and the B team almost won!  Then I mixed them up for the last game.  They tried to be sneaky by saying "I really want to be on this team" (which was actually the team they didn't want to be on) so I'd put them on the other team with their friends.   I saw through it.  One 7th grader (the star of the team) was NOT happy with the teams I chose.  She said they were unfair, but her team ended up winning anyway.  It was a close match.  I hope we can pull off a win tomorrow!

I Scream, You Scream, We all Scream for Ice Cream!

Tonight was the church's annual Ice Cream Social.  There's actually lots more food besides ice cream, a whole dinner, in fact.  Then we had a PTL meeting, the first of the year.  One of the parents dropped off some microscopes we're borrowing from a nearby public school.  The science teacher we're borrowing them from also included some prepared slides of plant parts.  My kids will be so excited to look through them tomorrow!

Speaking of science... today, we made jello plant cells.  At first the 6th graders were all excited, but then I started putting fruit in.... and the boys became not so excited.  I'm pretty sure the most common phrase of the hour was, "I'm not eatin' that!"  And all the girls said, "Oh, that looks so good!  It smells so yummy!"  Unfortunately, our jello wasn't solid enough by the end of science for us to eat it, so we're going to have it for snack tomorrow.  As an added bonus, we can review what all the parts are!  Woohoo! Teachable moment!

I chastised the 7th and 8th graders today about not doing their best on their homework.  I corrected all their papers last night and I kept getting more and more frustrated!  Some of them put down silly answers that had nothing to do with the question.  Others wrote down the smallest amount of information they could get away with.  So.  I told them that I was disappointed in them and that they could do better, that I expected them to do better, especially since I don't give them all that much to do for homework.  After that, the class went a little smoother, but we'll see once I get their next homework assignment back.  They were also asking about doing experiments, and I had to tell them that they're not ready yet.  I don't trust them enough to follow my lead, so we're holding off on the experiments.  Hopefully that will be incentive enough to get them to simmer down.

In other news, my class schedule is changing some more.  Since two of my students are getting extra support in reading and math, we switched our reading and English times around.  So after religion, we head straight in to English, followed by reading (instead of the other way around).  And then today we had another change in our schedule. 

It was rainy today, so all the kids had to play in the gym for recess.  This afternoon we realized that the k-4th graders had recess the same time the 6-8th graders were supposed to have PE.  There's definitely not enough room for crazy upperclassmen and hyperactive little ones to be in the same gym all winter.  After much discussion, we figured out the older kids are just going to have Bells (music) when they would've had PE, and they'll have PE when they normally would've had Bells.  I'm still going to do recess duty and art at the normal times.  For some reason, this switch just didn't make sense in my head, no matter how much I tried to understand it.  I think I got it now.

Recess in the gym is absolutely insane.  Picture about 50 kids running around, throwing balls, bouncing on a mini trampoline, jump roping, bumping and setting volleyballs, begging the teachers to play with them, etc.  I got bombarded by about five students all at once.  One girl got poked in the eye (by accident) so I had to go sort that out.  Another girl wanted me to play tennis with her (me throwing the ball and her hitting it).  The teachers wanted to talk about switching the schedule around.  So many people! 

It's about 8:30pm.  There are four kids in my room, playing on the computer.  Parents are still meeting about upcoming fundraisers and their kids are kind of running wild.  I would leave, but I don't trust them in my room.  And my door is kind of hard to unlock.  But I guess I'm just making excuses now. 

Whew!

What a day.  My voice is sore from talking loud all day.  I thought I would get a break from talking during recess duty (watching the k-4th graders play), but I got put in charge of kickball and had to ref the whole game.  This included comforting one boy who wanted to kick first, be the only pitcher, and never get out even when he should be.  I broke up a couple of fights, split up "the best kickball players" so teams would be fair, and reminded students whose turn it was to kick.  Oh, and I cheered for them too.  Not much of a break.  Oh well. 

The 7th and 8th graders got a seating chart, and it worked all right.  One guy kept looking off to the side, so I think I'm going to have to move him.  Everyone else seemed to do okay.  It was really weird; half the class was falling asleep while I was talking, and the other half was super full of energy.  But apparently that's how they always are.  We were talking about the scientific method, which does get pretty dry.

The IT guys came overnight and finally installed our new computers.  My room is so much quieter with these computers!  One of them still doesn't work; the screen won't light up.

Art with the 1st and 2nd graders was also pretty crazy today.  We were making Weavy Worms by taking two pieces of paper and folding them over each other.  Then we drew faces on them.  The students LOVED them!  Two boys kept throwing them in the air and catching their caterpillars.  Some of the kids wanted to make extras for their moms and dads.  Thankfully, I cut a lot of extra papers, so they could. 

Volleyball practice was kind of a waste.  One of my students who's been struggling stayed after school to get caught up on her work.  So she was in my room by herself.  This would've been okay, but she has a hard time focusing and the older volleyball players kept coming in to see what she was working on!  One girl actually told her she could do her homework some other time- she should come play volleyball with the rest of them.  When my 6th grader asked if she could do that I told her to do her work and she could come to practice on Wednesday.  Her dad and I had a long talk when he came to pick her up.  But now all three of us knows what's going on, so hopefully the year (and homework!) will go smoother.  Thank the Lord for Assignment Notebooks. 

Well, I think I'm going to head home and make some tea for my tired voice.  My internet will hopefully get hooked up on Thursday.  Of course they're coming between the hours of 1 and 5, so who knows when they'll actually come.  Sigh.  The joys of technology.

It's Friday!

Well, I made it through week two without too much trouble.  The 7th and 8th graders were pretty crazy today... and I had them for an hour.  Two girls were working on their assignment while I was teaching, the boys were giggling in the corner... let's just say they're getting a seating chart on Monday.

On another note, noon recess was quite entertaining today.  Since soccer season is starting, the 6th-8th graders have been playing soccer.  Today just three of my sixth graders made two goals on the four eighth graders that were out there.  Of course, that score got turned around when more of them came out, but still, I was pretty proud.  The eight grader who always plays goalie was feeling goofy today.  When he grabbed the ball, he held it close to him and said, "my precious" just like that creepy guy from "Lord of the Rings."  One of my sixth grade girls found a tiny skeleton of a creature, only about one and a half inches.  We're not sure what it is.  She thought it was a frog, but I think the spine is not quite right.  I'm going to have to do some research (if I ever get the internet working in my apartment).  She also found a huge orange beetle (dead) about the same size as the skeleton.  We brought both of them in to add to our collection.

I finally got our carnivorous plants planted.  The terrarium is sitting underneath our northeast window to get the appropriate amount of sunlight.  I guess it's going to take three to six weeks for the plants to start coming up.  Sigh.  I hate waiting.  The rest of the seeds are still resting in the fridge, pretending it's winter.

We got a new volleyball player today.  A little third grader was added to our team to get the numbers up for B squad.  I worked with her a lot on serving the ball.  She made one over the net during our scrimmage!

My classroom is tidy, plants are watered, and I'm packing up to go home for a weekend of lesson planning.  Woohoo!  I'll probably squeeze a stop to the library in sometime this weekend.  But other than that, no wild crazy plans.

Carnivorous Plants

Today we pulled out the microscopes for the first time, and I was less than impressed.  They were really light weight and had a mirror on the bottom instead of a light bulb.  You couldn't see anything unless the mirror was tilted exactly right.  Some of my girls picked more flowers, so we examined their parts during science (since we were talking about parts of a plant). 

We were given a carnivorous plant kit from my aunt; she said she was never going to use it.  So these plants will be our new "class pets."  Unfortunately, some of the seeds take six weeks to get ready to plant!  Those ones are currently resting in the fridge in the hallway.  I should probably put a note on them so they don't accidentally get thrown away. 

Today was my first time being recess monitor for the kindergartners through fourth graders.  It was so much fun!  I got to push kids on the swings, give them underdogs, eat some "popcorn" and "pizza," watch kids swing upside-down-one-handed from the monkey bars, and see the boys play kickball.  So much creativity!  I was also introduced to the term "web swinging."  Two little girls wanted me to hold their swings together so they could latch on to the other one with their legs, creating a web.  And then they wanted me to push them. 

Another boy and girl were swinging next to each other.  After giving them both underdogs, they wanted to see if I could reach them.  I tried to touch the bottoms of their feet, but they were too high!  Of course they thought it was hilarious for me to keep trying to touch their feet.  Eventually, the girl figured out that she could get an extra push if she kept her legs straight when I touched them.  We called it Backwards Pushing.  It was an instant hit.  Before we went inside, two of the kindergartners gave me some tiny flowers.  They're wilting on my desk right now, but I'm not quite ready to throw them away. 

The 1st and 2nd graders have been looking forward to me teaching them art ALL DAY.  In chapel this morning, when Pastor asked for prayer requests, one little boy said "we get to have Miss Heintz teach us art today!"  At recess they all wanted to know when I was coming in to their classroom.  When it was finally time for art, we got started right away.  But before that, the 7th and 8th graders came to my room for science.  Then my kids came back from math and the 7th and 8th graders went back to their room to get some homework to bring to my room to work on while everyone else was doing bells. (Half of the 7th and 8th graders are doing Bells on Monday, the other half on Wednesday; the rest are having study hall).  Finally I could go to Mrs. T's room for 1st and 2nd grade art. 

We made apple shaped collages out of magazines.  They actually turned out really cool.  Of course I had one student who finished his project in like 10 minutes.  So I had him help pass out colors of magazines that his classmates needed.  Then he took around the garbage can.  He was most helpful, even though he was pretty loud.

I came back to my room to find the boards clean and every 6th grader sitting in his/her desk, getting ready for the end of the school day.  What a great end to the day! 

And then the volleyball coach was late (today was the first day of practice).  All day students have been asking me if I'm going to help coach, and my answer was always, "No one has asked me if I could help."  But I guess I ended up volunteering myself after school.  The head coach is one of my 6th graders' moms.  Hopefully this won't get to be too much to handle the first year of teaching.  But it doesn't sound like we have too many games, and we only have practice twice a week (Mondays and Wednesdays from after school til 4:15).  I didn't bring clothes to change in to, so I just stayed at practice in my teacher clothes.  I will for sure remember other clothes next time.  So I guess practice was the real end to my day.  Now I'm going to head home and lesson plan for tomorrow!

It's a Lab Table!

Another great start to the week.  My 6th graders are starting to get the hang of Daily 5; today we started working on Word Work... aka spelling, handwriting, and creative writing.  There just isn't enough time!  We also came up with some goals/rules for the year. 

At noon recess, our froggy friend was still hopping around.  Two of the 6th grade girls went on a nature hunt again.  This time they brought me flowers.  Right now the flowers are in an old art container on my desk.  The rest of the students played Lone Wolf, a type of soccer game where everyone tries to make a goal and the goalie tries to block the ball.  If it goes in, whoever shot the ball gets to be the new goalie. 

Geography with the 7th and 8th graders even went pretty well.  I had to separate those two 8th graders again and they still made faces at each other!  I'm hoping it will sort itself out the next few days.  We were discussing maps and somehow got on the topic of the Bermuda Triangle.  Now that was an interesting discussion.  My homework for next time is to find out where it's located. 

My lab table was delivered the last ten minutes of school.  It's not exactly what I pictured, but since it's free, I'm not complaining.  There are slots for drawers and places where electricity can get hooked up, but there aren't any drawers or electricity right now.  There also aren't cabinets underneath, but someone could easily add some.  So, now we just need to get a SMARTboard, and we'll be all set!