#1

Second to last day of school (last full day of school) and what do I do?  I forget my phone at home.  I hope no one tried to call me today!


There is a HUGE stack of thank-you notes lying on the corner of my desk.  Over half of them are thanking groups that donated money toward our prairie planting at school.  Two are for the Ecology Bus.  I have to glue in a few pictures and then they'll be ready to be mailed out!  Now all I need are the addresses...


Our room smelled delicious today.  The 2nd graders came down for their last day of math.  I owed them two class rewards, so we watched a Cyberchase episode about multiplication and popped two bags of popcorn.  One would've been plenty, but by the time I figured that out, the 5th grade volunteer popper was already long gone to the kitchen. 


The 5th graders also had popcorn (part of their Challenge of the Week class prize); I think I spoiled their appetites a bit.  They chose to wait until English time for theirs so they could eat it and watch the "How the States Got Their Shapes" episode at the same time.


We finished a lot of things today... The 7th and 8th graders finished the episode they'd been watching.  The 5th graders finished science for the year (we went outside to talk about pitch... I forgot to bring the trombone out so we tweaked my plans a little).  We finished learning about the Civil War (only 15 minutes to cover Reconstruction! barely squeaked it in).  We finished our read-aloud book (I Survived the Battle of Gettysburg).  We finished coloring the table tent decorations for the 150th anniversary.  We finished next year's class letters.  Oh!  And I found the ones last year's 6th graders had written to the 5th graders and passed them out.  The 5th graders mostly laughed at what their predecessors had written.  A lot had to do with not yelling and avoiding playing the piano without permission.


The last full day of school ended with all-school kickball (we divided into four teams and played two separate games, one on each side of the school).  Afterwards, the students trekked into school, signed the multitude of thank-yous lying on the counter, and enjoyed a Bomb Pop popsicle.  Even the teachers got to have one! 


Now I'm hanging out at school until 7:00 when we have choir rehearsal for the 150th anniversary choir.  I thought about going home in between, but if I stay here, I can get my grades done and can send them home tomorrow.  And I still need to go through my desk for all the "distracting" items that have been confiscated from one particular 5th grader this year.  Mrs. E needed some help downloading the pictures from her camera onto the computer and onto CDs for her kindergartners.  It turns out her computer doesn't have CD burning capabilities, so we did it on my computer.  There were a lot of pictures!  It was fun to see what went on in their classroom this year.  Mrs. E said she showed her students the pictures of the chicks I had taken when we visited the farm.  Her kids loved them!  They were so excited to see how much they've grown.


I suppose I should get back to work doing my "teachery" things.  I wrote a big TO DO list on the board so the 5th graders won't get confused about what they're supposed to do tomorrow.  Ms. J reminded us we only have three hours of school tomorrow.  That's not a lot to get everything accomplished!


Tomorrow's balloon activity: drink Gatorade or juice in class! (but no pop)