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...