Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Put your hands in the air!

This morning, my kids were being especially crazy before school started.  One of the 7th grade girls gave out presents (consisting mostly of candy) to her friends and they were certainly enjoying it!  I decided to give them something to do. 

I told them about this "magic" trick.  If you stand in a doorway with your arms at your sides and push them as hard as you can against the door posts for 30 seconds, then when you leave your hands at your sides, they'll magically float up.  That kept them entertained up until the bell rang. 

We spent most of the morning watching the movie Where the Red Fern Grows.  I previewed it last night (and cried at the end).  Before we watched the movie, I had my students describe how they pictured the characters in the book.  After the movie, they reviewed those descriptions and wrote how the movie was similar and how it differed from their idea. 

As an extra treat, I let them eat popcorn and drink pop during the movie.  We moved desks around, grabbed beanbags, and hunkered down to watch.  During the movie, I had them fill out Venn diagrams to compare the book and the movie.  I was pleasantly surprised at how many of the little details they remembered about the book!  Every two seconds it seemed like someone was saying, "But Miss Heintz! Didn't it happen this way in the book?"  Oh it warmed my heart!

At noon recess, I watched my two boys play basketball on the same team.  They were whipping the ball around, back and forth, passing it over and under and all around the eighth graders on the other team.  Wow! It was crazy!  It reminded me of the way Old Dan and Little Ann work together in Where the Red Fern Grows.  Cool stuff.  I told one of the boys and he just looked at me and laughed.  Hopefully he took it as a complement.

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