Uncomfortable Day

The balloons are down.

The one student who was vocal about keeping them up was home sick today.  The other one who thought it was her turn Friday didn't say anything until the end of the school day.  Looks like I'll have to save this cool idea for next year... I guess that means I'm going to have to pop all the balloons myself.  Right now they're in a big bag in the back of my car, just in case the 6th graders were going to regret their actions yesterday and want a second chance.  Sigh.  It didn't happen.

At recess this afternoon, we went outside in the wind and the cold.  I wore my winter jacket today along with my gloves (from Scotland!), so I was doing all right.  But only one of the 6th graders wore an actual coat.  A few brought extra sweatshirts.  That was it.  The boys wanted to go outside and play Eagle's Eggs, so we went out.  Of course, the one day I wear my hair down it's blowing really hard so my hair flies around and I can't see anything.  Our teams: boys vs. girls (including me).  I ended up playing for only half the time.  At the beginning of the game I took off for the nest on the boys' side and I think I pulled a muscle.  I didn't land on my leg funny.  I didn't twist my foot or anything.  All of a sudden, I felt a pain in my quad and I almost fell over.  I got caught, so I tried stretching my leg in case it was a cramp or something.  But it kept hurting.

I thought about telling my kids, but decided not to.  So after five minutes and the pain still didn't go away, I nominated myself as part of the boundary line between the boys' and girls' sides of the field.  That kept me from having to run (or pretend to run).  Then I hobbled back into the school to get ready for the 7th and 8th graders.  Our topic for today: reproductive system.

The last system we're talking about this year.  Oh joy.  Finding appropriate pictures for the presentation is not something I want to do ever again.  This morning, I was prepared.  I wrote a note on the board so they wouldn't bring anything to class (so they wouldn't doodle or get distracted).  Then I was all ready to give them a speech about handling this maturely and not laughing, etc.  The usual.

But they all came in, settled in their seats... I told them we were going to handle this as mature adults and they were fine.  Of course the boys giggled a little, but surprisingly all the girls were really tuned in to what we were talking about.  (I focused more on pregnancy/development of babies as opposed to the actual reproductive system/body parts.  Their homework is to read that section of the book and answer the questions on a worksheet.  More comfortable for everyone.)  They asked good questions and didn't get too off topic.  We got a little hung up on breech births and c-sections, but we only went over by ten minutes and I covered everything I wanted to for the day.  Success!