2nd first day of school

Well, I figured with the start of the school year, I should probably start up the ol' blog again...

We had planned to play relay games to close out our day, but with 95 degree heat, we figured we'd save them for Thursday when it's supposed to be cooler.  Instead, we sat in Mr. E's room and watched Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, or most of it anyway.  We took a break for popsicles and then had an unexpected break when the power went out.  I think too many fans were plugged in.  A few minutes later we were back to watching the movie... but Mr. E couldn't find the remote for his DVD player, so we had to skip through the whole movie to the scene we were on.

Yesterday, one of the parents from our school donated an air conditioner and installed it in the 1st and 2nd grade room.  Then he called around and within minutes, three more slightly used air conditioners were dropped off!  He installed them that day, so now every classroom in our school has a window AC unit.  What a blessing!  Especially with the heat wave both this week and next week.

So far, my class this year has been great.  It's so interesting so compare the dynamics of these students with the one of last year's class.  I think it helps that they're changing classrooms too.  I didn't have to deal with, "Our old teacher let us do..."

The para in our room has been great too.  We get along very well and she gets along even better with the student she's here to help.  She's even got her own desk (and she brought school supplies to go with it!).

I do have one good story from the day...

Right before chapel, we took a walk around our room to see the different things we'll be doing this year.  I explained how the Interesting Word Wall works.  When they're reading their books and come across a word they don't know, they're supposed to write down the words and we'll talk about them as a class.  We write the words on a big poster to keep track of the new words we're learning. 

Well, Pastor's topic of opening chapel was, "new beginnings."  He had the students read aloud a bunch of verses he had picked from the Bible talking about new things.  One of my fifth graders read Galatians 6:15, "Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is a new creation."  As soon as he finished reading, he leaned over to me and whispered, "Miss Heintz, I think I found a word for our word wall!  Can we talk about it when we get back?"  Well what are you supposed to say to such an eager learner? 

So once we got back, we all gathered in the reading corner and talked about the meaning of circumcision.  Oh the things you learn in 5th grade!