Dissecting Worms and Tator Tot Hotdish

Well, the 7th and 8th graders had their first dissecting experience today in class.  We started simple with earthworms.

I spent about ten minutes writing instructions on the board about what we were going to do... first safety instructions, then equipment usage, finally pick partners and lab stations, and end with the actual dissection.  They were all distracted by the neon colored goggles.  I bought that color so they would want to keep them on their faces and not try to sneak them off in the middle of the lab.  Unfortunately, they had trouble focusing on anything else.  At least I had them stuck in a tub so they weren't as visible.

We went over how to take off gloves, folding our lab aprons, and washing equipment in the sink (such a pain since we have to walk all the way to the bathroom at the other end of school).  Then I showed them the tools.  When the saw the scalpel, they got all excited and started telling stories about this one person who almost sliced off a finger while doing... well, you get the picture.  I let them choose their own groups and it actually worked really well.  Most of the groups worked well together and figured out what was going on.  A few girls were too grossed out and had some trouble, but thankfully they had less squeamish partners who weren't scared of cutting into a huge worm.

The putting stuff away part of the lab was the most complicated.  They washed off their stuff all right, but forgot to put away chairs and throw away all the wrappers their aprons and goggles came in.  At least we only have to deal with that once.  The room got put back in order without too much hassle and stink.  They were pretty grossed out by the smell of formaldehyde.

One of the 6th graders finally remembered to bring a five gallon pail, so we mixed up our dirt today.  I think I added too much water; the tank is kind of fogging up at the bottom.  But I hooked up the lights and have the heat lamp on, so hopefully that will help dry out the soil substrate by this weekend.

Our class fundraiser was tonight.  Two 6th graders stayed after school; one because she didn't have a ride, the other because he wanted to play hockey in the gym.  Mr. E and I forced them to come over to church to get the hotdish thrown in the oven.  We ended up getting most of the stuff set up before 4:15, when the rest of the class was supposed to show up.  Attendance wasn't quite what I was hoping, but we plowed through most of the tator tot hotdish.  Each family got to take a small tub of it home with them, but that was it.  We ended up making close to $200!  So we are definitely going to be able to afford our little tortoise.  I think all the girls are planning to come along on Friday.  The boys were still saying no, but I mentioned our trip to their moms tonight and the moms think they should go.  So I think my vehicle is going to be packed on Friday after school!  Now the question is, what should we name it?  Should we let the whole school give us name suggestions?  Or just our class?  Hmm, decisions decisions...

Tortoise Troubles...

What a crazy day!  (I know I say that a lot, but it really was.)

The day started out normal enough, but right before lunch, two people from an area agriculture group stopped by school to donate some farming themed books to our school.  Our class was the lucky group chosen to have a picture taken for the newspaper.  We all lined up behind a table in our room, books displayed in front and cheesy grins in place.

One of the boys had trouble focusing all day.  First I caught him sitting at his desk staring off into space, not accomplishing anything.  At the time, I was meeting with a different student about her reading book, so I didn't notice him for about ten minutes.  When I finally noticed, our conversation went something like this...

"Mr. 6th grader, what are you working on?"
he looked at me, "Nothing!"
"Hmm, well you should be working on something."
"But I'm done with my spelling."
"Why don't you play Bananagrams or Scrabble Flash if you're finished?"
"I've played those games like a million times!"
"Then why did you choose to do Word Work?"
no answer

Finally he started playing Scrabble Flash and he seemed to settle down until this afternoon during art.  I caught him painting his hand orange and brown and red.  He said he was "making a turkey."  He then had to go wash his hands and was done painting for the day; of course, he didn't care.  Then everyone got distracted by the terrarium I bought this weekend for our soon-to-be class pet.

This weekend, after I dropped my sister off at school, I made the trek to Pet Expo and searched for tortoise supplies.  The person I talked to said it would be a good idea to get the tank all set up and then get the tortoise, that way it doesn't have to be in the cold so long.  I wanted to compare prices a bit, so I drove over to Petco and looked around.  They were a little cheaper, but they didn't give teacher discounts.  I did find one Russian tortoise for sale.  (Pet Expo was all out of Russians, which are small and easier to take care of).  When I saw the tortoise, I decided to buy the supplies from Pet Expo, set it up, and come back for the tortoise next weekend.  The person working told me they don't normally hold pets for people, but in my case (since it is for a classroom), they'd make an exception.

So I trundled back over to Pet Expo to get my tank supplies.  When all was said and done, I had all the supplies and the teacher discount, but I forgot to use my gift certificate!  I've had it hanging out in my wallet since before Christmas!  Argh! I wanted to kick myself.  The manager tried to figure out a way to use it, but nothing worked.  But I figured I would probably buy bedding or something from them sooner or later, so I could just use it then... if I remembered.

Today, I got a phone call from someone working at Pet Expo letting me know our school was set up in their database now so we automatically get a discount.  I asked if they had any tortoises come in since I stopped by and they said yes!  They had two Russian tortoises and would be able to save one for me!  So now I'm going to have to call Petco and cancel my hold on the tortoise.

When my kids found out I was going to pick up our tortoise this week, they all wanted to come.  I didn't want to take time out of school, so I said it would be an optional field trip after school on Friday.  A permission note is going home tomorrow... we'll see if anyone still wants to come if it's not taking up school time.  Now we just need to get the tank set up!

One of my students was supposed to bring in a 5 gal. pail to mix up the dirt (it's in a cube... just add water!), but he said all his buckets have holes in them.  So two of his classmates are going to try to bring one in tomorrow.  Hopefully one of the two of them will remember.  One girl formed a lean-to out of clay for our pet to hide behind.  We just need to let it dry and then paint it.  Someone else found pictures to tape to the back of the aquarium so our tortoise doesn't bonk his head against the glass.  We still need food and water dishes and possibly some decorations to stick on the side of the tank (tortoises like to burrow, so anything we put on the floor is going to get moved around).

Explosions, Snow, and Transportation

I can't believe it.  This week has been the most bizarre out of the entire year!  School called off on Tuesday... No water on Wednesday... a mini explosion on Thursday... and school called off on Friday too!

Yesterday, the water problem still hadn't gotten fixed.  The dads hooked up the hose thing again, this time leaving the water running in the kitchen sink so the hose wouldn't freeze up while we weren't using the water. They couldn't figure out where the pipe was frozen.  About five different people were over here trying to solve the problem.  There was a Jetter Clean van, a local plumbing company, and some other experts who came to take a look.  But nothing they tried worked.

About an hour before the end of the school day, there was a loud boom!  I didn't hear it since my room is tucked away from the main hallway.  Apparently, one of the pipes (not sure where, possibly the basement) burst/exploded.  And all the students were in an uproar.  Then we found out there was some water in Mr. E's laundry room.  So now they think there's a broken pipe somewhere.  Eventually the guys in charge decided to stick a hose/camera thing down the pipes to see if they could find the blockage, but no one knew where the blueprints were for the school's pipe system to figure out where the pipes go.  Finally someone remembered that this other someone was the one who had them last.  With all this mess, they were trying to figure out if we should even have school on Friday, but by the time it was seriously talked about, all the kids were on the bus and it was too late to send a note home.  Plus a winter storm was supposed to come through, so who knew what the weather was going to be like?

Friday morning.  Listening to the radio.  Nicollet is two hours late... but no New Ulm.  So I would have to go to school to watch my two students who ride the New Ulm bus and wait until 10:00 for my other four students to show up.  I kept peeking out my window to see what the parking lot looked like... and it hadn't been plowed!  The sidewalks hadn't even been shoveled off!  That is pretty strange because they're normally good about cleaning the snow off.  Just in case they were having a late start to the day, I waited and waited and waited, but no one started scooping snow.  Finally I decided to just go.  But my snow boots were in my vehicle.  I hopped my way to my garage, backed my car over a huge drift without problems, and pulled up to my house.  My socks were getting soaked, so I ran back in for a dry pair, picked up my gear, and hopped back through the snow into my vehicle.

Once I was out of my parking lot, the roads were fine, so I made it to school without any difficulties.

About a half an hour after the New Ulm bus dropped off its charges, Mr. E got a call from the Nicollet bus driver: Nicollet just called off school.  They waited until he started picking up kids and then they called to tell him to turn around.  UGH!  It was the same thing that happened on Tuesday but with the schools flip-flopped!  So then there was a scramble to get the kids at school shipped back home.  Sigh.  And I was looking forward to getting something done with my students at school today.

I'm planning to visit my parents this weekend, but my sister wants a ride home too and she doesn't get done with school until 3:00.  So now what to do?  I suppose I'll have to go home and read some books.  Maybe I'll get some cleaning accomplished.  Hmm...

Our school... aka The Desert

We had another fun filled day at school.  I went to turn on the faucet in the lady's room and nothing happened.  Being a problem solver, I tried the sink in the kitchen.  Still nothing.  I ended up washing my hands in the drinking fountain (which still worked) and then asked the 3rd and 4th grade teacher if the water worked in the boy's bathroom.  Nope.

So we had a few of our handy parents out here trying to fix the water situation.  There was water at the Principal's house and at church, so the problem seemed to be localized to our school.  The cook was able to make lunch; my students were super worried about that.  A few students said that they heard the parents talking and we would have to cancel school for the rest of the day if they didn't get the water working again.

The problem is probably a frozen pipe somewhere under the school.  We're not sure if it's broken or not.  One of the dads is a construction worker and he thought we should dig it up and fix it.  A few of the other dads thought we should wait a few days and see if the ice melts and the problem is solved.  In the meantime, they ran a hose from Mr. E's house over to the school.  So that's all the water we had.  And school wasn't cancelled.  They turned off the hose at 4:30 and will turn it on again tomorrow morning at 7:30.  Hopefully it works!  The students had a very limited bathroom/drink break time today.

Well, this has been a fun day...

Last night I got a call saying New Ulm was going to be two hours late.  So our school would be two hours late, but I'd still need to be there for the students who ride the Nicollet bus (since they had school).  The forecast said it would be -32 degrees and windy, blizzard-like conditions, so I was pretty sure Nicollet would call school two hours late.

This morning.  Alarm clock went off.  School announcements read.  No Nicollet.  Ugh.  I stayed in bed for an extra ten minutes, hoping they'd make the call and I wouldn't have to get up.  Nothing.  So I got ready for school, ate breakfast, and trundled out the door.

It wasn't too bad in the parking lot or in town, but as soon as I got on the country road to school, the snow started blowing around and it was kind of hard to see.  It wasn't sticking on the road, so I didn't have any troubles making it to school.

The bus came and I had one 6th grader show up.  He wanted to know what we were going to do for two hours.  I had written a list of things to do on the board, but of course he didn't want to do any of them.  We ended up hanging a Period Table of Elements poster on the wall.  Then he found out that other students were in the gym being watched by Mr. O (our school's para) and one of the other teachers.  So I let him go play.

About ten minutes later we found out that New Ulm cancelled school, thereby cancelling our school day.  What to do with the 10 kids still left at school?  Call their parents to see if they could come pick them up...  Mr. E is going to drop a bunch off as well as Mrs. T on her way home.  Mr. O is taking a few and our school cook is going to take her grandkids home with her.  So all the students are accounted for.  Now it's just a question of how long I should stay at school working on stuff.  Hmm...

Note: Pet Fest tomorrow

Braves Day is tomorrow.  We're breaking out the blue and gold to get into the spirit!  Our school is putting together a pep fest after lunch and each class is going to come up with a cheer.  The kindergarten girls thought Mrs. E said we're having a "Pet Fest" and they wanted to know if everyone was going to bring pets to the Pet Fest.  They were a little disappointed to find out there are no pets involved in a pep fest.

Mrs. E had another exciting moment this morning.  One of my students found a small matchbox car on his desk someone had left there in the night.  He was going to throw it in the garbage, but I stopped him.  "Well what should I do with it?" he wanted to know.  One of the girls piped up, "Oh! Give it to Mrs. E!"  Of course, this 6th grade boy wasn't just going to hand it over.  He walked into her room and asked, "Hey Mrs. E, want a new car?"  She replied, "I would love a new car!"  He handed her the car, "Here you go."  She tried to make a deal with him to get her a new big person car, but he told me that was impossible because they cost "like a million dollars."

Speaking of new things... yesterday I came to school and found a phone in my room!  Actually, it was on my desk and the IT guys had moved my cans of pens/pencils to the way other side of my desk.  I was a bit put out to say the least.  But it is kind of nice to have a phone in my room.  I even have my own extension.  If people call our school, there is now a menu so they can press a button and get sent straight to the person they want to talk to.  Mr. E is frustrated because the IT guys had said nothing about phones to him.  They were supposed to be getting a SMARTboard for the school.  And now the phones are having issues.  Anyway.

In science, we made crystal hearts out of red pipe cleaners, borax, and water.  We had to super-heat the water, so we made the trek to the kitchen and heated it in the microwave.  While we waited for the water to warm up, my 6th graders read aloud their Valentine's circular stories.  Earlier that day, each of them wrote a part of their classmates stories (we traded papers in a big circle) and since it is Valentine's Day, we had specific words that they had to include associated with the holiday.  The words were: love, heart, pink, cupid, Valentine, sweet, candy/chocolate/flowers.  Some of the stories turned out really cute!  But back to the science experiment...

When we got back to the classroom, my students mixed borax into their hot water.  While we stirred, they predicted what would happen to the solutions:  the red fuzz would fall off, it would all freeze into one big cube, or nothing would happen.  One of the boys freaked out a little; he was stirring with his scissors and all of a sudden the water started turning purple (the color of his scissors).  He yelped, "Ahh! My scissors is wrecked!"  It wasn't.  I think he had just cut some things with markers and the marker dye was still on the scissors, or something like that.  We left our hearts on the lab table to see what would happen.  The 7th and 8th graders were all curious when they saw the cups.  They first of all wanted to know if they were going to get to do it.  And then they wanted to know how it worked.  I told them they'd have to wait until Tuesday until the 6th graders found out what happens.

We had a Valentine's party at the end of the day.  Here's a picture of the valentines I made last night to give to my kids.

In return, I got a whole bunch of that Fun-Dip stuff, a Hershey's chocolate apple, a small box of chocolates, and some other assorted candy... PTL donated cookies for the students to decorate, so we did that.  Then we played Pictionary for the rest of the day.  My kids get SO LOUD when they play that game.  Yikes!  We quick ran out to the Bookmobile, ran back inside, and then it was time to head for home.  Whew! And THEN we had a faculty meeting.

Tomorrow is day one of our school's tournament.  So after lunch we're going to shove everything in one corner of my room and hide all the writing utensils.  I was so proud of my 6th graders.  After lunch, two of them got all worked up about the Interesting Word Wall (something I thought they lost interest in... we still do it, but they don't seem too excited about it).  They were worried that people might try to write stupid things on it or draw on it.  I told them we were going to hide all the writing utensils in our room so they couldn't write on it, but the two 6th graders still wanted to take it off the wall and hide it in the closet.  Who would've guessed?  I suppose I should try to find more interesting words for them...

Duct Tape Day

Red, blue, orange, neon green, tie dye, mustache... those are just a few of the colors of duct tape I saw today at school.

One of my students came up to me, "Miss H, I'm not wearing any duct tape, but I have a shirt in my backpack that has some.  Do you think I should put it on?"  "Well, I don't know; that's up to you."  He thought for a moment, "Nah, it's not that comfortable."  His mom told me later they spent hours putting duct tape on his shirt, and then ripping it off the front because it felt too weird.  Then they put some more on the back so that he could have some duct tape.  This 6th grader ended up putting his shirt on after lunch for a class picture.  And then he promptly took it off again afterwards.  But then the girls yelled at him to put it back on, so he did.  But I'm pretty sure he took it off after recess.  Boys.  Can't make up their minds.

Most people didn't go all out.  I saw a bunch of the 7th grade girls with duct tape bows in their hair and the 8th grade girls had bracelets made of duct tape.  Some people put it on their shoes, other people stuck it on their pants.  Personally, I just tore off a big piece of traditional silver and stuck it on my back.  All day I had people asking, "Do you know you have a piece of tape on your back?"  "Yes, it is duct tape day after all."

I did take it off so I'm not wearing it over at church tonight.  All day I noticed a really strange smell in our classroom.  Something not very pleasant.  Then I realized it was all the duct tape my students were wearing!  Whew! I'm glad we don't wear that stuff everyday.

We started our Mystery Class project today in 7th and 8th grade science.  Ten schools from around the world (in mystery locations) report the sunrise and sunset times every Monday.   Our school will compare their amounts of daylight to ours and chart them on a huge piece of paper.  In the middle of March, during the spring equinox, we'll be able to pinpoint these mystery locations' exact longitudes.  After that, each week will reveal a set of cultural clues about the country, state, and city of the Mystery Classes.  Using these clues, we'll be able to pinpoint the exact latitude and longitude of all 10 Mystery Classes.

There's a lot of math involved in this project, so I was quite surprised that my students didn't complain too much when I handed them a big packet of charts to fill out.  I think some of them even had a little fun (although you'd never hear them admit it).  I finished filling out my chart of information, at least, as much as I'm able to right now, and I'm starting to get really excited!

My students all wanted to know if I knew where these places were.  Nope.  No one knows where the Mystery Classes are, that's the fun part.  We get to figure it out together!  Oh boy, here I go... and nerd day was only on Tuesday...

School Spirit Week

Just when I thought things were going to get back to normal...

This week is the week of school before our school's basketball tournament.  Since it is our home tournament, the 7th and 8th graders chose dress up days for the week.  Sigh.  Didn't we just do this last week?  Oh wait, we did!  Okay, I guess it was two weeks ago, but still.  Monday was pajama day (sorry Dad, I did dress up this time).  We also had a two hour late start, so I just headed to school in sweatpants and a my high school senior shirt.  The 3rd and 4th grade teacher was impressed I still fit into my clothes from high school, but I didn't it was that impressive.  A- it was only 4-ish years ago.  And B- it's a big t-shirt, not something easy to grow out of.  Anyway.  It turns out red and black wasn't the way to go.  After school we had basketball games against another Lutheran school and guess what their colors were? Yep, red and black.  I felt really out of place.

Tuesday was Nerd Day.  Hardly anyone dressed up.  I wore my science goggles on top of my head to prove my nerdness.  Times like these, I really wish I owned a white lab coat.  Tomorrow is Duct Tape Day.  I think I'm just going to take a piece of tape and stick it somewhere on my person.  One of my students' moms talked to me at the game about duct tape.  She was super impressed that duct tape comes in all colors of the rainbow.  So who knows what my students will look like tomorrow?

Thursday is Class Color Day.  Our class is blue.
Friday is School Spirit Day, aka Blue and Gold Day.  We basically have a half a day of school because the afternoon is spent getting our rooms ready for the tournament.  My room will be transformed into a locker room.  All valuables and tiny objects must be stashed away because who knows what might happen to them.  Apparently, a number of years ago, one of the teachers came back after the tournament and found the class fish stuck inside a devotional book.  She still has the book and there's still an imprint of that ill-fated class pet.

Good thing my class hasn't gotten our pet yet!

Oh Happy Day! Or not?

Well, this day has been an emotional roller coaster.

This morning, I finished correcting 98% of everything that needed correcting while eating breakfast.  When I got to school, I found out that the IT guys had come in the night and fixed the problems my classroom had been having with our computers!  It was just like the fairy tale where the shoe elves sneak in and work their magic.  The IT guy even left me a note explaining what he did.  To top it off, he fixed the link on my computer that lets me access all the students documents, so they don't have to try to figure out how to send me something on the computer; I can just access it in their folder!  I had just enough time at school to get our mining activity ready for MN history before the teachers met for devotions. 

Then, after we met I found out that one of my student's grandpas passed away last night and my 6th grader was taking it pretty hard.  One of her younger siblings was really happy because "Grandpa is in heaven now!" (this week they've been studying heaven in the kindergarten classroom).  Most of my students found out before school started, so we didn't have to have the awkward conversation in front of this 6th grader and make her feel even more sad and uncomfortable.  She got a little better as the day went on.

Reading time came and some of the 6th graders tried to work on their stories they've been trying to work on for the past week.  We haven't been able to access the website to type our stories so they can be compiled in book form, so my students have been either typing them in Microsoft Word, or bumming around on the publishing website, creating avatars for themselves, but not actually accomplishing anything.  This of course makes me very frustrated.  Then they all start chiming in, "Miss H, Miss H!  We need help! Can you come here for a minute!"  I know I only have six students, but having all of them call for me at once is pretty draining.

Well, guess what? The publishing website still didn't work.  I tried calling the company twice, but no one answered.  So I had a whole bunch of 6th graders with nothing to do.  The printer was working again, so I had them print their stories and exchange them with a partner.  That kept them busy for a little while.  Finally it was time for lunch.

Our topic for today in MN history was mining.  I found a few neat YouTube videos to show the class and then we did a mock mining excavation using tweezers and a mixture of rice, ring noodles, tiny rocks, and beads.  The students had 10 minutes to mine the ore from the pie pans.  After 10 minutes, they figured out the value of their ore and tallied up their profit.  If they weren't neat while they were mining, they were fined a $50 environmental damage fee that needed to be deducted from their profit.  They were split into two groups, so it was interesting to see how each group handled their mining assignment differently. 

After that was art time, which I had intended them to use to work on their illustrations on the publishing website.  Unfortunately, it wasn't working, so that plan flew out the window.  I decided to let them try color sudoku (like normal sudoku, but with colors).  This was an absolute disaster.  The game is on a website, which I should have guessed would cause chaos.  Half the class knew how to do it (or thought they knew), so they went to get started right away.  The other half that didn't know what was going on tried to get started, but they weren't paying attention and were only worried about finding the website.  And of course there were a few students who forgot to type a letter and the website couldn't be found.  This brought another chorus of whining and yelling for help.  About this time, the people who thought they knew how to play finally realized they had no clue what was going on, so they started shouting for help.  So I looked at my watch.  Saw that it was time for math (or close enough, anyway).  And asked them to log off their computers.

The room was much quieter after that.

The 7th and 8th graders had a map redo quiz on Africa followed by a study session for our test tomorrow.  I feel kind of bad because they have both a science and a geography test on the same day.  But I am letting them use their science notes on the test, so I feel less bad than I did originally.

After school, I finally got a hold of the publishing website people and found out that it was a simple fix.  I had clicked the wrong thing when I signed our class up, so they weren't allowed to edit their pages.  The guy I talked to said he'd fix it right away.  Thank the Lord!  Hopefully we can get this project finished and out of the way.

One thing is for sure... after this long day, I am sure glad tomorrow is Friday!