Freedom!

No more pencils, no more books, no more teachers' dirty looks!  Oh wait... it's just Christmas break.


We crammed everything into the day that we had planned.  Program practice went off without a hitch!  Everyone (and by everyone, I mean the teachers) say they feel really comfortable with the program and aren't too worried at all.  It's going to be good.


My students were astounded at how many presents under the tree were for me... I think there was eight or nine?  Most of them were gift cards to Barnes and Nobel... yay! More books for the classroom!  Surprisingly, I only got one scarf!  It's in sort of camouflage colors with butterflies (though the student who gave it to me said he thought they looked like ducks).  Another one of those wax melter things is coming home with me along with some cinnamon scented and sugar-cookie scented wax.  Maybe I should leave one of them at school to minimize the smell in our classroom, not that it smells bad, but it could smell better.


Another surprise: nearly all my students guessed what the letters meant.  HP= hockey puck, NF= Nerf football (two kids asked for those), BC= baseball cards, SH= sparkly headband, LOC= lots of candy.  One kid put down random letters for his initials and he ended up with LEGOS.  Another asked for LP and he got lots of pennies (10,000 to be exact).  That's why the present was so heavy!  The girl who asked for OP (origami paper) got orange pop.  Another kid asked for SH and he got a Santa hat, a Scheels hat, and skittles and some other candy.  I don't think that's what he wanted, but he wasn't complaining!


Although most of them complained about the all-school movie choice, it seemed they enjoyed watching Balto.  Mr. E and I were discussing movie choices and he wants to go back to the 80s and 90s movies before TV turned "bad".  All the kids have seen the newer movies and each one seems to have more and more not-school-appropriate things, so why not show them the classics?  I think that's a great idea.  Now it's making me rethink my decision to show Meet the Robinsons as our class prize in January... I really want to switch to Fivel Goes West.  But will I have a mutiny on my hands if I do?  That remains to be seen...


Plans for Christmas break:  Hang out in Courtland until after the program Sunday night.  If the weather's good, I'll drive down to Fulda that night.  If there isn't good weather, I'll head down Monday morning.  I need to be back in Courtland Wednesday afternoon to get ready for Round 2 of the program, and again depending on the weather, I'll go back to Fulda that night or the next morning.  After that... my schedule is wide open aside from the few days I'm scheduled to work at the Fulda library.  All my papers are corrected (yay!) and my to-do list for lesson planning is pretty short.  Plenty of time to bother my siblings and read lots of books!

One Practice to Go!

Our pianist came to practice today for the first time... after running through the whole program, she pronounced she's comfortable with how it's going and she's going to cancel the extra practice we had scheduled for tomorrow afternoon.  Although we're missing kids, so far everything has been running smoothly.  One more practice tomorrow! 


Two kids in my class stayed home sick today.  Their moms wanted to know what homework they had... I thought for a minute and then... nothing.  They don't have any new assignments.  Part of me feels like I'm not doing my job.  But there really isn't time to give them homework, what with program practice every afternoon.  And they still have handwriting and spelling and memory work this week.  That's probably enough homework the week before Christmas break. 


Since I have a full two weeks of no school, I went a little overboard getting books to read... I took it easy at the New Ulm library since I won't be around to return books here, but I put holds on a bunch from the Fulda library and picked up a big book from the Bookmobile.  And Mrs. B (1st and 2nd grade) brought in three books this morning I'm supposed to read over Christmas break (the Kane Chronicles).  So.  I should be set with books!


Instead of making my kids take a test for MN history, I had them write a letter as if they survived the MN Dakota Uprising.  Of course I had certain things they had to include in their letters.  On the bottom of the rubric, I left a space for "comments" where I could write my thoughts about their work instead of writing on their actual letter.  Some of my students took it literally and wrote their comments about the assignment.  My favorite response [unedited]: "I love doing this instead of a test thank you Miss Heintz you are cool!"


Oh, tomorrow is going to be fast and furious!  Religion, read aloud, spelling tests, program practice, lunch, party, movie, home!  And yet I still have spelling books and other papers to correct tonight...

T-Minus Four

Four days until our program!  Only a few people forgot to come up to say their lines. 


A parent brought over wrapped presents for the magi to carry and made a background for our stable.  We strung lights over the top and some of them create a little tiny halo around the star at the point.  For Silent Night we light candles and shut all the lights off.  The lights will look so cool! 


Hand bells are sounding... kind of good and kind of sloppy.  I start them at a slower pace and then they speed up!  And they're going too fast during the complicated part so they mess up.  But I suppose it sounds okay if you don't know what you're listening for.  We figured out that one of the girls was using the wrong bell for a song.  She only plays one note with it, but that one note just didn't sound right to me.  Apparently I told her the wrong note name; she was playing a B instead of an A.  Ugh, I always get their names messed up.  Anyway, we got it straightened out.


Bulletin covers have been chosen.  Every year we have students decorate a bulletin cover and then we pick a certain number to be printed on the actual bulletins.  This year we picked one "winner" from each classroom.  My class was so hard to choose!  We decided to lay out all the entries on the tables for people to admire before/after the programs.


Now I need to head over to church to print off the bulletins for Sunday and Christmas Eve.  6:00 is Sunday School program practice.  I don't think I'll have enough time to go home and come back.  I brought my class's bookmarks to school, so maybe I'll put tassels on them so they're ready to go for Friday.  I made the ultimatum that if they're not done with memory work, they don't get to open their presents on Friday... they'll have to wait until January!

Christopher Columbia

Not a whole lot to write about today. 


The weather is waaay colder today.  The wind was in just the right direction to blow all the warm air out of our classroom, so the 8th graders complained about being cold during my class.  Their presentations on Europe were okay.  A lot of them did them the night before they were due, so there wasn't anything too spectacular.  Lots of powerpoints again.  Sigh.  It's probably just as boring to sit through them as it was for them to make them.  I wish they'd be more creative and make it more fun!  Like... make a board game about the geography of Europe, or a comic book about some historical event!  A few of them did speeches this time.  One girl made a crossword puzzle and gave a background on the words she chose.  One girl brought in "fish and chips" except she couldn't find any fish, so she just brought shrimp.  Creative idea... not very informative.


I'm driving my students crazy with those pictures I took of them yesterday.  They keep asking, "when do we find out what they are for?  You promised we'd know by Friday!"  At least three of them are so curious they're nearly bursting!  One boy even asked for a hint.  My response, "no, I like surprises too much."


Our biggest argument today was trying to decide on a movie to watch as a class reward.  Mr. E has been on a big kick about only watching G rated movies (at least for the whole-school movie for the Christmas parties).  That severely limits our options.  And of course all the movies my kids suggest are PG.  A teacher is a little like a parent, right?  A 5th grader argued, "We read books that are probably PG, so why can't we watch movies?"  I said I'd ask Mr. E about it.  I showed them the trailer for Fivel Goes West but the trailer wasn't very good, and they weren't impressed.  Right now, the top choices are Santa Claus 3 or Meet the Robinsons.


I played the game Taboo with two of my 5th graders during Daily 5.  I read the cards and they tried to guess the word.  They had so much trouble!  The first one was Christopher Columbus.  I gave them every hint I could and still, they got nothing.  Finally they figured out Christopher.  My student by that name wandered over when he heard his name and tried giving them more hints... it didn't work.  They were still stuck on the last name.  "Columbia!"  "Columbarus!" Every ending they could think of except the right one.  I tried another clue, "The last part is the same as what you ride to school in."  "Oh! Columcar!"  *facepalm*  "Oh! Columbius!"  "No, Columbiabus!"  No matter what, they could not get that last sound right!  They had a slightly easier time of it with Thomas Jefferson, but not by much.


I'm doing my weekly grocery/library run a day early this week.  My pottery is waiting for me at HyVee, so I'm going to pick that up while I'm there too.  Then it's correcting papers and taking it easy so I don't get sick before the Christmas program!

It's Alive!

My students discovered the plant they've been reviving is a mint plant.  One of them was leaning over it to water the plant when he took a big sniff, "Hey, this smells minty!"  "That's because it is mint."  "There are mint plants? Can you eat them?"  "Sure."  So one kid took a teeny tiny fresh leaf... and said it tasted like dirt.  Another kid wanted to try it (something that tastes like dirt? exactly what I want to put in my mouth...) but he took a dried leaf.  "Hey, this actually tastes like mint!"  I had to put the kibosh on eating more leaves or there wouldn't be enough left for the plant to get energy!  It's been sending up a bunch of shoots now that it has more light, but the leaves are still little.


One of my ADHD kids didn't take his meds today.  He was off the wall, literally bouncing up and down in the classroom, giggling, grinning, etc.  I'm surprised he accomplished as much as he did this morning.  His sister dropped off his meds partway through the day, but by that time we pretty much only had program practice left.


The program is coming together, slowly but surely.  Mrs. E and I rearranged the layout of the front of church last night so we could add another riser.  Now there's plenty of room!  With that change, we also had to change everyone's seats around.  The 5-8th graders are on the ends of the risers to sneak out and say their parts and the 1-2 and K are in the middle so everyone can see them when they say their class parts.  It's a little different than previous years.  The manger scene is off to one side so we have room for five risers.  There wasn't any other way we could fit them all in.  And the bell tables... sigh.  I think I got those figured out after school today.  Normally, the tables are all in one straight line, but they'll cover up baby Jesus, so we're going to move them into position when it comes time for the offering.  The 8th graders probably won't be too happy about that, but what can you do?  They wanted to play up in the balcony, but I can just see the parents and grandparents complaining that they can't see their person playing the bells.  Plus it would take a while for the ringers to get up to the balcony after singing the last program song.  So we'll try it this way and see if it works. 


Everything is more complicated because we have to take everything down for church on Sunday since we have communion.  I don't know where to put the bell cases so they're not in anyone's way.  We have to take down all the risers Friday and put them back up on Sunday after church/the voters meeting... ugh, so much work.  The plan is to grab some hefty dads and ask them to help us get everything situated for the program. 


I need to get presents for my students.  Today I took them out to the gym and photographed them standing on one foot with a hand in the air.  I'm going to turn them into bookmarks that look like they're dangling/flying through the air.  I didn't tell them what I was doing... hopefully they don't think it's too lame.  I asked one of my sisters if she thought getting a bookmark would be an okay present and she just wrinkled her nose at me.  So some of the kids will think it's good and others will probably think it's dumb.  Oh well.  I'm kind of running out of time for a different plan!

Scavengers...

The all school outdoor recess the Student Council had planned for today was a bust since the snow is all melting.  Miss H (preschool teacher/faculty leader of Student Council) planned a scavenger hunt for them to do instead.  The only catch was, she wasn't here (had to be to her other job at 1:00).  So we kind of had to figure things out on our own. 


One of my 6th graders twisted her ankle in the mad rush to collect the items.  Kids were running all over the place.  They were supposed to stay with their groups, but a bunch of them split up, leaving group members behind.  And then the bigger kids made the littlest ones put all the items back.  Still, it seemed they had fun.  The top commodities in my room were the Dr. Seuss books, Narnia books, and marbles.  Afterwards we put on music in the gym and had a dance party and hot chocolate.  The hot chocolate was served a little too late, so kids were rushing to gulp it down before getting on the bus. 


We had our first Christmas program practice at church today.  Not enough room on the risers.  I don't know how we're going to squeeze all the Sunday school kids in too!  And then I had to figure out when/where the shepherds, wise men, and angels should enter and exit.  I really hope the kids with speaking parts are remembering when they come up to speak, because I have no clue how I could cue each of them to go where they're supposed to.  Good thing we still have one week of practice left!  It will all come together; it's just going to take some work.  My kids know their speaking parts pretty well, and the songs are coming along nicely.  So, we'll keep plugging away!

It's only a pencil!

I'm a little bummed today.  Last night I went to Redeemer in New Ulm for their Advent service (and the meal beforehand) and had a good time talking with their congregation members.  I mentioned that I wanted to come back for their Christmas program next Wednesday.  But today Mrs. E asked if I would be able to go to Immanuel's Wednesday night Sunday school next week to go over the Christmas program with them.  And they're at the same time.  Sigh.  I was really looking forward to seeing my Redeemer kids in their Christmas program... but I know this Christmas program should be my priority.  On a happier note, the girls I wrote the Christmas program with back at BLC might come to our program, and my college advisor too! 


We set up risers after school today to prep for our practice tomorrow.  With all the Sunday school kids it's going to be a tight squeeze!  Pastor is okay with us leaving the risers up for church this Sunday, but next Sunday (the day of the program) he wants us to take everything down because we have communion.  That means after church that Sunday we'll have to redecorate everything.


Our goal is accomplished.  We set a new read-aloud record: Prisoner B-3087 has been read in a week.  It was so good, I'm not quite sure how to follow it... To start with, we're reading a short book, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson.  At first the class was like, "Meh... sounds boring."  But once they heard about those rascally Herdmans, they're starting to come around.  My Guess is we'll finish it before Christmas break.  Then... do we start a new book so they have something to think about when we come back in January? Or do we wait and start fresh?   I'm leaning toward the first option.


Today's big dramafest centered around a pencil.  One of the 6th grade girls had a Frozen pencil given to her by a preschooler who didn't want it anymore.  She left it in the coatroom and didn't pick it up right away, so I confiscated it for the SHARP pencil jar in our room.  She threw a fit because she had been about to pick it up when I got to it first.  My explanation to her was, "If it was really that valuable to you, you should've been taking better care of it!"  That didn't make her happy at all.  And then one of the 5th grade boys took it out of the SHARP jar since he needed a pencil.  She was pouting so much, she didn't get any of her spelling done! And all this pouting was done at the top of her lungs so the whole class was distracted.  All morning.  She wouldn't stop talking about it!!!  Finally I made her take a break in the coatroom... where she bawled her eyes out (over a stupid pencil!) and found a ball and shot death glares at whatever classmate had to pass her to use the restroom.  Sigh.  And it doesn't stop there.


The 5th grader was still using the pencil in question during math.  The 6th grader saw it drop and snatched it up quick as she could saying, "You should've been more careful with your stuff!"  Then she hid it so I wouldn't take it away from her again.  She even played the game, "Well you can look through my backpack if you want." all innocent-like.  Ugh.  Wherever she put it, we couldn't find it.  She kept bringing up the pencil situation with the 8th graders, telling her sob story to whoever happened to be nearby.  Most of the time they weren't listening, but every once in a while a word would catch their ear, and they'd ask her a question, "Who took the pencil?"  And then she'd launch into the entire story from the beginning.  All this nonsense over a PENCIL for crying out loud!


At the end of the day, a different 5th grader raised his hand and announced, "Miss H, [6th grader] just said he wished [annoying pencil 6th grader] would get murdered."  *Slam head on desk*  Just what I needed to deal with at the end of the day.  The poor accused kid was in tears.  I don't know if he said it or not, but he denied the whole thing.  We went over AGAIN that something like that should be told to me in private and not blabbed for the whole class to hear.  Or at least written on a tattle card.


Praise God tomorrow is Friday!

Punting...

We still have a week before Christmas break and already my students are like, "Can we be done yet?"  They all wanted to take a nap... literally requested that we have nap time.  A lot of complaints about being tired after the basketball games last night.  I hope they're not getting sick!

One of the 8th grade boys fell last night and possibly broke his tailbone.  He wasn't in school today because it hurt to walk.  His younger 5th grade brother was complaining about his toe hurting and then got it smashed in the bathroom door.  Yikes! Everyone is falling apart!

This afternoon, the 8th graders just could not focus.  We got through what I wanted to get through, quickly set up for bells, and went to recess in the gym until the 6th graders came back.  We went through our songs a bunch of times... and then some more... and still had 10 minutes left.  I thought about going over some of the Christmas songs, but they were totally out of it.  So we packed up and the 8th graders went in the gym and the 6th graders worked on their science lab questions.

The 5th graders didn't come back and didn't come back and finally Mr. E came to the gym and revealed the 5th graders were taking a test and still had some more to do, could they please finish it?  I thought, why not since the 6th graders are occupied.  But when they still hadn't come back after fifteen more minutes, I poked my head in.  They weren't close to being done, so Mr. E is going to have them finish up tomorrow.  We had about 15ish minutes before we were supposed to go to PE/recess, so we wrote our conclusions as a class and worked on post-lab questions for a few minutes before heading to the gym.  I had intended to teach a lesson on the pH scale/acids/bases... I could always do it tomorrow, but I'm thinking we'll just push it off a week and I'll show them pictures from El Salvador since the 5th graders haven't seen them yet.  Eh, I suppose we'll see how tomorrow goes.

I ducked out of school super early today... 3:00!  The doctor said I probably had an SVT, or supraventricular tachycardia.  It's where the upper chambers of the heart beat really fast for a while, then go back to normal.  Nothing deadly, more of an annoyance.  She said we might have to do an event monitor if it becomes more frequent.  And I should only come in if the episode is over a half an hour.  The doctor ordered blood work done too and since I was already at the doctor, I got my flu shot and a booster I've been needing.  So many needles!

Heart All Aflutter

Afternoon recess was scary today.  We played a game of Queen of the Court and I actually made it to the last two!  Shortly after, when we were playing SNAKE, my heart started beating rapidly and didn't slow down for about three-five minutes.  No chest pain, no lightheadedness, just a really fast heart.


So after school I called the doctor and the nurse said it could've been caused by stress and/or dehydration.  I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow afternoon to get checked out.  And I'm supposed to go to the emergency room if it happens again or I show other symptoms.  So we'll see what happens there.  Extra prayers would be appreciated!


We finally finished up our lesson on the MN civil war.  We tied up a loose end in science too.  Still a little behind where I want to be, but maybe we can catch up tomorrow.  My class wanted to finish our read aloud book today.  And we were only halfway through the book.  Yeah, not happening.  We did make good progress!  I'm guessing we'll finish before Friday this week. 


The 8th graders had a guest speaker for geography today.  My friend Leah, from Bethany, came to show us pictures about her time as an exchange student in Spain.  She was great! Very animated and funny.  And she showed good pictures.  The 6th graders snuck in halfway through and ended up listening instead of doing computer.  That made the 5th graders jealous that they missed it.  But they will have their turn when they take geography in two years.


The cheerleaders made their cheering début at today's home B girls' game.  We were down one girl (she was home sick), which left us with three.  They did pretty good though!  The B boys are playing right now, so I'm going to watch their game and then head for home even though the A teams are playing too.  Maybe a good night's sleep will cure what ails me!

Ding Dong Merrily on High!

Bells today went better than last week.  I decided to change songs.  This one, "Bring a Torch, Jeanette, Isabella" is much easier to pick up. 


The 8th graders went back to their room while 6th graders and I put everything away.  Then I noticed a 6th grader on the classroom phone.  It was Mr. E asking where one of the boys was.  Apparently he was supposed to tell me that the 5th graders needed an extra five minutes of math today (he forgot), so we could've kept playing for another five minutes!  Oh well.  The 6th graders and I worked on some of their MN history worksheet while we waited.  They are so impatient!  Right away, it's "I need help!" no matter what the question is.  They don't even try to look in their books! 


Once we were joined by the 5th graders, it didn't get easier.  Everyone was worried about finishing the worksheet and was on a different question.  I was reviewing what we talked about last week (which included most of the answers), but they were so concerned about answering the question on the worksheet that they weren't listening to what I was saying... or waiting to see if I'd answer their question in a little bit.


Then one of the 6th grade girls spread out beyond her 40 acres.  Her book was on her neighbor's desk a bit and her neighbor was not happy about that at all.  The sprawler wouldn't listen to suggestions about adjusting her paper/book so she wasn't crowing her neighbor.  And she didn't want to move her desk a little to the left so they weren't so close.  I finally tugged her desk a ways away and then she scooted it forward so it bumped the desk in front of hers!  The boy sitting there gave a massively frustrated sigh and that's when I moved her to the white table.  And everyone had to comment on how she was rolling her eyes at me... really? Does that need to be said?  Is that helping anything?  No. 


There were mutterings today of the boys pantsing each other, once in the bathroom and once in the coat room.  I never saw it and the pantsed people never told me to my face... but there was enough quiet talk amongst my kids that I'm pretty sure it happened.  They all thought it was sooo funny until I told them they could be suspended for doing it.  That sobered them up real quick.  Mr. E is going to have a chat with them tomorrow about it too.


On a somewhat lighter note (if the Holocaust can be considered lighter), our book is getting more intense.  My two boys who have trouble sticking with reading don't want to stop!  After they finished their snack, they wanted to get drinks... they actually asked me to pause reading so they didn't miss any of the story!  I'm not sure if the girls are as in-to the story as the boys, but they're not complaining when we read more.  I pulled up a map of the concentration camps in Poland and Germany and showed them a video of the Wieliczka Salt Mines (a place the main character had to work).  Now our main character is at the death camp Birkenau.  Even though we just started this book last week, I'm guessing we'll finish it before Christmas break.

Riveted

We read WAAAY more than intended in our new read aloud book, Prisoner B-3087 by Alan Gratz: pg.86 out of 260.  I got to a good spot to stop and when I put the bookmark in the book, one of my reluctant readers said, "NOOO! Miss H, you can't stop there!  You've got to keep reading!" So we read one more chapter.  And then they wanted to keep going.  But we had Reading Buddies and spelling tests to take care of... so I made a deal.  Instead of playing the Adjective Game, we could read more in the book.  The class voted and it was unanimous (save one person who abstained).  Once all our other tasks were accomplished, we read on.  And when it came time for the Tap Game (to practice Spanish), they begged for "just one more chapter!"  It's such a great book!  And the best part is, it's history! 


The 8th graders had an interesting STEM project today.  We did a mini-lesson on microprocessors where I was the robot/computer that had to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich according to their instructions.  Heh heh heh.  They thought it would be so easy.  The two groups wrote their instructions on the whiteboard so they could erase and add as needed.  One group was verrrry specific in their instructions.  Take two pieces of bread out of the bag.  Set them down.  Pick up the knife.  Use the knife to scoop the peanut butter...  The other group said things like "get the peanut butter on the knife.  Then spread it on the bread."  I had a lot of fun with those instructions.  I put the whole container on the knife and rubbed it on the bread.  When they fixed it, they weren't specific enough on where to put the pb, so I spread it on the crusts of the bread and not on the face/white part. 


My favorite part of the lab was with the second group.  They had gotten their instructions perfect... or so they thought.  Their last step was "put the two pieces of bread together."  SHUNK! I slid the two pieces next to each other.  Their reactions were hilarious.  One of the girls was so exasperated, she just walked away from the board shaking her head.  They eventually fixed it and we ended up with a very lovely pb and j.


After that, we had a little bit of recess.  The girls played SNAKE with me and the boys kind of played hockey/shot hoops on the other end of the gym.  And then they decided to use the hockey net as a fishing net to trap one of the girls.  "Hey, look!  We caught a girl!" they hooted and hollered.  When they "released" her, they went after another one, chasing her all around the gym, finally cornering her in the coatroom.  I didn't know whether to tell them to stop or applaud them for their creativity...


The first basketball tournament of the season is today and tomorrow in Northrup.  I'm not planning to go, but we did have a pep fest to send them off.  The cheerleaders took FOREVER to change into their Braves shirts.  One of the girls had been sick, so she only knew a couple of the cheers we did.  Then I forgot we were supposed to use pompoms for one of the cheers and not use them for a different one... but no one could tell we did the cheers wrong.  And the 1st and 2nd grade girls looked cute enough no one would less of them for messing up.


And that's the end of the school week!  Only two more weeks until Christmas break.  I decided to do a new bell song, so we'll start that on Monday.  Tuesday I have a guest speaker coming to talk about her study abroad semester in Spain.  Friday we're having an all-school outdoor snow day in the afternoon after program practice.  Lot's of things to do before Christmas!

Mad Scientists!

Oof, my brain hurts.


Last night after pottery, I bought supplies for today's chemistry lab and then I did grocery shopping.  By the time I got home and unpacked... let's just say I was up waaay past my bedtime.  This morning, I decided to separate egg whites for our lab at home instead of at school, so I didn't have as much time to get things situated before my kids showed up.  Most of the time our lab is with supplies that are already in groups (one marble, one board, one tube) so not a lot of prep work is needed.  This chemical reactions lab took quite a bit of extensive planning and preparation.  I probably went a little overkill with the prep, but I wanted the lab to go smoothly without making a huge mess all over the floor and without having kids arguing over who gets what.  Thankfully, Mrs. B spent the morning with us, so I could dodge in and out of the classroom to get supplies from the science table in the coatroom. 


Our lab table looked impressive, let me tell you.  I had test tubes lined up in their little holders, little jars to hold the liquids we'd be mixing to test for chemical reactions, spoons/pipettes/test tube brushes to measure and clean the supplies, and then two ice cream pails- one for dumping the mixtures after testing them and the other filled with soapy water so they could wash the test tubes throughout the experiment.  It worked pretty slick.  They had a great time mixing the liquids and checking for bubbles or precipitates.  Their favorite part was at the end of the lab when they could dump all their extra liquid together.  The vinegar, lemon juice, baking soda, milk, and egg whites made a big foamy mixture in the dump buckets.  Surprisingly, it didn't smell too bad!  I think the smells cancelled each other out.  And the a good amount of soapy water from test tube cleanings that ended up in those containers certainly helped too.


I pulled out all the stops and had the class wear lab aprons and goggles (though some abandoned the goggles partway through... I maybe should've talked to them about that particular piece of lab etiquette before passing them out).  The aprons were definitely a good idea.  But they somehow didn't know how to fold them back up.  We'll need to go over that next time.


So.  That was the lab.


I introduced the "Tattle Box" today.  Only three tattles were in the box at the end of the day: one good, two bad.  And only two people tried tattling to me during the day.  Overall, our day was okay.  One kid just keeps calling everyone names and being mean in general and when I ask him to stop, he'll either say "I wasn't doing anything!" or he'll say "okay" and turn right back around and do it again.  A classmate said he was going to write it in the Tattle Box, and the kid just shrugged and said "I don't care."  What do you do with someone like that???  None of the teachers have suggestions for me.  Mr. E said if he's being disruptive to send him down to the 8th grade room.  That's what we're going to try tomorrow.  This particular student hates writing.  I know you're not supposed to force kids to write as a punishment, but I have no other ideas. Maybe making him write a bible verse over and over every time he calls someone a mean name will get him to finally quit.  I suppose we'll see!


Staff meeting after school ended relatively quickly.  Our toughest item was picking a G rated movie to watch for our Christmas party.  So far we have one contender: Balto.  All the other ones we could think of were PG. 


Time is ticking!  Only two more weeks until Christmas break!  I'm debating how much I want to cram in before Christmas... maybe I'll take things slow and give my students time to catch-up.  Their desks could certainly use a good cleaning...

Wild

As you perhaps guessed from this post's title, our day was wild.  All my kids had a hard time focusing today!  One of them kept calling people names like moron, fatty, idiot, etc.  And I couldn't get him to stop.  It was awful.  Another one did everything in slow motion (okay, an exaggeration, but she was still moving veeerrrryyy sloooowly). 


I got fed up with all the tattling, so while they were doing Daily 5, I made a "tattle monster".  From now on, if they have something they want to tell me, they're supposed to write it on a piece of paper and stick it in the tattle box.  I'll read them after school and deal with the ones that need to be dealt with.  I also made a poster that shows the difference between tattling and reporting... namely, is it important? was it on purpose? is someone hurt/in danger?  Hopefully this will help our class stop blowing up over every little thing.


We did get things accomplished today.  It took longer and was louder than usual (with more Brain Breaks thrown in), but we did learn things!  For our Chemical Reactions lesson I showed a YouTube video about Elephant Toothpaste.  They were suitably impressed.  And now they want to do it when the weather gets warmer.  We also finished Artemis Fowl and started another one.  We voted between the 2nd Artemis Fowl book, the 2nd Fourth Stall book, and Prisoner B-3087.  Half the class voted for the last one.  It's based on the true story of a boy who lived through 10 concentration camps during WWII. 


The weather was nice enough to walk over to church for chapel.  But the wind was fierce on the way back!  We spent some extra time working on Christmas program songs and the group parts.  It went pretty well.  I'm still nervous about how it's all going to come together.  The bell songs are... kind of iffy.  One of them we're not going to have any trouble with, but the other has half notes and syncopation that my ringers aren't used to playing.  And we only have four practices left as of today.  So I don't know if I should give up on this song and pick a new one, or tough it out.  Grr.


Chapped lips were a large part of conversation at the end of the day.  One of my students said her grandma told her if she didn't have chapstick to rub the oil in the creases on the sides of her nose on her lips.  Once those words of wisdom were imparted, everyone had to try it out.  I thought they'd be grossed out by it, but they all thought it was the best idea ever!  Let me tell you, it was very odd to see them all rubbing their noses and then their mouths. 


In other news, my Christmas tree is up and decorated!  My last pottery class is tonight and I need to pick up supplies for our science lab tomorrow, so my plan is to leave a little early tonight.  Ha. We'll see if that actually happens.  Joe partially buried himself and my knees/legs have been achy all day, so I have a feeling we'll be getting some snow tonight... not a lot predicted in the forecast, but Joe has only been wrong once or twice.

Blast From the Past

Just another regular school day.  We practiced our group Christmas program parts, and that went pretty well. With only three weeks until Christmas break, I'm getting nervous about how we're going to pull this off.  So many things to think about! How to decorate the front of church, where the decorations will come from, organizing the speakers, figuring out where the kids should stand, printing up the bulletins...


In history, we're in the midst of the Minnesota Civil War, aka- the Dakota Uprising.  One of my 5th graders has grandparents with a farm right on the edge of Courtland, and a band of Dakota Indians always stops by on their way to commemorate the hanging of the 38.  My student brought in a video this tribe put together on the Uprising (his grandpa is in it!), so I'm going to watch it at home and see if we can watch part in school.  If he remembers, he's going to bring in some pictures tomorrow.


I hung up more snowflakes today.  Our ceiling is pretty much coated with them now.  The space above my desk could use a few more.  And I haven't put many over the lab table just in case our lab were to get a little crazy. 


We're nearly to the end of Artemis Fowl... my class begged me to keep reading and finish the book, but there were just enough pages we had to save it for tomorrow.  One of the 5th graders is on vacation until Friday; she's going to miss the end!  I'll probably give her the book so she can read the last chapter on her own.  Now the dilemma is which book to read next?  The next Artemis Fowl? Or the second Fourth Stall book?  Or a completely new book? 


Our first basketball game was tonight against Janesville.  I got to see my old 3rd graders again!!!  Now they're in 7th grade.  Last year there wasn't many in that class that went out for basketball.  I was surprised to see so many of them this year!  At least three or four more of them are playing!  If I'm counting right, nine of my old students are on the Janesville basketball teams.  It was really hard not cheering for them when they made a good play, but since I was sitting with the Courtland fans I just cheered in my head.

Waitin' on... Book Orders

Most common phrase of the day, "Miss H, did the book orders come?"  I think I was asked that question at least 10 times today.  AND THEY FINALLY CAME.  Right after basketball practice was over.  But the student who'd been asking me about them was still here, so I gave him his books and his super-cool-spy glove and he was in heaven.


English was quite the experience today.  I was going to go back to working from the book, but everyone wanted to edit their novels.  So I changed my plan about a minute after we started English.  We talked about using strong verbs in our writing to paint a clearer picture in the reader's head.  Then I had them use a highlighter to highlight verbs from newspaper articles.  IT WAS SO HARD!  They had so much trouble with it!  Before we started, I wrote clues on the board: action verbs, being verbs, helping verbs, common endings, etc.  And they still had trouble finding them!  I think it was the articles I had picked.  They were from the Star Tribune, so the reading level was pretty high up there.  If I would've picked easier to read texts, they would've had an easier time of it.  Plus the writing was small.  So.  We will try this activity again at a later date.


One of the 5th graders' moms finally had her baby.  She was due today but had a little girl on Saturday.  Now their family is up to three girls!  There are quite a few sick siblings too.  Seems like a high fever that lasts for days is going around. 


Well, I've put off going out into the cold long enough.  My classroom heater has bumped down to the overnight low setting and it's getting pretty cold in here too.  Plans for tonight: set up the Christmas tree?  Read a book?  Correct papers?  Eh... probably not that last one.

54,693

That's the grand total of words my students wrote during November for their National Novel Writing Month stories.  The goal I set for them was 2,000, and only one student hasn't met it yet (he's going to work on it over Thanksgiving break).  At least two other students wanted me to save their stories on a flash drive so they could do it at home too.  Woot woot!  Teacher victory dance! 


I figured out the average for my 13 students: 4,200.  Most wrote between 2,000-3,000 words in 16 days.  Granted, a few of them took it home to work on it, but the majority of the writing was done at school.  My top writer is at 15,000 and still going strong. 


The other exciting event of the day was getting the sound system installed at school in the gym.  We weren't allowed to have recess in the gym while he was working, but he finished right before noon recess, so the 5-8th graders could stay inside for recess.  And of course we tested the sound system out.  One of the 8th graders grabbed her phone and picked music for us to listen to.  Our classroom iPad even plugs into the sound system with the right cord!  Basketball practice just got a whole lot cooler.


Well, I'm going to keep this short since I'm heading down to Fulda tonight for Thanksgiving break.  No school the rest of the week!  I do need to stop at the library in New Ulm before I take off.  I was just going to skip a week, but one of my books won't renew and I have some holds that came in...

Itchy

Our classroom was down a couple students today, but not down in noise level.  One was home sick and another left early to go to a funeral.  Everybody was still wound up.  The wind has been howling around our classroom and it's been snowing pretty steadily since lunchtime. 


Pastor came this morning to talk to our class about stewardship.  My students liked reading the bible story about the rich man who gave away his talents to his workers.  They're very interested in the Young Investors Program and some even wanted to fill up a $25 card today!  Mrs. B said they should wait and talk with their parents first.


My kids have been making paper snowflakes during read aloud to hang around the classroom.  Not many have been hung up yet, but it's already starting to look festive.


Christmas Program read-through Day 1 went pretty well today. I'm not sure exactly what I'm supposed to do other than direct people when to say their parts... maybe some great revelation will come to me.


The 8th graders are working at Pizza Ranch tonight in Mankato, so I'm going out for supper!  I'm meeting up with the preschool teacher and the 1st and 2nd grade teacher so I don't have to sit by myself.  Then I'm heading over to BLC to meet the bell director to give me some pointers about teaching hand bells. 


One last bit of good NaNo news: I'm at 51,000 in my story! Woohoo!  But I still have a ways to go before the story is finished.  Will I finish the story before December?  Time will tell...

Marshmallow Molecules

In chemistry class, we're learning about atoms and elements and molecules.  The accompanying science lab has the students using marshmallows to represent atoms and toothpicks to represent the bonds that connect the atoms together.  My kids said it was the best lab ever.


I gave each group a bowlful of colorful mini-marshmallows and some big plain marshmallows.  The little ones were supposed to be Hydrogen and Chlorine which both have one electron to give up (forming one bond with another element).  The big marshmallows were Carbon, Nitrogen, and Oxygen.  Of course my students wanted to know if they could eat the marshmallows.  Only after your lab area is clean!  And I'm pretty sure they followed that rule.  (They would've tattled on each other if someone snuck one while my back was turned!)


Only three days left to write our NaNo stories.  A bunch more of my students are finishing their stories.  Now they want to add pictures to them.  I'm still on the fence about that.  To buy me some time, I said "wait until next week."


I also went through the art projects I've been collecting since the beginning of the year.  In April, the Lutheran schools of the area band together for the Fine Arts Fair.  Each student from our school is required to bring an art project.  Well, I've heard enough stories from other teachers about forgetting to save projects (and then rushing to get something to bring at the last minute) that I've come up with a system that ensure everyone has at least SOMETHING they can bring. 


The Brainiac Club stuff had to move to a different wall so there's room to hang all their art.  I sorted the three projects I had from each student and they got to pick which one they wanted to go to the Fine Arts Fair.  That one stayed to get hung on the wall; the rest went home.  If we do a different project that they like better and want to bring that one instead, it's an easy fix to just swap them out!  Now I just need to figure out how to put them on the wall.  I've seen where people hot glue tacks to the backs of clothespins and then push them into the wall... I think that's probably what I'll do.  But should I use two clothespins per project, or just one???  I hope I have room on the wall for all 13 projects!


Tomorrow, Mr. D and I made plans to finally change over my computers from the long table to the little back to back ones.  My students are now on the opposing team; they want to keep them the same way.  But they'll get used to the old way again.  The IT guy actually fixed my computer yesterday.  Well, he just changed out the mouse (that's what was causing it to go crazy), and now it's working just like it should.


My new object of worry is my car.  Sigh.  Recently, it's been making weird clunking when I back up and turn.  But it doesn't happen all the time.  It kind of feels like I'm running over a chunk of ice or something, but there's nothing there.  I've checked the tires to see if something's rubbing on it... but I have no idea what I'm looking for.  Am I being paranoid?  Who knows.  When I googled it, the most common ideas were U-Joints, or something with the sway bar.  The thing is, I'm pretty sure I had those fixed somewhat recently.  I suppose I should have it in to get checked out.


Mr. D thought maybe it was caused by my car being cold and I should let it warm up a little before driving anywhere.  But the user manual of my car says that it doesn't need to be warmed up before running.  Anyway, I suppose it's worth a shot.


Well, my teacher bag is brimming with spelling books to correct, and they won't correct themselves.  I suppose it's about time I head for home.

Christmas is Coming!

The big news of today was picking out our Christmas gift exchange partners.  My students wanted to do boys and boys and girls and girls, but I just stuck all the names in a bucket and had them get who they get.

The way we do our gift exchange is a little different than normal classrooms.  Each person writes the initials of one thing they want for Christmas.  For example, P.S.  The person who gets the name/letters has to guess what that person wants for Christmas.  Maybe a pencil sharpener? Or a pink shovel?  Or purple string?  The list goes on and on.

My kids had some trouble figuring out what they wanted.  I had about six of them come up to me at the end of the day asking if they could change their letters.  So we wrote their names on the board and their new letters.  Hopefully the person that got them wrote down the new letters!

One of the 6th graders said he was going to get me a scarf for Christmas.  Boy, he knows me well.  One of the 6th grade girls got really excited and said, "Miss H, I know what I want to get you for Christmas, but I have to check with my mom first.  Oh you're going to be so excited!"  Now I'm curious...

The only other thing of note today was getting stuff set up for playing bells on Sunday.  We loaded up the bell cases in my car (and packed the empty space full of 6th and 8th graders) and unpacked everything at church.  I've never witnessed any of this setup since Mrs. M used to do it all.  I had to rely on the 8th graders to know what to do, tucking away the information for next time.  We need to practice one of the songs some more, Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow.  There are a bunch of fermatas, which makes the song harder.  And there's one measure that has an eighth note played by ONE person who can't figure out when to play it.  So the plan is to go over tomorrow... in the bitter wind.

Blankets

My class went over to church today to help the Immanuelites with their blanket-making event.  The ladies were very glad for our help since they needed to make about 20 fleece tie blankets in one day!

They didn't trust the students with cutting out the blankets, so the ladies had tables set up with the blankets ready to be tied.  My students picked a side to work on and got started tying!  Of course they picked it up right away; many of them have made blankets like this before.  But the ladies kept trying to teach them how to do it.  Anyway, we made it through and the ladies were impressed with how fast my students worked!  One of the ladies commented to me, "Your class is a lot quieter than I was expecting!"  Well that's good, I suppose.

The 6th and 8th graders went over to church (again) in the afternoon.  The 8th graders would normally have spelling, but they treat the class like a study hall since they want to do their spelling at home.  The 5th graders had math, so they didn't come along, but the 6th graders were free.  We made another five blankets when we were over there.  The ladies had once again underestimated how fast the students worked at this, so they had some of them refold the finished blankets a little neater or lay out fabric to be cut.  One girl even got to cut some of the strips a little smaller (under constant supervision, of course).  I know they just wanted the blankets to turn out nice, but surely 8th graders are careful enough to follow instructions!  Well, some of them at least.  I had planned to bring the 5th and 6th graders back over at 2:00 to help out more, but there wasn't enough for them to do!  So we had recess instead.

My class had such a good time they want to make more!  Maybe if we raise some money we could do the same sort of thing in just our class.  Then they'd get to do the cutting and the tying.  One student wanted to get make some fleece blankets to keep in our classroom.  Not a bad idea.  We could put them in with our mountain of beanbags in the corner.

After school today was our first day of cheerleading practice.  There are four girls in it this year, only one new one from last year.  And they remember a lot.  We are going to cut our practices shorter since they're picking it up so fast!

Only five days left of school this November.  My students are starting to wind their stories down.  I still want them to keep writing the last five days, but what should they do if their story has ended?  Still not sure what to do with that dilemma.  Some kids are making sequels.  Others are adding epilogues.  Others are just adding random details of things that are happening.  I guess in typical NaNoWriMo, once you reach 50,000 you have successfully won and you don't have to write any more.  I suppose I could make the same rule for my students.

My high word count author has reached his 10,000 word goal.  His new goal is 15,000.  I wouldn't be surprised if he bumps it up to 20,000.  The other boy writing a lot is on track to reach 10,000.  He's going to bump his goal up too.  I'm planning to make a NaNo Hall of Fame poster so I can chart the total number of words written each year (so each year we can try to top the year before).  I could also have a chart for the most words written by one student in November.  Maybe throwing in a prize if they beat the ultimate high record?  We'll see.  It would probably have to be a really good prize...

Blowing Away

Yesterday morning, the weather was beautiful!  I don't know what the afternoon was like since I stayed inside after church, but one of my students said the parking lot outside my apartment was a mess Sunday afternoon.  I guess I'll have to take her word for it.


I did get a lot accomplished yesterday.  My Nano story is now on track... I wrote about 5,000 words yesterday!  And I got most of my lessons roughly outlined for the week (that means I just need to add pictures).  Unfortunately, my computer is still not cooperating.  More tabs opening and closing all on their own, no highlighting abilities, and the worst... not being able to use the screenshot feature in Microsoft Word.  Now, it takes a lot for me to give up on something when it's not working.  Today I actually got too frustrated and gave up on adding pictures to tomorrow's geography lesson.  My plan is to bring my laptop from home and add the pictures tomorrow morning at school.


In other news, a church member volunteered to pay for my garage rent for the rest of the winter.  Praise the Lord! 


Tomorrow, the Immanuelites (LWML group of our church) are making fleece tie blankets for an organization in Mankato that gives them out to homeless people.  They made an announcement in church and I was kind of bummed when they said they were starting at 9:00am on Tuesday.  And then I had a brilliant idea!  Why not bring my class over to help?  Not sure if the ladies would want 13 5th and 6th graders descending on them all at once, I asked one of the chairladies and she said it would be wonderful!  Apparently they had $200 to spend on fabric.  And they kept getting discounts and discounts and discounts, so they have a ton of fabric to work with.  We're only going over for a half an hour in the morning (I might bring the 8th graders over for a bit in the afternoon), but I'm sure we can get a lot accomplished.  My class is pretty excited (at least the vocal ones).  They're all going to bring their heavy-duty scissors tomorrow!


Today the most exciting thing to happen was when I showed my class the picture I got this weekend at the Pipestone gun show.  My brothers convinced me to go along with them, and I found a tin daguerreotype at one of the booths.  The seller said it was probably from the Civil War era.  If they have a frame and the seller knows who the person is in the picture, they can go for about $200.  Mine is plain and doesn't have a frame.  And we don't know who the lady is.  He was going to charge $15, but I told him I was a teacher, so he let me have it for $10.  Anyway, my class was very impressed with it.  They all wanted to sniff it... and they thought it smelled like gunpowder.  I don't smell anything.


All day the snow has been blowing and swirling around school.  Nothing is sticking to the roads; it's just really hard to see.  My kids kept asking if school was going to be called off.  And what if the buses couldn't get to school?  And what if the buses couldn't drive on the roads?  It really wasn't that bad, it just looked bad.  This afternoon while my students were at PE I drove to the bank in Courtland to fill out paperwork for the SCRIP program account.  I'm not going to be in charge; I just get to be the other signature on the checks.  So that was a fun little excursion into the weather.  I was pretty bundled up, but I can't find my headband anywhere!  I've looked all over my apartment and it's not in any of the usual places.  I guess it's time to check in the unusual places.  Hopefully I find it soon since it's supposed to be windy and cold the rest of this week.  But Sunday will be about 34 degrees!  Perfect temperature to put up the plastic on my porch, eh Dad?  Hint. Hint.


Well, it's time for me to brave the cold weather again.  I think the blowing snow has died down for now.  I heard the snow blower guy blowing snow from the school parking lot a little while ago; hopefully no more has blown in since then. 

Crammed

I felt like everything was crammed into our day today.  We got everything done!  It just felt like we barely had our schedule going on time.


Everyone said their memory work within five minutes of the bell ringing.  Read aloud went our normal time.  We got both spelling tests accomplished in our usual amount of time with just enough leftover to squeeze in a round before Reading Buddies. 


Maybe the morning felt rushed because I passed out NaNo prizes again.  I would've completely forgotten, except my kids kept reminding me.  When are you going to pass out prizes? When are you going to pass out prizes?  Soon.  Soon. 


The lab table is usually where I spread out the prizes so they're easier to see.  They were squeezed in today because the 8th graders had a lab.  My students kept looking at the stuff for the lab, thinking they were prizes.  Really, who would want a spoon or a colorful plastic straw as a prize???  Some kids took FOREVER to pick which thing they wanted as a prize.  And others didn't see anything that tripped their trigger, so they asked if they could have two pieces of candy.  Speaking of which, I need to replenish my Jolly Rancher supply.  Blue raspberry is by far the most popular color.  Too bad they don't make whole bags of just one flavor!


The 8th graders were in a boring mood today.  Everything was boring.  When is school over?  I just want to play Clash of Clans... It made me mad.  It takes a lot of time to get things ready for a lab, and then they have a poor attitude about it?  We might as well skip the lab!  After we got into it they came alive a bit more.  Perhaps a bit too much.  The lab was on bird beaks.  I had a bunch of little items (food) they were trying to pick up with a beak (clothespin, toothpick, straw, spoon, tweezers) and put in their stomach (cup).  The point was for them to see that God created birds with different beaks so they could eat different food and not have to compete with each other.  We only made it halfway through, so it looks like we're finishing it on Monday.


My students came back late from math today.  It was fine since we were doing an art project... it gave me a little more time to get things ready.  We did something on radial symmetry.  They cut out a circle, drew a pattern on it, cut it into quarters, and pasted it on another square piece of paper.  Then we glued those squares to a bigger piece to make a "quilt".  It turned out pretty cool once they figured out how to cut it the right way.


Recess was full of basketball.  Queen of the Court was the game of choice.  They loved it so much they wanted to play it a second time instead of having free time.  So we did.  And then we played a big game of Lightning.


Such was the end of our week.  After school Mrs. B and I put together the Christmas Program packets (Mrs. E was going to help too, but some of her kids were visiting from college and she wanted to spend time with them while they are here).  It didn't take us all that long. 


Now I'm heading in to Mankato to pick up one sister.  We're going to Fairmont to see our cousins in the MLHS play.  Final destination: Fulda for the weekend.

Doozy

Sigh.  Another doozy of a day.  At least I wasn't the only one who had it rough.  My coworkers reported that their students were off the walls too.


None of my kids could focus today!  Even the ones that are normally pretty good.  And they were all acting immature.  Not to mention farting all over the place.  I don't know what they've been eating lately, but it's been a bit hard on the digestion. 


One kid in my class has been writing bad words on his NaNo story.  Of course he erases it whenever I walk by.  When I confronted him about it, he said, "[the kid next to him] told me to do it!"  Yeah, but he wasn't the one who pressed the keys on the keyboard.  Mr. E had a talk with him, but it didn't help.  The kid doesn't care.  We don't have a big enough stick to get him to stop.  He's already in from recess working on his math corrections.  Half the time I forget to send him down to work on them.


Mr. E told me today that the new student never has his math done 100%.  And he didn't have his spelling done today either even though they have plenty of time to work on it during school.  Time to email his mom.  Oh joy.  I think I'm going to wait until tomorrow; I have no energy for it today.


Speaking of spelling, one of the 6th graders came to school with six of her spelling pages left to do for the week.  She brought it home yesterday, but it sat in her backpack while she finished her math assignment and by that time it was time for bed.  So she didn't get any of it done.  Then she was mad at me because I was making her stay in from recess/not play the tap game until it was finished.  We had a somewhat good conversation about how it was her choices that landed her in this mess in the first place.  She was also mad because someone tore the cover of her spelling book off.  But if she had kept track of it and brought it back to her desk after her round of word work, it wouldn't have been lying around for someone to tear.  I don't think she saw it that way though.


And then there was a 5th grader who yelled at his classmates whenever they made an annoying noise, like a weird scream yell.  And got even madder when his classmates kept doing it.  He would stamp his foot and glare at them (kind of reminded me of a ram we used to have...).  "Use your words!" was my mantra of the day.


The 8th graders begged for more recess today.  We corrected their spelling books and they didn't bring anything to work on, claiming it was my fault because I didn't write what they should bring on the board like I usually do.  So they wandered around the classroom asking to go out to the gym for some recess and then saying they were bored and completely distracted the 6th graders from their computer time.  Ugh.  Something has to change there.


Mr. E borrowed two of the 5th graders to set up for PE... right before we did science.  And it took them forever.  What I had to say was important, so I didn't want to start without them.  But we ended up having to do it anyway since they took so long.  Apparently the 3rd and 4th grade didn't clean up after themselves.


After school we met about the Christmas program again.  I finally have the parts assigned.  I was super paranoid that I gave each class too much to memorize.  Only the 5-8th grade students have speaking parts.  This year there are lots of tiny parts, so each 5-6th grader has two and each 8th grader has three.  I hope it goes okay.  We're putting together the Christmas program packets tomorrow after school.


Mrs. B (the pastor's wife) said if I stop by her house before six, she'd give me some chili for supper.  So I'm going to pack up and head out!

Dropping Like Flies

Chapel was at school today since it was so cold.  During the Lord's Prayer one of my students said the words in different accents.  I think she changed accents every line or so.


One of my students went home before lunch.  His mom accidentally gave him the wrong medication this morning so he got really drowsy and almost fell asleep in class.  Then another one went down at noon recess.  He was playing hockey and slipped and hit his head.  His classmates asked him the usual questions: How old are you, how many fingers am I holding up, how many brothers and sisters do you have?  He could answer the first two questions, but not the last one.  So they brought him over to me and I asked him all those questions again.  He rattled off his address like nothing was wrong, but then had to think what his mom and dad's names were and the number of siblings he had.  So we called his mom and he went home early.


It was a very quiet afternoon.


Pastor and his wife came to drop off an extra bookshelf they're getting rid of.  Currently I have enough space for our class library, so I'm going to use it at home for all the stacks of books I have lying around.


Now I'm waiting for the PTL meeting to commence.  I was going to go home and eat beforehand, but I finished my lessons at 5:00.  Not quite enough time to go home/eat/come back before six.  I have some granola bars stashed in my car for such situations, so I'll just eat some of those before pottery. 


In the meantime, I think I'll write some of my NaNo words while I wait for the meeting!

Frigid and Frosty

I neglected to write yesterday since I was in such a rush to get my lessons done so I could go home!  We had some freezing rain/sleet and the roads were a bit slick.  Not as bad as our northern neighbors!  We still had school and didn't get to go home early.  Not even a two hour delay.  Unfortunately, the idea has entered my students' minds so any time they see a little snow or a little blowing, their minds immediately go to "is school going to be called off???"  Dream on, it's only November.


Yesterday, my sister Eileen came for a visit.  She talked to the class about how to make a story more interesting and "being mean" to the characters.  My kids liked the part of "The Reluctant Dragon" she read aloud.  There were a number of requests for her to send us the rest of the story so we can hear what happens.  They were very sad when she left before lunchtime.  Oh well.  Maybe she'll come back another day!


Speaking of our NaNo stories... my kids are writing up a storm!  Two of them hit 5,000 today.  They said their goal is to get to 10,000 words by the end of November.  At least four other students hit the 2,000 mark today.  And then I have one student who has only written 200 words and then couldn't think of anything to write.  So he's scrapping his story and is now writing about our class pet Joe and how he controls the weather with a secret button at the bottom of his tank (that's why he buries himself under the soil when a storm is coming).  Should be an interesting story.


My voice is slowly coming back.  It's been hurting on and off all day and I've had one of those annoying coughs you get when your throat feels tickly, but when you cough nothing happens.  So I'll continue to rest and pray that it doesn't last too much longer.


Tomorrow night I have pottery class and a PTL meeting at about the same time.  Lovely.  Only two pottery classes left and I still have a bunch of things to make!  My plan is to go to PTL for a half an hour and then duck out to be a little late to pottery.  Somehow I need to squeeze my library visit in there.  I'm not planning to check anything out, what with NaNo sucking up all my time, but I do have movies that I'll get a fine on if they're not back on Wednesday.  Maybe a drive-by drop-off is the best option.

Validating Vader

Every once in a while something happens while you're teaching that validates your existence.  Something that makes everything else worth it; you are a success (for that day/week) because of a particular moment.  I had one of those today.


There's a girl in 5th grade who reminds me a lot of myself, except she doesn't do any sports if she can help it.  My parents made me do sports (and I was usually a willing participant).  Her best friend plays floor hockey with the boys at recess so the past couple days she's been sitting around being bored.  Yesterday she watched me play Lightning with some of the 6th graders.  In the past, every time I asked her if she wanted to play, she'd shake her head "no" and go back to whatever she was doing.  Yesterday instead of saying no, she said she didn't know how to play.  I tried to teach her, but she said she didn't get it and eventually went off to do something else. 


Today, I caught her watching us again.  I asked again and she kinda sorta shrugged and said she still didn't understand it.  I sat out for a game so we could go over the rules one more time.  "Huh, I think I get it now," she said.  And then she agreed to play!!!  The girl who cries when she has to play kickball!  The one who would rather be doing anything else besides doing some sort of sport.  She played with us!  For two or three games!  And she didn't get out right away and she didn't cry when she did get out!  Definitely a red-letter day.  It made my entire week.


Now, on to more normal stuff.  My voice came back for a little bit today.  I used it a lot during art and then it went away again.  But I'm on the mend!  Not much talking planned for tomorrow, so hopefully I'll be back to normal by Monday.


We had a guest speaker come this morning, Jakub, a Slovakian foreign exchange student living with my aunt and uncle.  He had made a powerpoint with pictures and videos about life in Slovakia.  My kids were ooh-ing and ahh-ing over pretty much every slide.  Jakub showed us a video of a farmer combining the end of a field and all the wild boars running out.  There were at least thirty of them tearing off for the woods!  My class now wants to move to Slovakia because they don't have as much homework there.  One big curiosity was which sports they play in Slovakia.  Once they found out soccer was one and that Jakub played, they all wanted to see how good he was.  Only one kid got to see it.  My uncle and Jakub went around to the other classrooms to say hi, escorted by my helper of the day.  He came back and whispered, "Miss H, Jakub showed me a trick with the soccer ball in the gym.  And it was on the ground and then he flicked it with his foot and then it went up to his head!"


I officially need to make a new NaNo chart.  They've written so many words we're at maximum capacity.  And it's only week one.  Maybe with this chart I'll go by thousands instead of 500s.


But, it's time for me to go home and relax.  I didn't write any words in my story yesterday; I watched the TV show Chuck instead while correcting papers (though I did write a little bit during breakfast).  And that's all I want to do tonight (watch Chuck, that is. Not correct papers).  The library is having a book sale tomorrow, so I'll probably hit that up.  Clean my apartment.  Write lots of words for NaNo.  Do crafty things. 

Darth Teacher

Woke up with no voice today.  Sure I could try to talk, it just sounded like a frog dying.  Whispering was the theme of our classroom today.


Flag pledges almost made me burst out laughing.  I whispered, of course, but my students started out in full voice.  Before we were halfway through, they had all dropped down to a whisper.  It's the strangest thing, hearing a group of people whispering the pledge of allegiance. 


My lost voice was the talk of the school.  One of the students in the lower grades heard the story wrong and heard that "Miss H lost her life."  He thought I was dead!  Thankfully someone set him straight before too long.  Kids kept coming up to me asking me to talk.  The 1st and 2nd graders prayed for me at the end of the day.  Some of my students thought I sounded like Darth Vader when I used my regular voice.  "I am your teacher!" one 5th grader said (in the Darth Vader voice).  One of the 6th graders said, "Miss H! This should've happened last week, then you could've been Darth Teacher for Halloween!"  My kids are so creative. :) 


They also apparently sing my praises when they get home from school.  One girl now wants to wear dresses because of me (her mom says).  Three of my parents couldn't stop thanking me for getting their children to read and write for fun outside of school.  I didn't know what to do with so much positive feedback.  I think they all feel sorry for me because of my voice.


I had a brainstorm on how to do religion this morning without using my voice so much.  Our Bible story was David and Bathsheba.  There's a VeggieTales movie on that story called "King George and the Ducky".  I could youtube it and play it for the class!  Yeah, the only version on youtube was one with words censored so it sounded like they were saying bad things.  Not one to watch at school.  So much for that plan.  We ended up taking turns reading verses; they could hear me if I whispered and so we limped along throughout the morning.


Read aloud was interesting.  Instead of reading part of Artemis Fowl, we listened to Robert Munsch read some of his picture books aloud.  I held the book and turned the pages, showing them the pictures.


A high school group called SPOTS came to do skits on tough subjects for my class.  They did two skits about bullying.  I didn't think they were very good.  The actors didn't know where they were supposed to go, and the boy didn't talk loud enough.  The skits were more about physical bullying and not about verbal bullying, which is what my class has more of an issue with.  The leader didn't facilitate a very good discussion either.  It sounded more like we were listening to Mr. E ream someone out than any discussion about bullying.  To top it off, one of the 5th graders accidentally farted in the middle of their skit and his neighbor wouldn't stop giggling, that set the rest of the pod off.  I could tell the actors thought my students were laughing at them.  Right after the skit on bullying.  Perfect.  Thankfully, I had the chance to explain the situation to the actors before they left.  They seemed relieved.


Class with the 8th graders today was easy.  We corrected their spelling books and then watched the first half of Monsters University as their class prize.  Good time for me to rest my voice.  Science with the 5th and 6th graders was a little more challenging.  Yesterday, we learned about atoms and everyone wanted to know more about splitting atoms and smashing atoms.  So I perused youtube yet again and found a few on the topic.  One had a woman with an Asian accent narrating.  And my students thought it was the funniest thing ever.  It was kind of boring, so we didn't watch much of that one.  Another one had a British guy narrating, and that one was really good.  Good pictures, good info.  After that we cleaned our desks and went out for recess.  I played Lightning with two of the 6th graders.  Guess what?  I swished three three-pointers in a row.  This definitely impressed the 3rd and 4th graders on their way back from a bathroom break. 


Well, I'm on my last parent teacher conference for the night.  One more to go and then I can go home!  I got a few words written last night after pottery.  Tonight is my spelling correcting night, so I don't know how much I'll accomplish after that.  One of the 5th grade girls gave me a great idea for my story.  Ivan found a smashed glass bottle with liquid in it.  When he licked it, it knocked him out for a second or two.  But I didn't know what the liquid was for (the three princesses dropped it in the stables).  The 5th grader thought it should be a potion that turns people into bunnies, but it knocks them out first and then gives them bunny ears and fur.  So that's what I'll be writing about whenever I get around to it.

Ringing Any Bells?

As I speak, er, write, my sore throat is becoming a lost voice.  My voice has lowered at least one octave and it's starting to fade in and out.  Good thing there are only two more days of school this week!


Another semi-normal day today.  Our new student is still figuring out the ropes.  Today we threw him into handbells.  He's taken piano lessons before, so reading music wasn't new to him.  We've been working on songs to play in church in November which means I didn't have a part picked out for him.  Instead, I took one of my struggling players' bells and let him do it.  This way each kid has one bell (easier to follow the music) and they still get to play.


Parent Teacher Conferences are tomorrow.  I have everything pretty much ready to go.  I suppose we should clean out the coatroom, or at least tidy it up a bit.  Something for my kids to do tomorrow morning.


A ton of them said their memory work this morning!  Granted, I told them they had to say it all before they could work on their NaNo stories.  Speaking of NaNo, I had a couple students break 1,000 words today.  They were really excited when I told them they'd get a prize.  Five out of thirteen students wanted me to email their stories home so they could work on them outside school.  Fine by me.  I wonder how many will actually work on them.  A couple of the girls said they're raising their word goal to 5,000 or 10,000.  It's totally doable since they're at 1,000 and it's only the first week.  I'm curious to see if their enthusiasm continues.


Well, I'm signing off again.  Pottery and library trip are on the docket for tonight.  I'm at 6,400 words in my NaNo, supposed to be at 8,333 today.  I had been hoping to work on that before pottery tonight, but our staff meeting went long.  Oh well.  I'll carve out some time somewhere.

Sore Throat

I got a sore throat late Saturday night and its come and gone for the past two days.  Today it's been feeling a little worse, but that could be because I'm using my voice more.  Hopefully it gets better on its own... lots of water and tea with honey!


NaNoWriMo has gotten off to a great start!  My kids are so excited to tell me how many words they've been writing.  Some are already up to 700 (they did start last week).  My mom helped me make a chart for them to record how many words they've written.  Their goal is to write 2,000 words, and the chart goes up to 2,750 for my students who want to go above and beyond.  I think we're going to be off the chart before the end of the month!


Our new student started at ILS today.  I think he's getting along fine.  One of the 6th grade girls kept coming up to him saying "hi".  That kind of freaked him out.  He seemed to fit in with the routine okay.


The most dramatic part of the day was trying to get grades out.  I had emailed all the 8th graders grades for my classes yesterday morning, but Mr. E never got the email.  He had put all the grades for my class in my mailbox at school, which of course I didn't check since I wasn't at school at all yesterday.  This morning when I checked my mailbox, there were only math grades for three of my 12 students; all the rest of them owed an assignment to Mr. E.  Lovely.  How am I supposed to get grades out today if my students haven't handed everything in! 


At lunch time, a few of the 8th grade girls asked why their science grades were so low.  When we got inside, I checked and realized I had accidentally entered the grade for their last science test as points instead of percent.  So if someone got a 38/40 on the test, the computer would read it as 38% on the test.  Oops.  And Mr. E had already written in these grades on their report card.  I got it fixed though, and he corrected the grades on his report cards, so we should be good now. 




After school, Mrs. E and I met to go over the Christmas program.  We figured out the songs we'll be singing/where they go in the program.  I'm in charge of the words, aka- assigning speaking roles to everyone.  And I suppose I should make sure they actually learn their parts and sound good speaking them. 


I had one Parent Teacher Conference today.  It went well.  Not too much to say to this parent.  Hopefully the other conferences go just as smoothly. 


Now I'm going to vote and then go home to relax and write my NaNo words for today!  Maybe I'll get caught up.  I'm supposed to be at 6,667, but I only have 4,000.  Lots of words to write!

Ozone Depletion

I'm pretty sure another layer of the ozone got taken off today...


The hairspray booth was the most popular area of the Fall Carnival hosted by my 5th and 6th grade class.  The girls were spraying it on so thick, you could see the spray in the air.  Another girl was doing fingernail polish right next to them.  Can you say pungent?


I dressed up as a Barbie: high pony tail (the 1st and 2nd grade girls said I should put it in a bun because that looked more like Barbie), obnoxiously pink floral shirt, skinny jeans, and very high floral heels.  Someone took a picture... but I'm having trouble uploading it on this site. 






We didn't do a whole lot else with our day.  Religion, memory work, catch up on late work... (end of the quarter today).  Reading buddies, carnival for the preschoolers, pass out Book Genre BINGO prizes for the quarter, lunch, recess, Telephone Pictionary (it took them a while to figure out how to do it), and the Fall Carnival for the rest of the school for the rest of the day.


I had wanted to get more of my grades for this quarter finished, but that didn't end up happening.  I guess I'll just have to do them this weekend!  A few of my kids wanted to know if I'd be home for trick-or-treating.  Another girl asked where I was going trick-or-treating.  Tonight I'm heading in to Mankato to hang out with a college friend.  Then tomorrow we're heading up to Clarissa, MN to spend the day with another college friend.  Back to Mankato early evening-ish and I'll drive down to Fulda for the rest of the weekend.  Lots of driving, but we get Monday off to work on our grade reports. 

Nightmare

Last night I had a dream that one of my students wouldn't stop talking.  And then she followed me around (still talking) and I couldn't get her to leave.  What an awful way to wake up! 


Pottery last night was good.  I finished a mug I've been working on the past few weeks (waiting for it to get leather hard so I could carve into it).  Mary, a sheep, the manger, and baby Jesus are also completed, although I'm not too sure about my sheep... it kind of looks like a llama. 


All the movies I ordered came in at the library yesterday, so I have five movies to watch while I correct papers.  Probably won't get to all of them, but I should make a dent in it tonight. 


School was average today.  Nothing too exciting happened.  We prepped some more for the Fall Carnival tomorrow.  The 8th grade boys brought in a desk for our new student.  The only desk they could find is teeny tiny and too small for the new kid.  I was going to see if another teacher wanted to switch out a desk, but when my students saw it, about five of them immediately volunteered to switch desks so they could take the mini one.  We drew sticks. 


The new student and his mom stopped by after school today to drop off his stuff.  He had a lot of questions about how much homework he'll have and how much recess he gets.  Strangely, many of his questions were about raising his hand (when do you have to raise your hands, if it's okay to help others if they're stuck, if there's ever any times I'm out of the classroom...).  They stayed for about an hour and a half.  Good for answering questions/feeling comfortable about the switch... not so good for Miss H getting her lesson plans done.  Another late night at school. 


Thankfully, I have everything finished up now.  My bags are packed and I just need to grab my report cards... maybe I'll get a little more done on them at home tonight.

Ketchup Day

I tried to make a joke with my class today.  They didn't get it.


In English we've been doing so many prep things for our NaNo stories that they've fallen a little behind, so I gave them a day to catch up (on spelling and handwriting too).  I tried to be clever and call it a "ketchup" day... but only one or two people got it.  And then they tried to explain it to the kids who didn't get it... and those kids were still confused.  So yeah.  That was my day.


I told the class about our new student.  My kids reminded me all the things we needed to get ready for him: a banana on the Helper of the Day rotation, a coat hook label, a desk, books, a tiger for our welcome board, etc.  I printed a bunch of things to give him when he stops by on Thursday.  I'm also thinking about giving him some NaNo homework so he's not completely thrown under the bus November 4th.


This morning I realized that I should've started the year teaching chemistry instead of starting with physics.  The physics lesson we're supposed to learn next builds on concepts taught in the chemistry book.  So I guess we're switching to chemistry now and we'll pick up with physics after we finish up that book.  Kind of throws a wrench in my plans, but at least I found out about it now.  I had been planning to do another science lesson this week, but with a new student starting next week, I might just do a history lesson so he doesn't miss out on our first chemistry day.


Well, I have pottery tonight, so I'm going to keep this short and end here. 

96 Tears

Okay, my class didn't cry exactly 96 tears... actually, who knows?  Maybe they did.  There were quite a few today, mostly for no reason at all.  Three out of four girls in my class cried (one cried multiple times, but I'm counting her once).


One girl cried because people were being mean to her and laughing at her (true? possibly, but not enough to cry over).


Another girl cried because "everyone" was going for her during the tap game and weren't going for anyone else.  This same girl cried at lunchtime because while she was in the kitchen heating up her cold lunch, one of the boys switched chairs.  He didn't touch her stuff!  He just traded her blue chair for a folding chair.  And apparently they did it yesterday too.  So she moved her stuff to a different place that had a blue chair, but still cried about it, and I guess the boys were laughing at her.  Lovely, just what I want to deal with as I eat my lunch.


Then during our science lab, the third girl cried because she wasn't paying attention or didn't hear what I was saying to their group and I said if they didn't know, they should ask the other people in their group.  And the only boy who'd been paying attention was being mean about it.  And then the other 5th grade boys started laughing at her for crying.  So before we had recess, I had to talk to the boys about ignoring their classmates when they're crying (unless it's to ask if they're okay).  I think I got through to them, but who knows?  We'll find out tomorrow I guess.


In other news, our Skype session with my friend Chelsea in Chile went well.  The technology was a bit spotty as per usual, but we managed.


After school today, I found out I'll be getting a new 6th grade boy next Tuesday.  He and his mom are stopping by after school Thursday to drop off his stuff.  He's not entirely a surprise; his mom's been in contact with us since last year about him switching to our school. 


My kids are still super excited about their NaNo stories.  We invented a villain today: Leif Winterchief.  He always takes the loot and the glory away from Ivan when Ivan wins a battle.  His weaknesses are small furry things and flowers, plus something happens when you touch the back of his neck.  His arms fall off? He breaks out in hives? He falls asleep for 100 years?  We haven't decided yet (but those are all things my students think should happen).  I told them my sister who is a writer might come visit our classroom in November to write with us and there was a rousing cry of, "YEAH!!!!"  And now they want her to stay the whole day.  We'll see what happens.

It's a Monday

This morning I walked through the gym in the dark to turn on the lights and I saw a ball on the ground.  Thinking it was a foam ball, I kicked it out of the way.  It was a softball, which truly isn't very soft.


Three of my kids spent the day talking as loud as possible, even when asked to "use inside voices".   Two had headaches, which the loud talking only made worse. 


One kid went home sick.  In the morning he kept rubbing his chest and said it was hard to breathe.  His classmate commented she could hear rattling in his chest.  He toughed it out until English... One minute he was sitting up normally, the next he was doubled over.  A little freaked out, I asked him if he was okay.  No response.  I touched his shoulder.  Still nothing.  Internally panicking, thinking maybe he was passed out, I asked once more.  This time, he rolled his head up and nodded yes, followed by actual words.  Yikes!  We called his mom from the classroom (I didn't trust that he'd make it to the office) and she sent someone to pick him up.  I hope he's okay!


The same girl with the bad headache fell off the monkey bars at recess and hit her head.  They were playing Green Boogers again and she slipped. 


At the end of the day, one of the 6th grade girls had an ice pack (for some reason... maybe she snitched it from one of the injured) and when my back was turned, she chucked it at the littlest kid in class!  It hit him where it counts and he was down for about five minutes.  Why? Just why?  She couldn't explain why she threw it.  I had no words for her.  I still don't.  What do you say to someone who randomly threw something at another person just because she felt like it?  Nothing.  No matter what you say, she's not going to care. 


This same person always dinks around on the way to math and PE.  She's always five minutes late to everything.  It's driving Mr. E up the wall!  And when he talks to her about it, she rolls her eyes at him like what he's saying doesn't apply to her.  We came up with a plan.  From now on, we're going to walk her down to the other person's classroom, holding her hand the whole time.  If she can't get to class on time on her own, she'll be treated like a kindergartner until she can.


Sigh. 


Good things about today: we started building characters for our NaNoWriMo stories.  Our class's main character is Ivan Stormcloud, a pekka (from Clash of Clans) who enjoys breaking things, picking flowers, and inventing things.  If he's had a tough day, chasing butterflies and eating oreos will make him happy.  My kids have come up with some really cool characters (many from Clash of Clans... they're a bit obsessed).  I'm excited to see what they'll do with them!

Camp Omega

We made it back, safe and sound!  And in time for the buses too... though most of my kids didn't want to drag their luggage aboard.  A lot of parents showed up to give rides home.


Back-up to yesterday... the drive over was extremely foggy.  We made good time and got checked into our cabin about 15 minutes earlier than scheduled.  Our first activity was a Bible Scavenger Hunt... look up Bible passages and figure out which thing in the verse should be on our list to find: stone, grass, weeds, flowers, feathers, flies, worms, seeds, sand, water, clay, etc.  We had the hardest time finding the feather, worm, and fruit.  On our way back to the Beta Center, we looked at the ground and saw a squished berry.  Our fruit!  Then we looked up and saw a tree filled with little berry fruits.  Right under our noses the whole time!  Two minutes before our time was up we found a feather.  We never did end up finding a worm; no one wanted to dig that much... one of the other groups told us they found theirs under a rock.  Why didn't we think of that?


The rest of the day we spent building our pop bottle rockets and doing archery and canoeing.  Half the group could shoot arrows at a time, so the half unoccupied entertained themselves by starting a leaf war.  They gathered as many leaves as they could and then threw them at the nearest person.  It ended up being war on one particular student, so I stepped in and told them not to just gang up on one person.  The ringleader got a wild look in his eye, "Okay!" and then he tossed his pile at me.  Pretty soon everyone was throwing leaves at me (some got me more than others).  Eh, why not?  So I got in on the war too.  A few students joined my side.  We did okay in the war.  But then a Benedict Arnold shoved a whole pile up the back of my sweatshirt and it was game over.


Canoeing was great!  Sunny and warm enough for short sleeves!  We paddled around the horseshoe and even sailed through some weeds.  It felt like we were voyageurs or native Americans on a canoe trip.  A canoe of boys challenged the 5th grade girls and me to a race back to shore... they were sure they were going to win.  And we smoked them.  The boys tried to say we cheated because I was in the canoe, but they had only two people and we had three to paddle around, so I'd say it was pretty much an even race.


The pop bottle rockets were sweet!  My kids didn't listen very much to the instructions on being conservative with the duct tape... After supper, we shot them off across the soccer field.  Two boys' rockets flew so far they went into the woods!  Aaron (the DCE/our leader) said those two were the best rockets he's seen all year.  Woohoo! 


Right as we were getting ready to pray for supper, Bob came in and told us to come outside.  It was time for the partial solar eclipse!  We passed around welding helmets and got to see part of the sun get covered up.  Without the helmets, the sun didn't look much different.  My students wanted me to take a picture of it through the helmet.  Eh, it turned out okay.  It only makes sense if you know what you're looking at.


Behavior was pretty much the same as in school, but a lot more hyper and energetic.  My students discovered the game "Gaga Ball" and played it pretty much whenever we had free time.  I think our next piece of playground equipment should be a Gaga Ball pit.  The objective is to keep the ball from touching you below your knees.  You can hit the ball with any other body part, but you can't scoop it up and throw it at someone (we mostly punched it with our fists).  There was some pretty fancy footwork involved!  The only other rule is that you can't lift yourself onto the walls to escape a ball (and no alliances or ganging up on specific people). 


After shooting the rockets, it was time for another round of Gaga Ball... in the dark.  Everyone lined their flashlights under the edges of the pit and the chaperones and I held a few so we could referee.  Our day ended with a campfire and a few chapters of our read-aloud book. 


Everyone was in bed and "quiet" by about 10:00.  It felt like I had just fallen asleep when there came a tapping sound at our door.  Was it my imagination?  Nope, the tapping continued.  Was it a boy trying to trick us by tapping on the connecting door?  The tapping came again.  Was it one of the girls knocking on her bunk?  Should I get up and find out?  Once more with the tapping.


It was our male chaperone with one of my students who didn't feel well.  He wanted to call his mom to come pick him up... at 11:00pm.  He said his stomach felt fine, he just didn't feel well.  Deep down I figured it was probably just homesickness, but I said he could call his mom.  The student was still here in the morning, so I'm guessing his mom convinced him to tough it out a little longer.


Today was spent building fires and shelters in the woods.  And playing Gaga Ball, of course.  I could barely drag them away from the pit to go to breakfast.  Yes, they were up by 7:00 and wanting to play by the light of the rising sun.  I'd been up to disperse medicine to appropriate students (I felt like a walking pharmacy), so I volunteered to supervise them. 


After shelter building, we ate our last meal, loaded up our vehicles, and played one last round of gaga before we left.  In my car, one of the girls absolutely refused to sit in the middle.  She wanted to sit on the edge.  Of course, she was the smallest one so it would make sense for her to sit in the middle... after about five minutes of stubbornness, she gave in and sat in the middle.  We made it back to school without any catastrophes. (I got mixed up a bit and almost turned the wrong way a few times... good thing the girl sitting in front knew the way and could tell me to go the other way).


Now time for a relaxing weekend without anyone tattling or screaming or yelling or spraying cologne or airing out stinky feet or...