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Well, yesterday went a little differently than I was expecting, at least, the end of it did.  The beginning of the day was pretty normal.


Before the bell, my kids painted a poster we're going to give Mr. E in celebration of his 25th year of teaching at ILS.  Everyone came in to sign it... at the same time.  The 7th and 8th graders had signed their names during bells yesterday so Mr. E wouldn't get suspicious of his whole class leaving at the same time.  Once the bell rang, we did devotions. 


The Bible verse centered on us being heirs of eternal life.  The 5th graders wanted to know what "heirs" meant.  So I gave them some examples.  "Let's say the owner of a huge horse farm dies and gives you [the two girls] all the horses.  You are the heir to the horse farm." Oh the girls were excited about that!  I gave another example about one of the boys... and then I decided to tease the last boy just a little, "Let's say that the owner of the Case IH industries dies and leaves you [the boy who loves John Deere tractors] all his tractors.  You would be..." He interrupted me before I could continue, "I would be throwing them all away because John Deere is WAY better."  Ms. J piped up, "No, you would be selling them and become a millionaire!"  I think they get the idea of what an heir means.


The rest of the school day was packed with flying papers and the smell of cleaning sprays.  It didn't take long for my students to cram everything in their backpacks, so I put them to work cleaning whiteboards, straightening the reading corner, and taking down decorations.  One student took everything out of her desk and spread it around.  She'd pick up a piece of paper, "Miss H, do I need this?  What should I do with it?"  Then she'd grab another item, "I don't want this, what should I do with it?"  I'd tell her the same thing, "Throw it away or recycle it."  "But what if someone else wants it?"  All morning.  Finally I said, "You must really like school and not want to leave."  "What? I want to leave school!"  "Oh, I thought since you're taking so long to pack up, you must want to stay longer!"  She shot me an evil look after that one. 


Nonetheless, we made it to chapel on time.  When we got back to school, I passed back their time capsules we made at the beginning of the year.  The most anyone grew was two inches.  5th grade really isn't the best time to be comparing measurements.  They emptied their mailboxes one last time, we said one last prayer, and I dismissed my 5th graders for the last time.  The poky one still had things to pack, so she stuck around while her mom tapped her foot.  This student had forgotten her last handwriting assignment at home (her mom was supposed to bring it when she picked her up from school), and her mom forgot to bring it.  So they left and came back. 


It was so peaceful once everyone left.  The other teachers left fairly soon after the students did.  I wanted to do as much tidying as I could since I'll be in Fulda until the 150th celebration.  People are going to see my classroom; I want it to look good.  I found a few things tucked into recesses of the lab table that the students forgot.  Good thing they'll all be back June 1st!  The school nurse stopped by to drop of an end of the year present for the teachers: bottles of homemade wine!  Since I was the only teacher still at school, I got first pick.  Hooray!


Now for the change-in-plan part.  At the beginning of the day, I had intended to stay at school for a while, go home and do laundry, maybe read a book, do my grocery shopping for the week, and hang out until our 10:00 staff meeting the next morning.  When I got to school yesterday morning, I found an email from my dad saying my grandma fell and broke her hip and would have surgery later in the day.  So after calling Dad to see what was up with Grandma, I found out the rest of my family was going to visit her later that afternoon.  And I decided to go with them.  She seemed like she was doing all right; she was glad we were visiting.  Afterwards, we went out to eat at Famous Dave's and then went to Sheels to see their new addition.  We got back to Fulda late, so I spent the night, got up early, and drove back to school for our meeting.


And then it's back to cleaning up... I have most of it done; I need to gather up Joe and his things for his summer migration to the Fulda library.  I suppose it's time for me to close so I can actually accomplish some of the things on my list!