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.