Freedom!

No more pencils, no more books, no more teachers' dirty looks!  Oh wait... it's just Christmas break.


We crammed everything into the day that we had planned.  Program practice went off without a hitch!  Everyone (and by everyone, I mean the teachers) say they feel really comfortable with the program and aren't too worried at all.  It's going to be good.


My students were astounded at how many presents under the tree were for me... I think there was eight or nine?  Most of them were gift cards to Barnes and Nobel... yay! More books for the classroom!  Surprisingly, I only got one scarf!  It's in sort of camouflage colors with butterflies (though the student who gave it to me said he thought they looked like ducks).  Another one of those wax melter things is coming home with me along with some cinnamon scented and sugar-cookie scented wax.  Maybe I should leave one of them at school to minimize the smell in our classroom, not that it smells bad, but it could smell better.


Another surprise: nearly all my students guessed what the letters meant.  HP= hockey puck, NF= Nerf football (two kids asked for those), BC= baseball cards, SH= sparkly headband, LOC= lots of candy.  One kid put down random letters for his initials and he ended up with LEGOS.  Another asked for LP and he got lots of pennies (10,000 to be exact).  That's why the present was so heavy!  The girl who asked for OP (origami paper) got orange pop.  Another kid asked for SH and he got a Santa hat, a Scheels hat, and skittles and some other candy.  I don't think that's what he wanted, but he wasn't complaining!


Although most of them complained about the all-school movie choice, it seemed they enjoyed watching Balto.  Mr. E and I were discussing movie choices and he wants to go back to the 80s and 90s movies before TV turned "bad".  All the kids have seen the newer movies and each one seems to have more and more not-school-appropriate things, so why not show them the classics?  I think that's a great idea.  Now it's making me rethink my decision to show Meet the Robinsons as our class prize in January... I really want to switch to Fivel Goes West.  But will I have a mutiny on my hands if I do?  That remains to be seen...


Plans for Christmas break:  Hang out in Courtland until after the program Sunday night.  If the weather's good, I'll drive down to Fulda that night.  If there isn't good weather, I'll head down Monday morning.  I need to be back in Courtland Wednesday afternoon to get ready for Round 2 of the program, and again depending on the weather, I'll go back to Fulda that night or the next morning.  After that... my schedule is wide open aside from the few days I'm scheduled to work at the Fulda library.  All my papers are corrected (yay!) and my to-do list for lesson planning is pretty short.  Plenty of time to bother my siblings and read lots of books!

One Practice to Go!

Our pianist came to practice today for the first time... after running through the whole program, she pronounced she's comfortable with how it's going and she's going to cancel the extra practice we had scheduled for tomorrow afternoon.  Although we're missing kids, so far everything has been running smoothly.  One more practice tomorrow! 


Two kids in my class stayed home sick today.  Their moms wanted to know what homework they had... I thought for a minute and then... nothing.  They don't have any new assignments.  Part of me feels like I'm not doing my job.  But there really isn't time to give them homework, what with program practice every afternoon.  And they still have handwriting and spelling and memory work this week.  That's probably enough homework the week before Christmas break. 


Since I have a full two weeks of no school, I went a little overboard getting books to read... I took it easy at the New Ulm library since I won't be around to return books here, but I put holds on a bunch from the Fulda library and picked up a big book from the Bookmobile.  And Mrs. B (1st and 2nd grade) brought in three books this morning I'm supposed to read over Christmas break (the Kane Chronicles).  So.  I should be set with books!


Instead of making my kids take a test for MN history, I had them write a letter as if they survived the MN Dakota Uprising.  Of course I had certain things they had to include in their letters.  On the bottom of the rubric, I left a space for "comments" where I could write my thoughts about their work instead of writing on their actual letter.  Some of my students took it literally and wrote their comments about the assignment.  My favorite response [unedited]: "I love doing this instead of a test thank you Miss Heintz you are cool!"


Oh, tomorrow is going to be fast and furious!  Religion, read aloud, spelling tests, program practice, lunch, party, movie, home!  And yet I still have spelling books and other papers to correct tonight...

T-Minus Four

Four days until our program!  Only a few people forgot to come up to say their lines. 


A parent brought over wrapped presents for the magi to carry and made a background for our stable.  We strung lights over the top and some of them create a little tiny halo around the star at the point.  For Silent Night we light candles and shut all the lights off.  The lights will look so cool! 


Hand bells are sounding... kind of good and kind of sloppy.  I start them at a slower pace and then they speed up!  And they're going too fast during the complicated part so they mess up.  But I suppose it sounds okay if you don't know what you're listening for.  We figured out that one of the girls was using the wrong bell for a song.  She only plays one note with it, but that one note just didn't sound right to me.  Apparently I told her the wrong note name; she was playing a B instead of an A.  Ugh, I always get their names messed up.  Anyway, we got it straightened out.


Bulletin covers have been chosen.  Every year we have students decorate a bulletin cover and then we pick a certain number to be printed on the actual bulletins.  This year we picked one "winner" from each classroom.  My class was so hard to choose!  We decided to lay out all the entries on the tables for people to admire before/after the programs.


Now I need to head over to church to print off the bulletins for Sunday and Christmas Eve.  6:00 is Sunday School program practice.  I don't think I'll have enough time to go home and come back.  I brought my class's bookmarks to school, so maybe I'll put tassels on them so they're ready to go for Friday.  I made the ultimatum that if they're not done with memory work, they don't get to open their presents on Friday... they'll have to wait until January!

Christopher Columbia

Not a whole lot to write about today. 


The weather is waaay colder today.  The wind was in just the right direction to blow all the warm air out of our classroom, so the 8th graders complained about being cold during my class.  Their presentations on Europe were okay.  A lot of them did them the night before they were due, so there wasn't anything too spectacular.  Lots of powerpoints again.  Sigh.  It's probably just as boring to sit through them as it was for them to make them.  I wish they'd be more creative and make it more fun!  Like... make a board game about the geography of Europe, or a comic book about some historical event!  A few of them did speeches this time.  One girl made a crossword puzzle and gave a background on the words she chose.  One girl brought in "fish and chips" except she couldn't find any fish, so she just brought shrimp.  Creative idea... not very informative.


I'm driving my students crazy with those pictures I took of them yesterday.  They keep asking, "when do we find out what they are for?  You promised we'd know by Friday!"  At least three of them are so curious they're nearly bursting!  One boy even asked for a hint.  My response, "no, I like surprises too much."


Our biggest argument today was trying to decide on a movie to watch as a class reward.  Mr. E has been on a big kick about only watching G rated movies (at least for the whole-school movie for the Christmas parties).  That severely limits our options.  And of course all the movies my kids suggest are PG.  A teacher is a little like a parent, right?  A 5th grader argued, "We read books that are probably PG, so why can't we watch movies?"  I said I'd ask Mr. E about it.  I showed them the trailer for Fivel Goes West but the trailer wasn't very good, and they weren't impressed.  Right now, the top choices are Santa Claus 3 or Meet the Robinsons.


I played the game Taboo with two of my 5th graders during Daily 5.  I read the cards and they tried to guess the word.  They had so much trouble!  The first one was Christopher Columbus.  I gave them every hint I could and still, they got nothing.  Finally they figured out Christopher.  My student by that name wandered over when he heard his name and tried giving them more hints... it didn't work.  They were still stuck on the last name.  "Columbia!"  "Columbarus!" Every ending they could think of except the right one.  I tried another clue, "The last part is the same as what you ride to school in."  "Oh! Columcar!"  *facepalm*  "Oh! Columbius!"  "No, Columbiabus!"  No matter what, they could not get that last sound right!  They had a slightly easier time of it with Thomas Jefferson, but not by much.


I'm doing my weekly grocery/library run a day early this week.  My pottery is waiting for me at HyVee, so I'm going to pick that up while I'm there too.  Then it's correcting papers and taking it easy so I don't get sick before the Christmas program!

It's Alive!

My students discovered the plant they've been reviving is a mint plant.  One of them was leaning over it to water the plant when he took a big sniff, "Hey, this smells minty!"  "That's because it is mint."  "There are mint plants? Can you eat them?"  "Sure."  So one kid took a teeny tiny fresh leaf... and said it tasted like dirt.  Another kid wanted to try it (something that tastes like dirt? exactly what I want to put in my mouth...) but he took a dried leaf.  "Hey, this actually tastes like mint!"  I had to put the kibosh on eating more leaves or there wouldn't be enough left for the plant to get energy!  It's been sending up a bunch of shoots now that it has more light, but the leaves are still little.


One of my ADHD kids didn't take his meds today.  He was off the wall, literally bouncing up and down in the classroom, giggling, grinning, etc.  I'm surprised he accomplished as much as he did this morning.  His sister dropped off his meds partway through the day, but by that time we pretty much only had program practice left.


The program is coming together, slowly but surely.  Mrs. E and I rearranged the layout of the front of church last night so we could add another riser.  Now there's plenty of room!  With that change, we also had to change everyone's seats around.  The 5-8th graders are on the ends of the risers to sneak out and say their parts and the 1-2 and K are in the middle so everyone can see them when they say their class parts.  It's a little different than previous years.  The manger scene is off to one side so we have room for five risers.  There wasn't any other way we could fit them all in.  And the bell tables... sigh.  I think I got those figured out after school today.  Normally, the tables are all in one straight line, but they'll cover up baby Jesus, so we're going to move them into position when it comes time for the offering.  The 8th graders probably won't be too happy about that, but what can you do?  They wanted to play up in the balcony, but I can just see the parents and grandparents complaining that they can't see their person playing the bells.  Plus it would take a while for the ringers to get up to the balcony after singing the last program song.  So we'll try it this way and see if it works. 


Everything is more complicated because we have to take everything down for church on Sunday since we have communion.  I don't know where to put the bell cases so they're not in anyone's way.  We have to take down all the risers Friday and put them back up on Sunday after church/the voters meeting... ugh, so much work.  The plan is to grab some hefty dads and ask them to help us get everything situated for the program. 


I need to get presents for my students.  Today I took them out to the gym and photographed them standing on one foot with a hand in the air.  I'm going to turn them into bookmarks that look like they're dangling/flying through the air.  I didn't tell them what I was doing... hopefully they don't think it's too lame.  I asked one of my sisters if she thought getting a bookmark would be an okay present and she just wrinkled her nose at me.  So some of the kids will think it's good and others will probably think it's dumb.  Oh well.  I'm kind of running out of time for a different plan!

Scavengers...

The all school outdoor recess the Student Council had planned for today was a bust since the snow is all melting.  Miss H (preschool teacher/faculty leader of Student Council) planned a scavenger hunt for them to do instead.  The only catch was, she wasn't here (had to be to her other job at 1:00).  So we kind of had to figure things out on our own. 


One of my 6th graders twisted her ankle in the mad rush to collect the items.  Kids were running all over the place.  They were supposed to stay with their groups, but a bunch of them split up, leaving group members behind.  And then the bigger kids made the littlest ones put all the items back.  Still, it seemed they had fun.  The top commodities in my room were the Dr. Seuss books, Narnia books, and marbles.  Afterwards we put on music in the gym and had a dance party and hot chocolate.  The hot chocolate was served a little too late, so kids were rushing to gulp it down before getting on the bus. 


We had our first Christmas program practice at church today.  Not enough room on the risers.  I don't know how we're going to squeeze all the Sunday school kids in too!  And then I had to figure out when/where the shepherds, wise men, and angels should enter and exit.  I really hope the kids with speaking parts are remembering when they come up to speak, because I have no clue how I could cue each of them to go where they're supposed to.  Good thing we still have one week of practice left!  It will all come together; it's just going to take some work.  My kids know their speaking parts pretty well, and the songs are coming along nicely.  So, we'll keep plugging away!

It's only a pencil!

I'm a little bummed today.  Last night I went to Redeemer in New Ulm for their Advent service (and the meal beforehand) and had a good time talking with their congregation members.  I mentioned that I wanted to come back for their Christmas program next Wednesday.  But today Mrs. E asked if I would be able to go to Immanuel's Wednesday night Sunday school next week to go over the Christmas program with them.  And they're at the same time.  Sigh.  I was really looking forward to seeing my Redeemer kids in their Christmas program... but I know this Christmas program should be my priority.  On a happier note, the girls I wrote the Christmas program with back at BLC might come to our program, and my college advisor too! 


We set up risers after school today to prep for our practice tomorrow.  With all the Sunday school kids it's going to be a tight squeeze!  Pastor is okay with us leaving the risers up for church this Sunday, but next Sunday (the day of the program) he wants us to take everything down because we have communion.  That means after church that Sunday we'll have to redecorate everything.


Our goal is accomplished.  We set a new read-aloud record: Prisoner B-3087 has been read in a week.  It was so good, I'm not quite sure how to follow it... To start with, we're reading a short book, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson.  At first the class was like, "Meh... sounds boring."  But once they heard about those rascally Herdmans, they're starting to come around.  My Guess is we'll finish it before Christmas break.  Then... do we start a new book so they have something to think about when we come back in January? Or do we wait and start fresh?   I'm leaning toward the first option.


Today's big dramafest centered around a pencil.  One of the 6th grade girls had a Frozen pencil given to her by a preschooler who didn't want it anymore.  She left it in the coatroom and didn't pick it up right away, so I confiscated it for the SHARP pencil jar in our room.  She threw a fit because she had been about to pick it up when I got to it first.  My explanation to her was, "If it was really that valuable to you, you should've been taking better care of it!"  That didn't make her happy at all.  And then one of the 5th grade boys took it out of the SHARP jar since he needed a pencil.  She was pouting so much, she didn't get any of her spelling done! And all this pouting was done at the top of her lungs so the whole class was distracted.  All morning.  She wouldn't stop talking about it!!!  Finally I made her take a break in the coatroom... where she bawled her eyes out (over a stupid pencil!) and found a ball and shot death glares at whatever classmate had to pass her to use the restroom.  Sigh.  And it doesn't stop there.


The 5th grader was still using the pencil in question during math.  The 6th grader saw it drop and snatched it up quick as she could saying, "You should've been more careful with your stuff!"  Then she hid it so I wouldn't take it away from her again.  She even played the game, "Well you can look through my backpack if you want." all innocent-like.  Ugh.  Wherever she put it, we couldn't find it.  She kept bringing up the pencil situation with the 8th graders, telling her sob story to whoever happened to be nearby.  Most of the time they weren't listening, but every once in a while a word would catch their ear, and they'd ask her a question, "Who took the pencil?"  And then she'd launch into the entire story from the beginning.  All this nonsense over a PENCIL for crying out loud!


At the end of the day, a different 5th grader raised his hand and announced, "Miss H, [6th grader] just said he wished [annoying pencil 6th grader] would get murdered."  *Slam head on desk*  Just what I needed to deal with at the end of the day.  The poor accused kid was in tears.  I don't know if he said it or not, but he denied the whole thing.  We went over AGAIN that something like that should be told to me in private and not blabbed for the whole class to hear.  Or at least written on a tattle card.


Praise God tomorrow is Friday!

Punting...

We still have a week before Christmas break and already my students are like, "Can we be done yet?"  They all wanted to take a nap... literally requested that we have nap time.  A lot of complaints about being tired after the basketball games last night.  I hope they're not getting sick!

One of the 8th grade boys fell last night and possibly broke his tailbone.  He wasn't in school today because it hurt to walk.  His younger 5th grade brother was complaining about his toe hurting and then got it smashed in the bathroom door.  Yikes! Everyone is falling apart!

This afternoon, the 8th graders just could not focus.  We got through what I wanted to get through, quickly set up for bells, and went to recess in the gym until the 6th graders came back.  We went through our songs a bunch of times... and then some more... and still had 10 minutes left.  I thought about going over some of the Christmas songs, but they were totally out of it.  So we packed up and the 8th graders went in the gym and the 6th graders worked on their science lab questions.

The 5th graders didn't come back and didn't come back and finally Mr. E came to the gym and revealed the 5th graders were taking a test and still had some more to do, could they please finish it?  I thought, why not since the 6th graders are occupied.  But when they still hadn't come back after fifteen more minutes, I poked my head in.  They weren't close to being done, so Mr. E is going to have them finish up tomorrow.  We had about 15ish minutes before we were supposed to go to PE/recess, so we wrote our conclusions as a class and worked on post-lab questions for a few minutes before heading to the gym.  I had intended to teach a lesson on the pH scale/acids/bases... I could always do it tomorrow, but I'm thinking we'll just push it off a week and I'll show them pictures from El Salvador since the 5th graders haven't seen them yet.  Eh, I suppose we'll see how tomorrow goes.

I ducked out of school super early today... 3:00!  The doctor said I probably had an SVT, or supraventricular tachycardia.  It's where the upper chambers of the heart beat really fast for a while, then go back to normal.  Nothing deadly, more of an annoyance.  She said we might have to do an event monitor if it becomes more frequent.  And I should only come in if the episode is over a half an hour.  The doctor ordered blood work done too and since I was already at the doctor, I got my flu shot and a booster I've been needing.  So many needles!

Heart All Aflutter

Afternoon recess was scary today.  We played a game of Queen of the Court and I actually made it to the last two!  Shortly after, when we were playing SNAKE, my heart started beating rapidly and didn't slow down for about three-five minutes.  No chest pain, no lightheadedness, just a really fast heart.


So after school I called the doctor and the nurse said it could've been caused by stress and/or dehydration.  I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow afternoon to get checked out.  And I'm supposed to go to the emergency room if it happens again or I show other symptoms.  So we'll see what happens there.  Extra prayers would be appreciated!


We finally finished up our lesson on the MN civil war.  We tied up a loose end in science too.  Still a little behind where I want to be, but maybe we can catch up tomorrow.  My class wanted to finish our read aloud book today.  And we were only halfway through the book.  Yeah, not happening.  We did make good progress!  I'm guessing we'll finish before Friday this week. 


The 8th graders had a guest speaker for geography today.  My friend Leah, from Bethany, came to show us pictures about her time as an exchange student in Spain.  She was great! Very animated and funny.  And she showed good pictures.  The 6th graders snuck in halfway through and ended up listening instead of doing computer.  That made the 5th graders jealous that they missed it.  But they will have their turn when they take geography in two years.


The cheerleaders made their cheering début at today's home B girls' game.  We were down one girl (she was home sick), which left us with three.  They did pretty good though!  The B boys are playing right now, so I'm going to watch their game and then head for home even though the A teams are playing too.  Maybe a good night's sleep will cure what ails me!

Ding Dong Merrily on High!

Bells today went better than last week.  I decided to change songs.  This one, "Bring a Torch, Jeanette, Isabella" is much easier to pick up. 


The 8th graders went back to their room while 6th graders and I put everything away.  Then I noticed a 6th grader on the classroom phone.  It was Mr. E asking where one of the boys was.  Apparently he was supposed to tell me that the 5th graders needed an extra five minutes of math today (he forgot), so we could've kept playing for another five minutes!  Oh well.  The 6th graders and I worked on some of their MN history worksheet while we waited.  They are so impatient!  Right away, it's "I need help!" no matter what the question is.  They don't even try to look in their books! 


Once we were joined by the 5th graders, it didn't get easier.  Everyone was worried about finishing the worksheet and was on a different question.  I was reviewing what we talked about last week (which included most of the answers), but they were so concerned about answering the question on the worksheet that they weren't listening to what I was saying... or waiting to see if I'd answer their question in a little bit.


Then one of the 6th grade girls spread out beyond her 40 acres.  Her book was on her neighbor's desk a bit and her neighbor was not happy about that at all.  The sprawler wouldn't listen to suggestions about adjusting her paper/book so she wasn't crowing her neighbor.  And she didn't want to move her desk a little to the left so they weren't so close.  I finally tugged her desk a ways away and then she scooted it forward so it bumped the desk in front of hers!  The boy sitting there gave a massively frustrated sigh and that's when I moved her to the white table.  And everyone had to comment on how she was rolling her eyes at me... really? Does that need to be said?  Is that helping anything?  No. 


There were mutterings today of the boys pantsing each other, once in the bathroom and once in the coat room.  I never saw it and the pantsed people never told me to my face... but there was enough quiet talk amongst my kids that I'm pretty sure it happened.  They all thought it was sooo funny until I told them they could be suspended for doing it.  That sobered them up real quick.  Mr. E is going to have a chat with them tomorrow about it too.


On a somewhat lighter note (if the Holocaust can be considered lighter), our book is getting more intense.  My two boys who have trouble sticking with reading don't want to stop!  After they finished their snack, they wanted to get drinks... they actually asked me to pause reading so they didn't miss any of the story!  I'm not sure if the girls are as in-to the story as the boys, but they're not complaining when we read more.  I pulled up a map of the concentration camps in Poland and Germany and showed them a video of the Wieliczka Salt Mines (a place the main character had to work).  Now our main character is at the death camp Birkenau.  Even though we just started this book last week, I'm guessing we'll finish it before Christmas break.

Riveted

We read WAAAY more than intended in our new read aloud book, Prisoner B-3087 by Alan Gratz: pg.86 out of 260.  I got to a good spot to stop and when I put the bookmark in the book, one of my reluctant readers said, "NOOO! Miss H, you can't stop there!  You've got to keep reading!" So we read one more chapter.  And then they wanted to keep going.  But we had Reading Buddies and spelling tests to take care of... so I made a deal.  Instead of playing the Adjective Game, we could read more in the book.  The class voted and it was unanimous (save one person who abstained).  Once all our other tasks were accomplished, we read on.  And when it came time for the Tap Game (to practice Spanish), they begged for "just one more chapter!"  It's such a great book!  And the best part is, it's history! 


The 8th graders had an interesting STEM project today.  We did a mini-lesson on microprocessors where I was the robot/computer that had to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich according to their instructions.  Heh heh heh.  They thought it would be so easy.  The two groups wrote their instructions on the whiteboard so they could erase and add as needed.  One group was verrrry specific in their instructions.  Take two pieces of bread out of the bag.  Set them down.  Pick up the knife.  Use the knife to scoop the peanut butter...  The other group said things like "get the peanut butter on the knife.  Then spread it on the bread."  I had a lot of fun with those instructions.  I put the whole container on the knife and rubbed it on the bread.  When they fixed it, they weren't specific enough on where to put the pb, so I spread it on the crusts of the bread and not on the face/white part. 


My favorite part of the lab was with the second group.  They had gotten their instructions perfect... or so they thought.  Their last step was "put the two pieces of bread together."  SHUNK! I slid the two pieces next to each other.  Their reactions were hilarious.  One of the girls was so exasperated, she just walked away from the board shaking her head.  They eventually fixed it and we ended up with a very lovely pb and j.


After that, we had a little bit of recess.  The girls played SNAKE with me and the boys kind of played hockey/shot hoops on the other end of the gym.  And then they decided to use the hockey net as a fishing net to trap one of the girls.  "Hey, look!  We caught a girl!" they hooted and hollered.  When they "released" her, they went after another one, chasing her all around the gym, finally cornering her in the coatroom.  I didn't know whether to tell them to stop or applaud them for their creativity...


The first basketball tournament of the season is today and tomorrow in Northrup.  I'm not planning to go, but we did have a pep fest to send them off.  The cheerleaders took FOREVER to change into their Braves shirts.  One of the girls had been sick, so she only knew a couple of the cheers we did.  Then I forgot we were supposed to use pompoms for one of the cheers and not use them for a different one... but no one could tell we did the cheers wrong.  And the 1st and 2nd grade girls looked cute enough no one would less of them for messing up.


And that's the end of the school week!  Only two more weeks until Christmas break.  I decided to do a new bell song, so we'll start that on Monday.  Tuesday I have a guest speaker coming to talk about her study abroad semester in Spain.  Friday we're having an all-school outdoor snow day in the afternoon after program practice.  Lot's of things to do before Christmas!

Mad Scientists!

Oof, my brain hurts.


Last night after pottery, I bought supplies for today's chemistry lab and then I did grocery shopping.  By the time I got home and unpacked... let's just say I was up waaay past my bedtime.  This morning, I decided to separate egg whites for our lab at home instead of at school, so I didn't have as much time to get things situated before my kids showed up.  Most of the time our lab is with supplies that are already in groups (one marble, one board, one tube) so not a lot of prep work is needed.  This chemical reactions lab took quite a bit of extensive planning and preparation.  I probably went a little overkill with the prep, but I wanted the lab to go smoothly without making a huge mess all over the floor and without having kids arguing over who gets what.  Thankfully, Mrs. B spent the morning with us, so I could dodge in and out of the classroom to get supplies from the science table in the coatroom. 


Our lab table looked impressive, let me tell you.  I had test tubes lined up in their little holders, little jars to hold the liquids we'd be mixing to test for chemical reactions, spoons/pipettes/test tube brushes to measure and clean the supplies, and then two ice cream pails- one for dumping the mixtures after testing them and the other filled with soapy water so they could wash the test tubes throughout the experiment.  It worked pretty slick.  They had a great time mixing the liquids and checking for bubbles or precipitates.  Their favorite part was at the end of the lab when they could dump all their extra liquid together.  The vinegar, lemon juice, baking soda, milk, and egg whites made a big foamy mixture in the dump buckets.  Surprisingly, it didn't smell too bad!  I think the smells cancelled each other out.  And the a good amount of soapy water from test tube cleanings that ended up in those containers certainly helped too.


I pulled out all the stops and had the class wear lab aprons and goggles (though some abandoned the goggles partway through... I maybe should've talked to them about that particular piece of lab etiquette before passing them out).  The aprons were definitely a good idea.  But they somehow didn't know how to fold them back up.  We'll need to go over that next time.


So.  That was the lab.


I introduced the "Tattle Box" today.  Only three tattles were in the box at the end of the day: one good, two bad.  And only two people tried tattling to me during the day.  Overall, our day was okay.  One kid just keeps calling everyone names and being mean in general and when I ask him to stop, he'll either say "I wasn't doing anything!" or he'll say "okay" and turn right back around and do it again.  A classmate said he was going to write it in the Tattle Box, and the kid just shrugged and said "I don't care."  What do you do with someone like that???  None of the teachers have suggestions for me.  Mr. E said if he's being disruptive to send him down to the 8th grade room.  That's what we're going to try tomorrow.  This particular student hates writing.  I know you're not supposed to force kids to write as a punishment, but I have no other ideas. Maybe making him write a bible verse over and over every time he calls someone a mean name will get him to finally quit.  I suppose we'll see!


Staff meeting after school ended relatively quickly.  Our toughest item was picking a G rated movie to watch for our Christmas party.  So far we have one contender: Balto.  All the other ones we could think of were PG. 


Time is ticking!  Only two more weeks until Christmas break!  I'm debating how much I want to cram in before Christmas... maybe I'll take things slow and give my students time to catch-up.  Their desks could certainly use a good cleaning...

Wild

As you perhaps guessed from this post's title, our day was wild.  All my kids had a hard time focusing today!  One of them kept calling people names like moron, fatty, idiot, etc.  And I couldn't get him to stop.  It was awful.  Another one did everything in slow motion (okay, an exaggeration, but she was still moving veeerrrryyy sloooowly). 


I got fed up with all the tattling, so while they were doing Daily 5, I made a "tattle monster".  From now on, if they have something they want to tell me, they're supposed to write it on a piece of paper and stick it in the tattle box.  I'll read them after school and deal with the ones that need to be dealt with.  I also made a poster that shows the difference between tattling and reporting... namely, is it important? was it on purpose? is someone hurt/in danger?  Hopefully this will help our class stop blowing up over every little thing.


We did get things accomplished today.  It took longer and was louder than usual (with more Brain Breaks thrown in), but we did learn things!  For our Chemical Reactions lesson I showed a YouTube video about Elephant Toothpaste.  They were suitably impressed.  And now they want to do it when the weather gets warmer.  We also finished Artemis Fowl and started another one.  We voted between the 2nd Artemis Fowl book, the 2nd Fourth Stall book, and Prisoner B-3087.  Half the class voted for the last one.  It's based on the true story of a boy who lived through 10 concentration camps during WWII. 


The weather was nice enough to walk over to church for chapel.  But the wind was fierce on the way back!  We spent some extra time working on Christmas program songs and the group parts.  It went pretty well.  I'm still nervous about how it's all going to come together.  The bell songs are... kind of iffy.  One of them we're not going to have any trouble with, but the other has half notes and syncopation that my ringers aren't used to playing.  And we only have four practices left as of today.  So I don't know if I should give up on this song and pick a new one, or tough it out.  Grr.


Chapped lips were a large part of conversation at the end of the day.  One of my students said her grandma told her if she didn't have chapstick to rub the oil in the creases on the sides of her nose on her lips.  Once those words of wisdom were imparted, everyone had to try it out.  I thought they'd be grossed out by it, but they all thought it was the best idea ever!  Let me tell you, it was very odd to see them all rubbing their noses and then their mouths. 


In other news, my Christmas tree is up and decorated!  My last pottery class is tonight and I need to pick up supplies for our science lab tomorrow, so my plan is to leave a little early tonight.  Ha. We'll see if that actually happens.  Joe partially buried himself and my knees/legs have been achy all day, so I have a feeling we'll be getting some snow tonight... not a lot predicted in the forecast, but Joe has only been wrong once or twice.

Blast From the Past

Just another regular school day.  We practiced our group Christmas program parts, and that went pretty well. With only three weeks until Christmas break, I'm getting nervous about how we're going to pull this off.  So many things to think about! How to decorate the front of church, where the decorations will come from, organizing the speakers, figuring out where the kids should stand, printing up the bulletins...


In history, we're in the midst of the Minnesota Civil War, aka- the Dakota Uprising.  One of my 5th graders has grandparents with a farm right on the edge of Courtland, and a band of Dakota Indians always stops by on their way to commemorate the hanging of the 38.  My student brought in a video this tribe put together on the Uprising (his grandpa is in it!), so I'm going to watch it at home and see if we can watch part in school.  If he remembers, he's going to bring in some pictures tomorrow.


I hung up more snowflakes today.  Our ceiling is pretty much coated with them now.  The space above my desk could use a few more.  And I haven't put many over the lab table just in case our lab were to get a little crazy. 


We're nearly to the end of Artemis Fowl... my class begged me to keep reading and finish the book, but there were just enough pages we had to save it for tomorrow.  One of the 5th graders is on vacation until Friday; she's going to miss the end!  I'll probably give her the book so she can read the last chapter on her own.  Now the dilemma is which book to read next?  The next Artemis Fowl? Or the second Fourth Stall book?  Or a completely new book? 


Our first basketball game was tonight against Janesville.  I got to see my old 3rd graders again!!!  Now they're in 7th grade.  Last year there wasn't many in that class that went out for basketball.  I was surprised to see so many of them this year!  At least three or four more of them are playing!  If I'm counting right, nine of my old students are on the Janesville basketball teams.  It was really hard not cheering for them when they made a good play, but since I was sitting with the Courtland fans I just cheered in my head.

Waitin' on... Book Orders

Most common phrase of the day, "Miss H, did the book orders come?"  I think I was asked that question at least 10 times today.  AND THEY FINALLY CAME.  Right after basketball practice was over.  But the student who'd been asking me about them was still here, so I gave him his books and his super-cool-spy glove and he was in heaven.


English was quite the experience today.  I was going to go back to working from the book, but everyone wanted to edit their novels.  So I changed my plan about a minute after we started English.  We talked about using strong verbs in our writing to paint a clearer picture in the reader's head.  Then I had them use a highlighter to highlight verbs from newspaper articles.  IT WAS SO HARD!  They had so much trouble with it!  Before we started, I wrote clues on the board: action verbs, being verbs, helping verbs, common endings, etc.  And they still had trouble finding them!  I think it was the articles I had picked.  They were from the Star Tribune, so the reading level was pretty high up there.  If I would've picked easier to read texts, they would've had an easier time of it.  Plus the writing was small.  So.  We will try this activity again at a later date.


One of the 5th graders' moms finally had her baby.  She was due today but had a little girl on Saturday.  Now their family is up to three girls!  There are quite a few sick siblings too.  Seems like a high fever that lasts for days is going around. 


Well, I've put off going out into the cold long enough.  My classroom heater has bumped down to the overnight low setting and it's getting pretty cold in here too.  Plans for tonight: set up the Christmas tree?  Read a book?  Correct papers?  Eh... probably not that last one.