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!
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