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!