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.