Night Owls

Mrs. B (1st and 2nd) is also working late tonight.  It's kind of nice to have another teacher at school with me.  There's just something about knowing someone else is here too...


All my little to-do list things are completed (although I just added another two or three to the list, but those can wait until tomorrow) and this blog is the last thing to do before home!


We almost finished The Fourth Stall Part II today.  We are at the climax and no one wants to stop reading.  One of the 6th graders is going on vacation next week, so he really wanted to finish it today, but there's just too much left of the book.  That and I read the last sentence of the book and it's REALLY a cliffhanger.  I can see their faces now: a moment of silence as the sentence sinks in, wide eyes, jaws dropped, then a giant uproar, "NOOOO! They can't end the book there!  Miss H, you have to start the next one!!!"  But I don't have the next one yet, and the Bookmobile has to order it from another library, so it seems we should take our time with the last few chapters.  I ordered it with my last Christmas gift card for Barnes and Noble, but with the snowstorm out east, they said their orders are backed up.  So we'll still have to wait until mid-next week. 


One of the 5th graders got a huge goose egg on his head from a hockey stick.  I saw the stick whack him, and it was an accident (apparently the two boys were fighting over a hockey stick and it accidentally flipped up and hit him on the head), but it sure left a mark!  He got an icepack and put his hat on to hold it in place.


My friend Mary from college came to speak to the 8th grade geography about her time at the orphanage in India.  I haven't heard any of her stories, so I was just as interested as the 8th graders.  She also brought some candy for us to try.  They look like Nerds with a crunchy candy coating on the outside, but inside is a little tiny herb/leaf thing that looks a little like a chunk of grass.  The 8th graders put some in their mouths and chewed.  "Hey... this tastes like... tacos?"  No one believed it until they tried it for themselves, but it really did taste like tacos.  Only a bit less taco-y.  Mary thought it was either a caraway seed or something like anise.  Pretty cool.  But now I feel the travel bug raring its head to bite me again... India?  Maybe Mary will want to go again and will need a travel partner...


Tomorrow we have a field trip to Mankato to package food for overseas.  All the permission forms are in.  Work groups are made.  Pep fest is planned.  Spelling test plan is good to go.  I think we're going to end up with a half hour more teaching time than I was expecting, so I might introduce Mystery Class to the 5th and 6th graders.  Yay for Mystery Class!  But there will be more on that later... for now, I'm headed for home!