Another nonstop day. There was a pretty steady stream of memory work sayers from the time the buses dropped off the kids, but I still had about four of them who didn't get everything said before the bell. Mrs. B is visiting her grandkids this weekend, so she wasn't even at school to help them memorize! I still have one boy who's still behind by last week and hasn't said this week's memory either. Ugh.
Then it was on to religion and read aloud and spelling tests and reading buddies (and dealing with kids who don't want to read with their partners). It calmed down for a little bit before lunch, but then we did Mystery Class and started the graphs... a lot of the 5th graders were confused. But we still have time to get everything sorted out.
After lunch the 8th graders had lots of little things to do in class: listen to one more presentation, take a spelling test, Mystery Class, then a lab about estimation/time management. They had a number of tasks to choose from. First they estimated how many times they could do it in a minute, next they tested it and saw how close they were to their estimate. Jumping jacks, writing their names, drawing squares, standing up and sitting down, pushups, etc. Some of them found ways to streamline the process. One boy made tick marks on the page and then connected them with two lines to make a whole bunch of boxes at once. I think he made over 200 in one minute. They kept asking for more recess, more recess... well, after the way they were complaining about having to do Mystery Class I wasn't about to reward them. And I told them so. So they were on their best behavior while doing MC, but as soon as they were done, they went back to their old ways... and weren't any better when I wouldn't let them go to the gym.
The 5th and 6th graders came back and we did miscellaneous art projects. Some worked on their positive and negative space projects, others helped put together table decorations for NLSW, some worked on their science labs. We ended up with five minutes of recess before going to Mr. E's room for an all-school announcement about the book fair and then DEAR time in the gym. The boys in my class weren't all that happy to find out their recess was being taken over by reading time. I brought a book too (and was so excited to read!), but I thought I better sit by the boys who tend to talk more than read... they kept talking to me and I didn't get much reading done. Sigh. One boy flat out refused to read saying, "I hate reading. I'm not doing it." He thought he was funny.
Our helper of the day left early, so I had to recruit people to sweep the gym. And a bunch of my students disappeared without warning (they were in the bathroom or they were in the office calling their parents). If only they'd tell me where they're going! But, we got everything shipshape and all my people on the bus. A former student asked if she could come by after school for me to help her with her science project... I told her if she came between 3:00-3:30 I could help her. Well, she never showed up. Now I'm paranoid she's going to show up just as I'm leaving and beg me to help her. After staying until 6:30 last Friday, I think I'm maxed out on after school Friday hours. That and I'm visiting one of my college friends this weekend... that's where I'm headed as soon as I finish this post. Well, first I have to hang up posters about the book fair at church. Mr. D was going to do it, but he wanted to leave for Rochester right after school and asked if I could do it. So that's next on my list.
Friday, February 27, 2015
Thursday, February 26, 2015
Duct Tape
Today was one of those days where I really wish it was okay to put duct tape over a student's mouth. I had one (you can probably guess who) who just wouldn't stop talking! Everyone else was pretty good. They remembered the three kinds of connections we learned about earlier this week and did a lot of Read-to-Self rounds. We played elbow tag for afternoon recess. It was kind of a last minute decision on my part (I was going to give them free time, but one of the 6th graders asked if we could play a game together since it had been a long time since we did it last), but everyone was shouting and cheering! We should do group games more often. I think next time we'll do blob tag.
After school I was hoping the noises would cease (or at least calm down a bit), but alas! one of my students stuck around to get his bacon cheese burger Mr. E agreed to make him. We've been having problems with the bathroom sinks getting clogged, and he helped unclog them last night. And he fixed the boom box that was broken. So he came up with the idea of a burger as payment. And he's still hanging around even now, keeping up a steady stream of chatter.
He played in the gym for a while, watched us set up the book fair, messed around in the gym some more, gave Joe a bath, cleaned off the whiteboard... then I got smart and started giving him jobs. Study your memory work. Finish your science lab fix. Check how much food we have for Joe. He wised up and went to check on Mr. E. Pretty soon he comes back and says one of his classmates is picking him up to go shopping in Mankato (first it was Cabela's to look for a duck blind...).
The book fair only took an hour to set up. We did get everything crammed into the north entryway! It was hard to figure out how to sort the books... go by grades? go by size? divide the room in half by grades? or have it go down in ages? We ended up with an older kid half and a younger kid half with the middle ones in the middle.
But now my plan is finished for next week. My plan for tomorrow is finished as well. My grocery list is in my purse, my library book returns are next to my bag... my papers to correct are in my bag. Looks like I'm set!
After school I was hoping the noises would cease (or at least calm down a bit), but alas! one of my students stuck around to get his bacon cheese burger Mr. E agreed to make him. We've been having problems with the bathroom sinks getting clogged, and he helped unclog them last night. And he fixed the boom box that was broken. So he came up with the idea of a burger as payment. And he's still hanging around even now, keeping up a steady stream of chatter.
He played in the gym for a while, watched us set up the book fair, messed around in the gym some more, gave Joe a bath, cleaned off the whiteboard... then I got smart and started giving him jobs. Study your memory work. Finish your science lab fix. Check how much food we have for Joe. He wised up and went to check on Mr. E. Pretty soon he comes back and says one of his classmates is picking him up to go shopping in Mankato (first it was Cabela's to look for a duck blind...).
The book fair only took an hour to set up. We did get everything crammed into the north entryway! It was hard to figure out how to sort the books... go by grades? go by size? divide the room in half by grades? or have it go down in ages? We ended up with an older kid half and a younger kid half with the middle ones in the middle.
But now my plan is finished for next week. My plan for tomorrow is finished as well. My grocery list is in my purse, my library book returns are next to my bag... my papers to correct are in my bag. Looks like I'm set!
Wednesday, February 25, 2015
Going Koo Koo
God is so cool. Here I am after school, sitting at my desk, not wanting to come up with a plan for our students to make cards for the NLSW blanket-making activity or a plan for the Easter greeting cards later that week. Then I get a phone call. It's the lady who's helping to spearhead this blanket project. She had an idea about the encouraging notes to go with the blankets. Pretty soon the two of us have cooked up a plan that I'm actually excited about... We'll take a group picture on Tuesday and glue it to the front of the card on Thursday. Inside, we'll have a brief story about what we're doing and why we're doing it (along with the school logo and Thrivent logo, since they're helping fund our endeavor) and a Bible verse. The kids will glue everything together and decorate the other inside flap of the card... favorite Bible verse, little message, color pictures, etc. I asked what part of that she wanted me to do... her answer was "nothing". She's going to take care of it all. She's even bringing scrapbook paper for the kids to use on them. Yay! One less thing on my plate. Now I only need to think of a way for us to make some Easter greetings for either the nursing home or the hospital...
Our field trip to Nicollet for the Koo Koo Kangaroo group turned out well. My class got the 15 minutes of recess I promised them a long time ago (although I'm pretty sure I already gave it to them... oh well). This group has posted videos of themselves dancing/singing on YouTube to use as brain breaks in the classroom (think songs like camp songs, but made up by this duo). GoNoodle features a lot of their videos, which is how I heard of them. The guys are from the Twin Cities, to they're even a local group! We started with a question answer segment... and found out the name was just a random name chosen because it sounds silly. They kept making jokes and asked the kids who asked questions questions about themselves. Then we did brain breaks for about 30 minutes. Some of them we recognized. One song they wanted the teachers to come up on stage and sing/dance with them... my kids were all pointing to me, trying to get me onstage, but they didn't shove me out in the aisle soon enough and the song started without me on the stage. Shucks! You can tell I'm really bummed about that! Mrs. B's 1st and 2nd graders had better luck; she ended up doing the robot onstage. All in all, a fun field trip.
The book boxes arrived for the Scholastic Book Fair. We're setting up the fair tomorrow. Woohoo! I wish we had a better spot for it besides the north entryway.
Today's Lenten meal is spaghetti. I still have a few things to finish up at school before heading over. I don't want to go too soon and end up sitting around before church, especially when I can be working at school. My plan is to head over at about 6:00.
Our field trip to Nicollet for the Koo Koo Kangaroo group turned out well. My class got the 15 minutes of recess I promised them a long time ago (although I'm pretty sure I already gave it to them... oh well). This group has posted videos of themselves dancing/singing on YouTube to use as brain breaks in the classroom (think songs like camp songs, but made up by this duo). GoNoodle features a lot of their videos, which is how I heard of them. The guys are from the Twin Cities, to they're even a local group! We started with a question answer segment... and found out the name was just a random name chosen because it sounds silly. They kept making jokes and asked the kids who asked questions questions about themselves. Then we did brain breaks for about 30 minutes. Some of them we recognized. One song they wanted the teachers to come up on stage and sing/dance with them... my kids were all pointing to me, trying to get me onstage, but they didn't shove me out in the aisle soon enough and the song started without me on the stage. Shucks! You can tell I'm really bummed about that! Mrs. B's 1st and 2nd graders had better luck; she ended up doing the robot onstage. All in all, a fun field trip.
The book boxes arrived for the Scholastic Book Fair. We're setting up the fair tomorrow. Woohoo! I wish we had a better spot for it besides the north entryway.
Today's Lenten meal is spaghetti. I still have a few things to finish up at school before heading over. I don't want to go too soon and end up sitting around before church, especially when I can be working at school. My plan is to head over at about 6:00.
Tuesday, February 24, 2015
An Arabic Kind of Day
Crazy, but fun. That about sums up the day. It actually felt more like a field trip day than a regular day of school.
Yesterday I told my class about our visitors for the day, so all this morning they kept asking, "When's Laura coming? When's Laura coming?" When she wasn't at school by 9:30, I got a little nervous. Did she have car trouble? Did she forget how to get to the school? Oh no, I hadn't given her the address! But she's been here before, so maybe I'm thinking about it too much... So I checked my phone and saw she'd left a voicemail saying she'd be to school around 9:30-ish. Whew.
I made the mistake of telling my class her estimated arrival time. From then on they kept looking out the window. "I see a car! It's coming down the road! Is it Laura? What kind of car does she drive? Do you think it's her?" Everyone crowded around the windows. Nope. Just a semi. Another semi. A red car. A semi. So we went about our normal morning routine. And finally she arrived! She had lots of things to tell us about her time in the UAE, so we did a shortened version of Daily 5 (only two rounds). I kept waiting and waiting for the school board to show up... 10:00, 10:15, 10:30... come on now! I had a bunch of things planned that we could do (to show them that I actually do teach my students and interact with them), but they weren't coming and they weren't coming... so I just went ahead and did them. 10:45 one member finally came in. I had already met with the students on the agenda for the day. Everyone was silently reading and didn't need help on their spelling. Nothing for me to do. Boring to watch. And it was time to switch for Laura to do her presentation. Lovely. So I explained to the board member what was going on and that we did all our other stuff already... he did get to see me give my students a post-it note assignment (write three interesting things you learn on a post-it) and introduce my friend. And he sat in on a little of her presentation. Ugh, I felt bad. But nothing I can do about it now.
The 8th graders weren't overly enthused about her being here, but then again, they don't get excited about much. And I warned her that they don't ask many questions, so she was prepared for their lackluster participation. Thankfully, my class more than made up for it...
My class was riveted to Laura's speech. They were quietly listening, raising their hands to ask questions, taking turns... it was beautiful. She brought some clothing worn by Muslim women, so the girls got to try them on. And her host mom had given her a male robe for her dad (but it didn't fit him), so the boys got to try on that. At lunch she pulled out a basket of dates for our class to try. Some thought they were good, others thought they were gross. Some thought it tasted like caramel. Nearly everyone tried it... of course, they had added incentive since it's a fruit and could be counted toward our fruit/veggie challenge! We ran out of time before lunch, so once they came back from math in the afternoon Laura finished her presentation. And we still had time for our science lab!
This lab was really fun. We used iodine to test which foods had starch in them. Liquid starch was our control (iodine turns starch black). I brought some potatoes, rice, noodles, and chips from home. Our cook gave us some bread, carrots, celery, cucumbers, applesauce, and pineapple to test (all stuff from our lunch menu today). Some kids saved a tator tot from their lunch to test. They were worried about the iodine staining their clothes/hands, so we pulled out the lab aprons and gloves. And we used pipettes (science eyedroppers) to squirt iodine on our test samples. The lab was done in about fifteen minutes, and cleanup shortly after. We had time for recess too! Yay! Laura watched them in the gym while I supervised cleanup in the classroom. When I finally made it out to the gym, I found her roped into playing a game of Lightning with the 6th graders. Coincidentally, last week on Tuesday she'd been playing basketball with 6th graders in Abu Dhabi!
Packing up for the end of the day, she remembered that she'd brought prizes for the class. Her host mom had bought a bunch of gaudy key chains (gold camels, t-shirt coin purses, dangly/metallic UAE scenes) for her to give as souvenirs, and Laura didn't want to keep them. There weren't enough for everyone in my class to have one, so we drew sticks. She kept back two for when she visits her sister's class later this week. All in all, my students were very satisfied with the day. We had time for highs and lows and nearly everyone said having Laura here was the highlight of the day.
Yesterday I told my class about our visitors for the day, so all this morning they kept asking, "When's Laura coming? When's Laura coming?" When she wasn't at school by 9:30, I got a little nervous. Did she have car trouble? Did she forget how to get to the school? Oh no, I hadn't given her the address! But she's been here before, so maybe I'm thinking about it too much... So I checked my phone and saw she'd left a voicemail saying she'd be to school around 9:30-ish. Whew.
I made the mistake of telling my class her estimated arrival time. From then on they kept looking out the window. "I see a car! It's coming down the road! Is it Laura? What kind of car does she drive? Do you think it's her?" Everyone crowded around the windows. Nope. Just a semi. Another semi. A red car. A semi. So we went about our normal morning routine. And finally she arrived! She had lots of things to tell us about her time in the UAE, so we did a shortened version of Daily 5 (only two rounds). I kept waiting and waiting for the school board to show up... 10:00, 10:15, 10:30... come on now! I had a bunch of things planned that we could do (to show them that I actually do teach my students and interact with them), but they weren't coming and they weren't coming... so I just went ahead and did them. 10:45 one member finally came in. I had already met with the students on the agenda for the day. Everyone was silently reading and didn't need help on their spelling. Nothing for me to do. Boring to watch. And it was time to switch for Laura to do her presentation. Lovely. So I explained to the board member what was going on and that we did all our other stuff already... he did get to see me give my students a post-it note assignment (write three interesting things you learn on a post-it) and introduce my friend. And he sat in on a little of her presentation. Ugh, I felt bad. But nothing I can do about it now.
The 8th graders weren't overly enthused about her being here, but then again, they don't get excited about much. And I warned her that they don't ask many questions, so she was prepared for their lackluster participation. Thankfully, my class more than made up for it...
My class was riveted to Laura's speech. They were quietly listening, raising their hands to ask questions, taking turns... it was beautiful. She brought some clothing worn by Muslim women, so the girls got to try them on. And her host mom had given her a male robe for her dad (but it didn't fit him), so the boys got to try on that. At lunch she pulled out a basket of dates for our class to try. Some thought they were good, others thought they were gross. Some thought it tasted like caramel. Nearly everyone tried it... of course, they had added incentive since it's a fruit and could be counted toward our fruit/veggie challenge! We ran out of time before lunch, so once they came back from math in the afternoon Laura finished her presentation. And we still had time for our science lab!
This lab was really fun. We used iodine to test which foods had starch in them. Liquid starch was our control (iodine turns starch black). I brought some potatoes, rice, noodles, and chips from home. Our cook gave us some bread, carrots, celery, cucumbers, applesauce, and pineapple to test (all stuff from our lunch menu today). Some kids saved a tator tot from their lunch to test. They were worried about the iodine staining their clothes/hands, so we pulled out the lab aprons and gloves. And we used pipettes (science eyedroppers) to squirt iodine on our test samples. The lab was done in about fifteen minutes, and cleanup shortly after. We had time for recess too! Yay! Laura watched them in the gym while I supervised cleanup in the classroom. When I finally made it out to the gym, I found her roped into playing a game of Lightning with the 6th graders. Coincidentally, last week on Tuesday she'd been playing basketball with 6th graders in Abu Dhabi!
Packing up for the end of the day, she remembered that she'd brought prizes for the class. Her host mom had bought a bunch of gaudy key chains (gold camels, t-shirt coin purses, dangly/metallic UAE scenes) for her to give as souvenirs, and Laura didn't want to keep them. There weren't enough for everyone in my class to have one, so we drew sticks. She kept back two for when she visits her sister's class later this week. All in all, my students were very satisfied with the day. We had time for highs and lows and nearly everyone said having Laura here was the highlight of the day.
Monday, February 23, 2015
Playing With a Full Deck
Our class was at full strength today! All 13 of my students were definitely present and accounted for. Unlike at our bell performance yesterday. An hour before the service, a mom called to say her daughter had a fever and wouldn't be coming to church. Okay. At church, all the usual people I try to get to fill in were not in church this Sunday. And another girl overslept and didn't make it to church. So we were two people down five minutes before church started. What to do? We ended up leaving a few of the bells out (the filler harmony notes) and some girls tried to pick up an extra bell. But there was no time to highlight the parts. And then they were unfamiliar with the parts, so they played too late or too early or didn't play at all... and one of the players played the wrong bell notes (flats instead of naturals) so the beginning of the song was very dissonant and distorted until she realized her mistake and quick switched to the right bells... thankfully she was able to find where we were in the song. Sigh. If everyone would've been there, it would've sounded beautiful! I guess to an audience it sounded okay, but there was no clear melody and people didn't know what song we were playing. And of course I forgot to email the names of the songs we were playing to the AV coordinator so she could put it up on the screens for the church service. Sigh. All in all, it could've gone better. But, it's over and done with. No way to change it. Moving on.
There was a negative 20 degree wind chill this morning. Brrr! But by the afternoon it had warmed up enough that the ice on the sidewalk was melting from the heat of the sun. All that change in weather really got to my students... they were super chatty and had trouble focusing. But they promised they'd be on their best behavior for tomorrow's guests.
The school board is coming in to observe all the teachers sometime after 10:00. I don't know where I am in the line-up, but I'm guessing I'll be somewhere in the middle. My dear friend Laura just got back last week from student teaching ESL in Abu Dhabi (her second round of student teaching starts next week in Le Center, MN). The plan was for her to speak to the 8th graders about the culture/her time in the United Arab Emirates. But last night at her welcome back party we got to talking (trying to figure out a time for her to arrive) and decided it would be fun for her to stay the whole day. So she is! She's coming sometime tomorrow morning and will hang around helping us with Daily 5 activities and our science lab. My class is really excited. And so am I, for that matter.
There was a negative 20 degree wind chill this morning. Brrr! But by the afternoon it had warmed up enough that the ice on the sidewalk was melting from the heat of the sun. All that change in weather really got to my students... they were super chatty and had trouble focusing. But they promised they'd be on their best behavior for tomorrow's guests.
The school board is coming in to observe all the teachers sometime after 10:00. I don't know where I am in the line-up, but I'm guessing I'll be somewhere in the middle. My dear friend Laura just got back last week from student teaching ESL in Abu Dhabi (her second round of student teaching starts next week in Le Center, MN). The plan was for her to speak to the 8th graders about the culture/her time in the United Arab Emirates. But last night at her welcome back party we got to talking (trying to figure out a time for her to arrive) and decided it would be fun for her to stay the whole day. So she is! She's coming sometime tomorrow morning and will hang around helping us with Daily 5 activities and our science lab. My class is really excited. And so am I, for that matter.
Friday, February 20, 2015
Deep Cleaning
Yes ladies and gentlemen, I'm still at school at 6:00 on a Friday. I would've been out of here way before now, but I had a student with a super messy desk/crate and I asked her mom if she could stay after school one day to clean it out. She asked if today would work... well, I had nothing else going on, so I said yes. And three hours later she's finally finished. Talk, talk, talk. Do everything BUT clean. I did get more grades entered and a lot of papers corrected while she was cleaning!
Our "I Love to Read Month" activity this afternoon went well. We split up into pairs and read a Dr. Seuss book in the gym. Then the pairs drew their favorite character. We're going to hang the artwork in the hall for all to admire!
Art time got cut short this afternoon... I wanted to do a fancy-looking project for kids who don't like the art project they have so far for the Fine Arts Fair. We're doing a watercolor silhouette involving positive and negative space. First, watercolor a big white piece of paper. Then, draw an outline of something on a smaller black piece with a pencil. Cut out the shape. Glue over the water-colored paper. The top part can be the positive space and the bottom the negative space. My sample was a palm tree and grass. It looks pretty cool if I say so myself. The rest of the class wanted to do animals. We found some really cool pictures to mimic for their stencils. Someone is doing a horse, another a wolf, a bird on a branch, another is doing hands in the shape of a heart. Hopefully they turn out!
My sore throat is gone. Yay! Just in time for the weekend. Sunday is a pretty jam packed with social events (surprisingly). Pastor and his wife invited me over for dinner on Sunday. Their youngest son is bringing friends home from college, one of which I'm related to, (one of my Aunt Janis's grandsons... I can't remember his name) and she thought it would be fun for me to join them. Then, my friend Laura is finally back from Abu Dhabi and her "welcome back to America" party is that evening. I'm bringing bacon and oreo truffles. But tonight's plan of events is pretty low-key... lots of books. And probably chocolate. Or cookies. Or both. We'll see.
Our "I Love to Read Month" activity this afternoon went well. We split up into pairs and read a Dr. Seuss book in the gym. Then the pairs drew their favorite character. We're going to hang the artwork in the hall for all to admire!
Art time got cut short this afternoon... I wanted to do a fancy-looking project for kids who don't like the art project they have so far for the Fine Arts Fair. We're doing a watercolor silhouette involving positive and negative space. First, watercolor a big white piece of paper. Then, draw an outline of something on a smaller black piece with a pencil. Cut out the shape. Glue over the water-colored paper. The top part can be the positive space and the bottom the negative space. My sample was a palm tree and grass. It looks pretty cool if I say so myself. The rest of the class wanted to do animals. We found some really cool pictures to mimic for their stencils. Someone is doing a horse, another a wolf, a bird on a branch, another is doing hands in the shape of a heart. Hopefully they turn out!
My sore throat is gone. Yay! Just in time for the weekend. Sunday is a pretty jam packed with social events (surprisingly). Pastor and his wife invited me over for dinner on Sunday. Their youngest son is bringing friends home from college, one of which I'm related to, (one of my Aunt Janis's grandsons... I can't remember his name) and she thought it would be fun for me to join them. Then, my friend Laura is finally back from Abu Dhabi and her "welcome back to America" party is that evening. I'm bringing bacon and oreo truffles. But tonight's plan of events is pretty low-key... lots of books. And probably chocolate. Or cookies. Or both. We'll see.
Thursday, February 19, 2015
Strep Scare
I found out one of my students who's been out all week officially has strep throat. Yay. I've had a sore throat for the past few days, so of course I got all paranoid about it... my mind when to all the hard questions, "Should I go in to the doctor? If I'm out for the rest of the week, who's going to teach my class? What kinds of lessons would I leave for the sub? Normal stuff? Easy stuff?" After school I shined a flashlight in my mouth in front of the mirror (in my classroom... no one could see me, whew!) and noticed only red. No white spots, no inflamed tonsils. Cue a sigh of relief! Still a little worried about it, but now my throat is starting to feel a little better.
We read a TON in our read aloud book today. Oh there were so many cliff-hanger endings! Almost every chapter we read had one! So of course we had to keep reading. I think we'll finish the book tomorrow. I told my prediction to the class and they pounced on the idea, "Miss H, you told us we were going to finish it so now we have to finish it tomorrow no matter what!!!" They tried to convince me to finish today, but my voice just didn't have enough power today to keep going that long. That and Mrs. B was in today listening... if she hadn't been in, I maybe would've kept going. Nothing like a casual observer to make a teacher do the right thing (even if she herself wants to keep reading). But Mrs. B is getting caught up in the story too... she asked what time she should come in so she doesn't miss the end of the book. Ah, I love people who love to read!
All my midterm grades are entered into the computer and I have the reports printed off... just have to add some comments and they'll be ready to send home tomorrow! Now on to the library and the grocery store before my correcting night commences.
We read a TON in our read aloud book today. Oh there were so many cliff-hanger endings! Almost every chapter we read had one! So of course we had to keep reading. I think we'll finish the book tomorrow. I told my prediction to the class and they pounced on the idea, "Miss H, you told us we were going to finish it so now we have to finish it tomorrow no matter what!!!" They tried to convince me to finish today, but my voice just didn't have enough power today to keep going that long. That and Mrs. B was in today listening... if she hadn't been in, I maybe would've kept going. Nothing like a casual observer to make a teacher do the right thing (even if she herself wants to keep reading). But Mrs. B is getting caught up in the story too... she asked what time she should come in so she doesn't miss the end of the book. Ah, I love people who love to read!
All my midterm grades are entered into the computer and I have the reports printed off... just have to add some comments and they'll be ready to send home tomorrow! Now on to the library and the grocery store before my correcting night commences.
Wednesday, February 18, 2015
Chromatography
Another day of tough love. My class's latest lab reports from the mixture lab were due yesterday. Since I didn't remind them about it on Friday, I gave them an extra day to do it so they were due today. And they still didn't have them finished! They've figured out that the vocab words are in the back of the book... but they didn't think to read the chapter to find the answers to the other questions! They'd say, "Miss H, I need help." Okay, what do you need help with? "I don't know where to find the answer for this." Okay... did you look in the chapter? "...(pause) No." Well that's what you should do then. "Can't you just tell me the answer?" Sigh. Then they rebelled when I made them stay in from recess to work on it. "I'll just do it tomorrow." No, it's due today; you have to finish it now. One student still didn't have it finished by PE time. Since PE is a class, she couldn't just stay in and work on it. She asked if she could take it home and do it tonight. The answer was yes, but there are going to be points docked since it wasn't handed in on time. Then she wanted to call her parents and ask if she could stay after school to finish it. But it didn't work for her to do that. So, docked points it is.
The chromatography lab turned out pretty good. We could see a bunch of colors separated out, but not the rainbow I was expecting. Red ink had red and light red and pink. Blue ink had dark blue and light blue and almost a purple. Black had yellow (surprise!) and blue and another blue. It would've been cool to do a whole rainbow of colors. Maybe next time. We dumped all our alcohol/ink mixtures together into the dump bucket and thought, huh, what would happen if we did a chromatography separation on that liquid? So we did! We set up two trials and they are sitting on the lab table overnight.
The coolest part of the day was a little accidental. I opened up some mail that had been sitting on my desk for a while and found some magazine samples (Scholastic Science News, Math News). One was on ebola (something one of my 6th graders is fascinated with), so I handed it off to him right away (he was overjoyed). Then they found an article about these new inventions inspired by animals. One is an underwater vehicle designed to look/act like a crab to explore the ocean floor. It's pretty cool. Well, the two boys reading the article had an argument over the picture. One thought it was real, the other thought it was photoshopped. What to do? Ask Miss H.
I wasn't quite sure (at first it looked real, but the water seemed too clear to be an actual photo), so we did some digging on Google. None of the pictures looked firmly either way. We discovered the exact picture used in the magazine... but with captions overtop the parts of the Crabster. Our conclusions were that real pictures were used to create the animated "fake" picture used in the magazine. Then the 6th grader found a video about the crab-vehicle invention... no words, just animated video showing what the Crabster could do. You can watch the video here. The whole class took a break from their normal Daily 5 activities and crowded around my computer to watch the video. Very cool teachable moment!
We had another NLSW planning meeting after school, mostly ironing out details. I think we're set! Now it's on to the first Lenten service of the year... the 8th graders are serving chili and chicken noodle soup.
The chromatography lab turned out pretty good. We could see a bunch of colors separated out, but not the rainbow I was expecting. Red ink had red and light red and pink. Blue ink had dark blue and light blue and almost a purple. Black had yellow (surprise!) and blue and another blue. It would've been cool to do a whole rainbow of colors. Maybe next time. We dumped all our alcohol/ink mixtures together into the dump bucket and thought, huh, what would happen if we did a chromatography separation on that liquid? So we did! We set up two trials and they are sitting on the lab table overnight.
The coolest part of the day was a little accidental. I opened up some mail that had been sitting on my desk for a while and found some magazine samples (Scholastic Science News, Math News). One was on ebola (something one of my 6th graders is fascinated with), so I handed it off to him right away (he was overjoyed). Then they found an article about these new inventions inspired by animals. One is an underwater vehicle designed to look/act like a crab to explore the ocean floor. It's pretty cool. Well, the two boys reading the article had an argument over the picture. One thought it was real, the other thought it was photoshopped. What to do? Ask Miss H.
I wasn't quite sure (at first it looked real, but the water seemed too clear to be an actual photo), so we did some digging on Google. None of the pictures looked firmly either way. We discovered the exact picture used in the magazine... but with captions overtop the parts of the Crabster. Our conclusions were that real pictures were used to create the animated "fake" picture used in the magazine. Then the 6th grader found a video about the crab-vehicle invention... no words, just animated video showing what the Crabster could do. You can watch the video here. The whole class took a break from their normal Daily 5 activities and crowded around my computer to watch the video. Very cool teachable moment!
We had another NLSW planning meeting after school, mostly ironing out details. I think we're set! Now it's on to the first Lenten service of the year... the 8th graders are serving chili and chicken noodle soup.
Tuesday, February 17, 2015
Jack of All Trades
That seems like my job title today. Some screws fell out of the seat on one of the 5th graders' desks, enough that the seat actually came off. So after school I dug through my desk to find new screws (the old ones had stripped out the holes) and I worked my screwdriver magic... it's connected now! But my supply of screws is way down. Hopefully we'll make it the rest of the year without having to fix more seats!
Last night, I stopped by school to make sure my classroom was in order for the morning. Everything was back in its proper place! One of the 6th graders must've hung around and helped put everything back where it goes... even the stuff that had been on my desk! Even all the sheets and towels we used to cover everything were folded neatly and stacked on my desk. There were only a few things she didn't put back, so I was in and out lickety-split. This morning there were a few things I couldn't find (an eraser, the spray bottle) and she knew exactly where they were. I don't know what I'd do without her!
This weekend, Grandma gave me some picture books about manners to add to our class library. I set them on one of the bookshelves. One of the 6th graders noticed them and put them on the loudest troublemaker's desk... she got to school and was confused, "Who put these on my desk?" Innocent looks all around. "I don't need to learn how to be kind to others!" was her reply. I wanted to say, "Maybe they're trying to give you a hint." I did see a couple other kids reading them this morning. Thanks for the books, Grandma!
Our experiment for today involved taking the ink out of pens. I thought there were a ton left in the office (unopened packages in different colors), but the only packages I could find were red. Thankfully, the miscellaneous pen container was hanging out in the office, so I poked through and picked out enough red/blue/black pens for my four science groups. We're doing chromatography. They mix ink with rubbing alcohol and stick in part of a coffee filter. The ink colors travel at different speeds and separate so you can tell which colors make up which inks. There's also supposed to be a mystery ink strip for the students to guess which inks went into the mixture. I need to make it up tonight before I go home. Should I do purple? A mix of blue and red inks? Yellow? Hmm...
Two students were sick today with what appears to be the flu. 1st and 2nd Mrs. B was not feeling well today, but she came to school anyway. I hope I don't get sick! Chicken noodle soup for supper tonight, I think.
Last night, I stopped by school to make sure my classroom was in order for the morning. Everything was back in its proper place! One of the 6th graders must've hung around and helped put everything back where it goes... even the stuff that had been on my desk! Even all the sheets and towels we used to cover everything were folded neatly and stacked on my desk. There were only a few things she didn't put back, so I was in and out lickety-split. This morning there were a few things I couldn't find (an eraser, the spray bottle) and she knew exactly where they were. I don't know what I'd do without her!
This weekend, Grandma gave me some picture books about manners to add to our class library. I set them on one of the bookshelves. One of the 6th graders noticed them and put them on the loudest troublemaker's desk... she got to school and was confused, "Who put these on my desk?" Innocent looks all around. "I don't need to learn how to be kind to others!" was her reply. I wanted to say, "Maybe they're trying to give you a hint." I did see a couple other kids reading them this morning. Thanks for the books, Grandma!
Our experiment for today involved taking the ink out of pens. I thought there were a ton left in the office (unopened packages in different colors), but the only packages I could find were red. Thankfully, the miscellaneous pen container was hanging out in the office, so I poked through and picked out enough red/blue/black pens for my four science groups. We're doing chromatography. They mix ink with rubbing alcohol and stick in part of a coffee filter. The ink colors travel at different speeds and separate so you can tell which colors make up which inks. There's also supposed to be a mystery ink strip for the students to guess which inks went into the mixture. I need to make it up tonight before I go home. Should I do purple? A mix of blue and red inks? Yellow? Hmm...
Two students were sick today with what appears to be the flu. 1st and 2nd Mrs. B was not feeling well today, but she came to school anyway. I hope I don't get sick! Chicken noodle soup for supper tonight, I think.
Friday, February 13, 2015
Braves Day
Last day of the week. Friday. Valentine's Day party. Tournament Day.
Even though we only had a half day of school today, the day was packed! Memory went pretty well this morning, though there's still one kid who hasn't said the second half of his memory. I told him if he didn't say it today before the end of school he'd get a zero. He still chose to wait until Monday to say it.
Our Valentine's party was pretty low-key. The kids who had late/missing work had to do it, but the rest of the class got to play the games that they don't get to play during normal Daily 5. Twister, Apples to Apples, checkers, Operation. Earlier in the morning we had devotions, then had snack (cupcakes from the birthday boy and cookies from the school's PTL). I read aloud and they decorated Valentine's bags. Then we passed out treats. CHAOS!
Last night, I got each of my students a hand-held pencil sharpener since they always ask to sharpen their pencils during class. Walmart had 12 on the shelves. Short by one! After wandering a long time, I finally found an employee who checked and said... they didn't have any more. So I had to pick one that didn't match the others. At first everyone was like "oh, I want that one!" But once they found out it only has one hole for sharpening, they picked the other ones first. So the kid who was sick today gets the purple, one-hole sharpener. I had planned to write a cutesy saying on it, but ran out of time. So I made a heart and signed my name on the back of the packaging. One of these days I'll get my act together!
Now everyone's getting ready for the tournament. My classroom has been condensed; all the desks are either in the reading corner or are crammed behind my desk blockading it from the rest of the room. The para desk is blocking the closet. All the computers have towels or sheets covering them. My desk is the last to go... and I'm still using it. Joe is coming home with me for the weekend. A whole bunch of students asked about him, worried the other schools would mess with him. As usual this time of year, the story of poor Goldie the goldfish is on everyone's minds (even though the incident happened years and years ago).
At the time, the first and second grade teacher (now retired) had a goldfish in a bowl. When she came back after the tournament, the bowl was empty! A few days later, she opened her devotion book to read a devotion to the class... and there was Goldie, pressed between the pages. Word on the street is that she still has the book (and you can still see the outline of poor, poor Goldie). I'm baffled how anyone could be that cruel! But, it's been a long time since then. And my classroom is being used as a girls' locker room (much less rowdy than the boys). Not exactly a recipe for disaster.
Even though we only had a half day of school today, the day was packed! Memory went pretty well this morning, though there's still one kid who hasn't said the second half of his memory. I told him if he didn't say it today before the end of school he'd get a zero. He still chose to wait until Monday to say it.
Our Valentine's party was pretty low-key. The kids who had late/missing work had to do it, but the rest of the class got to play the games that they don't get to play during normal Daily 5. Twister, Apples to Apples, checkers, Operation. Earlier in the morning we had devotions, then had snack (cupcakes from the birthday boy and cookies from the school's PTL). I read aloud and they decorated Valentine's bags. Then we passed out treats. CHAOS!
Last night, I got each of my students a hand-held pencil sharpener since they always ask to sharpen their pencils during class. Walmart had 12 on the shelves. Short by one! After wandering a long time, I finally found an employee who checked and said... they didn't have any more. So I had to pick one that didn't match the others. At first everyone was like "oh, I want that one!" But once they found out it only has one hole for sharpening, they picked the other ones first. So the kid who was sick today gets the purple, one-hole sharpener. I had planned to write a cutesy saying on it, but ran out of time. So I made a heart and signed my name on the back of the packaging. One of these days I'll get my act together!
Now everyone's getting ready for the tournament. My classroom has been condensed; all the desks are either in the reading corner or are crammed behind my desk blockading it from the rest of the room. The para desk is blocking the closet. All the computers have towels or sheets covering them. My desk is the last to go... and I'm still using it. Joe is coming home with me for the weekend. A whole bunch of students asked about him, worried the other schools would mess with him. As usual this time of year, the story of poor Goldie the goldfish is on everyone's minds (even though the incident happened years and years ago).
At the time, the first and second grade teacher (now retired) had a goldfish in a bowl. When she came back after the tournament, the bowl was empty! A few days later, she opened her devotion book to read a devotion to the class... and there was Goldie, pressed between the pages. Word on the street is that she still has the book (and you can still see the outline of poor, poor Goldie). I'm baffled how anyone could be that cruel! But, it's been a long time since then. And my classroom is being used as a girls' locker room (much less rowdy than the boys). Not exactly a recipe for disaster.
Thursday, February 12, 2015
Class Color Day... Neon
I had to do some digging, but I found clothes to wear for Class Color Day. By the time the 8th graders got to us, the only color left in the rainbow was yellow and my class doesn't have much yellow clothing. So we went with neon. I have a neon yellow cardigan, but nothing else in my closet screams NEON! After picking out fabric yesterday, I hit Walmart thinking they'd have some neon for sure. Eileen showed me a pin where you take a man's XL shirt and turn it into a dress... intriguing. So that's what I went with. Wally World had an orange shirt that seemed like it would work. I also wanted leggings to wear under the dress so I scoped out the mall. Ragstock. Ragstock has tons of bright clothes... lots of neon shirts and skirts... but only one color/kind of neon leggings, pink. When I tested out my outfit at home, I didn't like the way the leggings looked, so I wore a pair of my dark blue skinny jeans with the rest of the outfit and it turned out fine. I'll return the leggings the next time I'm in Mankato. It took a while to wrap the tshirt arms to look the way they're supposed to. This morning I must've wrapped and rewrapped them at least five times.
School was fairly uneventful. In the afternoon, we went to a play put on by MSU students at Nicollet. It was really good! Six actors/actresses told the tale of Brer Rabbit and how all his mean tricks caused his friends to ignore him and not want to be his friend anymore. Then he got in trouble with Sister Crocodile (he got stuck to a honey rabbit and she was about to eat him for lunch!) and his friends helped him get out of trouble.
On the way there and back, one of the 3rd grade girls saved me a seat. She was so excited! Normally this girl doesn't get excited about much, but she was excited to have me sitting with her. We played rock, paper, scissors on the ride there. Man, she is good! When I asked how she got so good, she said she has a little trick that she uses, but she didn't want to give me her secrets! I tried to figure it out and it's still perplexing me.
After school, I had two boys make up science labs. Unfortunately, the labs were different, so they couldn't do them together. Neither one wanted to actually read the instructions. One of them actually expected me to tell him everything he had to do! I gave him a starting point, but then he was on his own. It was about 4:00 when they left. Good thing I don't have a ton of things to do for tomorrow. I was going to plan an art project, but we forgot to decorate our valentine bags (to hold the treats), so maybe we'll just do that and have a catch up day.
I told them they aren't allowed to leave school tomorrow without having their memory work said, spelling and handwriting handed in. So hopefully they all study tonight and say it tomorrow.
School was fairly uneventful. In the afternoon, we went to a play put on by MSU students at Nicollet. It was really good! Six actors/actresses told the tale of Brer Rabbit and how all his mean tricks caused his friends to ignore him and not want to be his friend anymore. Then he got in trouble with Sister Crocodile (he got stuck to a honey rabbit and she was about to eat him for lunch!) and his friends helped him get out of trouble.
On the way there and back, one of the 3rd grade girls saved me a seat. She was so excited! Normally this girl doesn't get excited about much, but she was excited to have me sitting with her. We played rock, paper, scissors on the ride there. Man, she is good! When I asked how she got so good, she said she has a little trick that she uses, but she didn't want to give me her secrets! I tried to figure it out and it's still perplexing me.
After school, I had two boys make up science labs. Unfortunately, the labs were different, so they couldn't do them together. Neither one wanted to actually read the instructions. One of them actually expected me to tell him everything he had to do! I gave him a starting point, but then he was on his own. It was about 4:00 when they left. Good thing I don't have a ton of things to do for tomorrow. I was going to plan an art project, but we forgot to decorate our valentine bags (to hold the treats), so maybe we'll just do that and have a catch up day.
I told them they aren't allowed to leave school tomorrow without having their memory work said, spelling and handwriting handed in. So hopefully they all study tonight and say it tomorrow.
Wednesday, February 11, 2015
Wacky Wednesday
My outfit today for school was pretty wacky... of course, it is Wacky Wednesday. I wore orange pants (borrowed from Eileen... thanks!), a green polkadot dress, a maroon shirt underneath the dress, and a peacock blue sweater over it all. My hair was in a swoopy side-pony and I wore a pair of those fingerless gloves. Shoes were the most normal part of my outfit: black flats with black socks.
The end of the day was my favorite part... but not for reasons you think! We flipped classes and read picture books for I Love to Read Month. My class went down to Kindergarten and I got to read to the Kindergartners. It was lovely. We read Love, Splat and Dragons Love Tacos. We probably could've read three more! But our time was short. I lent some books to Mr. E to read to his group of kids; he loved them (Aw Nuts! and The Three Ninja Pigs).
Now I'm wrapping things up at school and will head to Mankato to pick out fabric for our NLSW fleece blanket project (Project Linus). Afterwards, I'm celebrating the birthday of one of my college friends.
The end of the day was my favorite part... but not for reasons you think! We flipped classes and read picture books for I Love to Read Month. My class went down to Kindergarten and I got to read to the Kindergartners. It was lovely. We read Love, Splat and Dragons Love Tacos. We probably could've read three more! But our time was short. I lent some books to Mr. E to read to his group of kids; he loved them (Aw Nuts! and The Three Ninja Pigs).
Now I'm wrapping things up at school and will head to Mankato to pick out fabric for our NLSW fleece blanket project (Project Linus). Afterwards, I'm celebrating the birthday of one of my college friends.
Tuesday, February 10, 2015
Slippery Sleet
This whole day has been pretty slippery. This morning rain was falling on my way to work. It was at just the right temperature to freeze all over my windshield on my drive. But I made it to school okay!
Throughout the day we had some snow pellets and some heavy flakes, but I think worse is to come.
After school, after de-icing my car, I went over to church for the Teacher Appreciation "Snack" the Immanuel-ites host every year for the teachers. They served us pizza, fruit, chocolate, lemonade, and dessert pizza. No need to cook supper tonight! Then it was back to school for our faculty meeting. And there was a new layer of ice on the windshield. Yay.
It was 6:00 by the time our meeting was over. Thankfully I don't have a lot to plan for tomorrow.
We did another science lab today, this one was on mixtures. Do certain things mix? We found out that a lot of things don't mix. Our new short tables worked great for individual groups! Groups had to wash/rinse out test tubes in between mixes, so the tables got pretty wet. I should get some dishtowels so we don't use so many paper towels.
The 8th graders (and my 5th and 6th graders) loved looking at the Israeli Barbie my mom gave to me. One of her coworkers went to Israel on a trip. A different coworker asked her to bring back a souvenir, so my mom chimed in and said if the lady came across a Barbie, she wouldn't mind seeing one. It so happened that on a short pit-stop they came across a man selling Barbies! Their clothes weren't appropriate (for their culture), so the man's wife sewed new clothes for the dolls and taped the packages closed again. Mom's coworker bought 4 for $12. She kept one and Mom got the other three (which she doled out to us girls). The English on the packaging is awful; you can hardly understand what they're trying to say... "Hello! Happy girl, the best gift to give you!" and "Beautiful combination Happy time." and "Happiness is net how muse you have but your enpact oufou what you have." Yep. That's word for word from the box. Now my class wants to take her out of the box to examine her more closely. We'll see.
I'm still down two students. They might be back tomorrow, but I have my doubts. I got an email from another mom tonight saying her son has a fever/sore throat. He doesn't surprise me. He looked off all day. Hopefully no more are down for the count or we'll have none left!
Throughout the day we had some snow pellets and some heavy flakes, but I think worse is to come.
After school, after de-icing my car, I went over to church for the Teacher Appreciation "Snack" the Immanuel-ites host every year for the teachers. They served us pizza, fruit, chocolate, lemonade, and dessert pizza. No need to cook supper tonight! Then it was back to school for our faculty meeting. And there was a new layer of ice on the windshield. Yay.
It was 6:00 by the time our meeting was over. Thankfully I don't have a lot to plan for tomorrow.
We did another science lab today, this one was on mixtures. Do certain things mix? We found out that a lot of things don't mix. Our new short tables worked great for individual groups! Groups had to wash/rinse out test tubes in between mixes, so the tables got pretty wet. I should get some dishtowels so we don't use so many paper towels.
The 8th graders (and my 5th and 6th graders) loved looking at the Israeli Barbie my mom gave to me. One of her coworkers went to Israel on a trip. A different coworker asked her to bring back a souvenir, so my mom chimed in and said if the lady came across a Barbie, she wouldn't mind seeing one. It so happened that on a short pit-stop they came across a man selling Barbies! Their clothes weren't appropriate (for their culture), so the man's wife sewed new clothes for the dolls and taped the packages closed again. Mom's coworker bought 4 for $12. She kept one and Mom got the other three (which she doled out to us girls). The English on the packaging is awful; you can hardly understand what they're trying to say... "Hello! Happy girl, the best gift to give you!" and "Beautiful combination Happy time." and "Happiness is net how muse you have but your enpact oufou what you have." Yep. That's word for word from the box. Now my class wants to take her out of the box to examine her more closely. We'll see.
I'm still down two students. They might be back tomorrow, but I have my doubts. I got an email from another mom tonight saying her son has a fever/sore throat. He doesn't surprise me. He looked off all day. Hopefully no more are down for the count or we'll have none left!
Monday, February 9, 2015
Cucumber Breath
The month of February our class is doing a fruit/vegetable challenge with the 8th graders. We record how many fruits/veggies each 5th, 6th, and 8th grader eats per lunch and we'll make an average at the end of the month. Whichever grade eats the most wins 30 minutes of extra recess and real fruit smoothies (provided by the school nurse).
She told our classes about the contest in January, and some of the kids thought it started the next day. One 8th grader (who doesn't eat produce) loaded up his tray with as many fruits and vegetables as he could get... imagine his surprise when he found out none of those servings counted...
My class has been doing okay with the challenge. Our cook always has to reload the container of cucumbers after my class goes through the line. It's by far the most popular vegetable. One of the 6th graders has been having trouble with her eyes being bigger than her stomach. She'll load her tray full of salads and cucumbers and carrots and double servings of fruits, and then she'll dump without having taken a bite or two from each serving. I don't let her count all those in the contest, but it's ridiculous how much she's wasting!
It's going to be a late night at school. Six o'clock and I still have to add pictures to the 8th graders' geography lesson for tomorrow. A parent called, then the scholastic book fair coordinator called, then Mrs. B (1st and 2nd) and I met to iron out NLSW details. Mr. D left right after school; he forgot we had a meeting. Our entertainer for NLSW finally called me back this afternoon... right in the middle of a science lesson. So we determined he'd call back after school. Well, I waited and waited and waited and finally thought to check my cell phone... Yep. He'd called and left a message there. But I finally got a hold of him and we're good to go for that day.
And now I'm all caught up on my correspondence. I have my devotion picked out for our faculty meeting tomorrow. My bag is packed and my papers to be corrected are in my bag (along with new books from the book order I'm going to preview... if I ever have time to read again...). All I have left is to finish the powerpoint. Hopefully it won't take as long as I think it's going to take...
She told our classes about the contest in January, and some of the kids thought it started the next day. One 8th grader (who doesn't eat produce) loaded up his tray with as many fruits and vegetables as he could get... imagine his surprise when he found out none of those servings counted...
My class has been doing okay with the challenge. Our cook always has to reload the container of cucumbers after my class goes through the line. It's by far the most popular vegetable. One of the 6th graders has been having trouble with her eyes being bigger than her stomach. She'll load her tray full of salads and cucumbers and carrots and double servings of fruits, and then she'll dump without having taken a bite or two from each serving. I don't let her count all those in the contest, but it's ridiculous how much she's wasting!
It's going to be a late night at school. Six o'clock and I still have to add pictures to the 8th graders' geography lesson for tomorrow. A parent called, then the scholastic book fair coordinator called, then Mrs. B (1st and 2nd) and I met to iron out NLSW details. Mr. D left right after school; he forgot we had a meeting. Our entertainer for NLSW finally called me back this afternoon... right in the middle of a science lesson. So we determined he'd call back after school. Well, I waited and waited and waited and finally thought to check my cell phone... Yep. He'd called and left a message there. But I finally got a hold of him and we're good to go for that day.
And now I'm all caught up on my correspondence. I have my devotion picked out for our faculty meeting tomorrow. My bag is packed and my papers to be corrected are in my bag (along with new books from the book order I'm going to preview... if I ever have time to read again...). All I have left is to finish the powerpoint. Hopefully it won't take as long as I think it's going to take...
Saturday, February 7, 2015
4:00
Yesterday I actually made it out the door of school before 4:00! I headed down to Fulda for the weekend to celebrate Mom's birthday. I made it home just in time to leave for supper out in Currie.
Friday was a doozy of a day. By the time the bell rang, there were still five students who hadn't said memory work. Plus one kid was sick and one was still on vacation. Neither of them had said their memory work either. That's seven out of 13 students, not very good odds. Mrs. B worked with a couple of them to help them memorize it, but one boy wouldn't say the words with her, he'd just sit there and distract the other kid, so she had him come back to the classroom. I'm pretty much the only person he'll work with, but I don't have time to be solely focused on helping him memorize stuff that should've been memorized earlier in the week! One kid is in a state robotics contest this weekend... and you can tell he's distracted. He still didn't get it memorized by the end of the day, so I told him if he would walk through the door Monday morning able to say this memory, then I'd still give him regular credit for saying his memory.
My chameleon (who hates writing most days) had two letters written on her handwriting due Friday. Yep, two letters. Even though she promised she'd take it home and do it Thursday night. Her excuse, "I forgot and didn't bring it to the basketball games!" She started working on it for Work on Writing, and I was going to be lenient, but after twenty minutes she only had one row finished. She asked to go to the bathroom (clearly a tactic to avoid doing her work). "When you're handwriting is handed in." She pouted and turned back to her work. Because she couldn't focus in her desk, I moved her to the lab table and put a tri-fold board (used for science fair projects) around her to block out the distractions. She asked me to close the window shade too. And that still wasn't enough! Now her classmates were too loud (they weren't) and too distracting (they weren't). She kept telling them to shut up and wouldn't stop no matter how many times I asked her to. So she earned 15 sentences to write. I know you're not supposed to use writing as a punishment, but sometimes that's all that will work. She stopped doing that, but didn't make much progress on her handwriting. So I gave her an ultimatum. "Your handwriting must be finished before lunch. You can choose to sit here and stare off into space or you can choose to finish your handwriting, but you won't get lunch until it's finished." (There was still an hour before lunch... plenty of time). 11:30 came. Time to set up for lunch. She still had to write the Bible verse on her border sheet.
And that's when the sobbing commenced. She'd been crying pity tears before that, but now her lunch situation was finally sinking in. "I'm never going to eat lunch! I'm going to starve!" I reassured her I'd make sure our cook would set aside some food for her so she could still eat lunch. "But then it's going to be COLD!" she wailed. I shrugged, "Well, you've had plenty of time to finish your handwriting this morning. Once it's finished, you can eat." More tears. Her classmates prayed and went to wash their hands. She still had four lines left. And she was still bawling about the cold food. I asked her if she'd rather go through the lunch line herself once she was finished instead of me getting a try for her. A nod. In reality, she'd probably be finished with her work shortly after the 8th graders went through the line. So I went to wash my hands. In the meantime, her classmates with cold lunch came back in talking quietly. "THEY'RE BEING TOO LOUD, I CAN'T CONCENTRATE!" Trying to blame her situation on everyone but herself. By the time I made it back in the room with my lunch, she was handing in her handwriting. Of course, she took forever to eat and didn't get any recess. Or any time to study her memory work (which she still hadn't said).
The afternoon went a little smoother. The 8th graders moaned and groaned about doing Mystery Class. "Why do we have to do it? It's so hard! I don't get it." No matter what I said, they were bound and determined to hate Mystery Class... totally opposite from the 5th and 6th graders who keep asking "When can we do Mystery Class again?" and cheer when they find out it's on the agenda for the day. With the second set of data we can figure out if the classes are above the equator or below it, based on whether the amount of daylight they get is increasing or decreasing. We're using Courtland, our home location, as a control (something to compare the other data to). There are only a few locations below the equator, so we made predictions on which continents they'll be located. There's too much land above the equator for us to guess which countries those classes are located in.
But back to the 8th graders. After they recorded their data, we watch part of the video Icons of Evolution. I had previewed it so we could only watch the most interesting parts. And they still complained that it was boring! One kid even fell asleep. It was his snores that gave him away. You could hear them all the way in the back of the room. But by that time, class was over and they scurried back to their classroom. I guess we won't be watching videos in science for a while.
So. That was my day yesterday.
Friday was a doozy of a day. By the time the bell rang, there were still five students who hadn't said memory work. Plus one kid was sick and one was still on vacation. Neither of them had said their memory work either. That's seven out of 13 students, not very good odds. Mrs. B worked with a couple of them to help them memorize it, but one boy wouldn't say the words with her, he'd just sit there and distract the other kid, so she had him come back to the classroom. I'm pretty much the only person he'll work with, but I don't have time to be solely focused on helping him memorize stuff that should've been memorized earlier in the week! One kid is in a state robotics contest this weekend... and you can tell he's distracted. He still didn't get it memorized by the end of the day, so I told him if he would walk through the door Monday morning able to say this memory, then I'd still give him regular credit for saying his memory.
My chameleon (who hates writing most days) had two letters written on her handwriting due Friday. Yep, two letters. Even though she promised she'd take it home and do it Thursday night. Her excuse, "I forgot and didn't bring it to the basketball games!" She started working on it for Work on Writing, and I was going to be lenient, but after twenty minutes she only had one row finished. She asked to go to the bathroom (clearly a tactic to avoid doing her work). "When you're handwriting is handed in." She pouted and turned back to her work. Because she couldn't focus in her desk, I moved her to the lab table and put a tri-fold board (used for science fair projects) around her to block out the distractions. She asked me to close the window shade too. And that still wasn't enough! Now her classmates were too loud (they weren't) and too distracting (they weren't). She kept telling them to shut up and wouldn't stop no matter how many times I asked her to. So she earned 15 sentences to write. I know you're not supposed to use writing as a punishment, but sometimes that's all that will work. She stopped doing that, but didn't make much progress on her handwriting. So I gave her an ultimatum. "Your handwriting must be finished before lunch. You can choose to sit here and stare off into space or you can choose to finish your handwriting, but you won't get lunch until it's finished." (There was still an hour before lunch... plenty of time). 11:30 came. Time to set up for lunch. She still had to write the Bible verse on her border sheet.
And that's when the sobbing commenced. She'd been crying pity tears before that, but now her lunch situation was finally sinking in. "I'm never going to eat lunch! I'm going to starve!" I reassured her I'd make sure our cook would set aside some food for her so she could still eat lunch. "But then it's going to be COLD!" she wailed. I shrugged, "Well, you've had plenty of time to finish your handwriting this morning. Once it's finished, you can eat." More tears. Her classmates prayed and went to wash their hands. She still had four lines left. And she was still bawling about the cold food. I asked her if she'd rather go through the lunch line herself once she was finished instead of me getting a try for her. A nod. In reality, she'd probably be finished with her work shortly after the 8th graders went through the line. So I went to wash my hands. In the meantime, her classmates with cold lunch came back in talking quietly. "THEY'RE BEING TOO LOUD, I CAN'T CONCENTRATE!" Trying to blame her situation on everyone but herself. By the time I made it back in the room with my lunch, she was handing in her handwriting. Of course, she took forever to eat and didn't get any recess. Or any time to study her memory work (which she still hadn't said).
The afternoon went a little smoother. The 8th graders moaned and groaned about doing Mystery Class. "Why do we have to do it? It's so hard! I don't get it." No matter what I said, they were bound and determined to hate Mystery Class... totally opposite from the 5th and 6th graders who keep asking "When can we do Mystery Class again?" and cheer when they find out it's on the agenda for the day. With the second set of data we can figure out if the classes are above the equator or below it, based on whether the amount of daylight they get is increasing or decreasing. We're using Courtland, our home location, as a control (something to compare the other data to). There are only a few locations below the equator, so we made predictions on which continents they'll be located. There's too much land above the equator for us to guess which countries those classes are located in.
But back to the 8th graders. After they recorded their data, we watch part of the video Icons of Evolution. I had previewed it so we could only watch the most interesting parts. And they still complained that it was boring! One kid even fell asleep. It was his snores that gave him away. You could hear them all the way in the back of the room. But by that time, class was over and they scurried back to their classroom. I guess we won't be watching videos in science for a while.
So. That was my day yesterday.
Thursday, February 5, 2015
Color changes and Meltdowns
We tried a new way of picking rounds for Daily 5 today. I had everyone choose all four of their morning rounds before going off to work on them. It went okay. The students who wanted to read to self all morning had a great time... uninterrupted reading! The ones who changed to word work or work on writing or read to someone had trouble remembering which round they were doing. But it was only a matter of reading what was written on the board. Eh, maybe we'll try it again.
This afternoon's lab took a while to get started. My chameleon was upset that someone else had her fancy mechanical pencil and demanded that he give it back to her. I had found it lying next to one of the computers earlier this week (not even yesterday!) and put it in the "Sharp" container. She didn't even notice until today and then she raised a stink about it. Tears and everything. They were supposed to be partners for our science lab. Ha. I made them work together anyway and moved another person over from a different group. But in the meantime, everyone else was throwing in their two cents (more like five cents, if you ask me) and messing around with each other so you could hardly hear. Maybe that's why my throat is sore. So Chameleon Girl took a break for a long time, tried to come back to tell me something, went back on break when I wouldn't listen to her, and finally joined her group, with more meltdowns to follow. She had missed the first part of the lab and didn't know what was going on. Then she wanted a turn dripping in the ammonia. Then... you get the idea.
But once we actually got started, the lab went smoothly. They were doing a titration involving vinegar, red cabbage juice, and ammonia. The red cabbage juice looks bluish/purple, but it turns red in vinegar (acid). We add a base to it (ammonia) to get it to turn purple (neutral) and finally green (base). Last night I experimented with the amounts so the smell of ammonia wouldn't overpower them, cutting it with water. It still was quite pungent. A lot of my students held their shirts over their noses the duration of the experiment. But they got it done and cleaned up in record time... and then came graphing the data. It took them a while to figure that one out. I wanted them to work in groups to do it, but everyone wanted to go solo. So I ended up explaining how to record the data on the graph over and over and over. Mrs. B was around to help explain, but the students didn't like hearing they were doing it wrong and chose to ignore her suggestions. Then I came around and made them change their work.
We didn't have time for recess after that, but I let them run a few laps around the gym and that made life a little better. I feel like I'm going crazy trying to keep track of all the forms that are supposed to be coming in to school. And half the kids I'm missing them from keep forgetting them at home! Even their homework! Two kids have their handwriting from last week to turn in, but it's always left at home. Science fair projects too. Hopefully they'll all remember them tomorrow and they'll walk into the classroom tomorrow with their memory work memorized and can rattle it off and ace it. Yeah, keep dreaming.
Anyway, I'm off for my weekly night of correcting. All I really want to do is eat some chicken noodle soup and read a book. Maybe if I get all my correcting done, I'll have a little time to read...
This afternoon's lab took a while to get started. My chameleon was upset that someone else had her fancy mechanical pencil and demanded that he give it back to her. I had found it lying next to one of the computers earlier this week (not even yesterday!) and put it in the "Sharp" container. She didn't even notice until today and then she raised a stink about it. Tears and everything. They were supposed to be partners for our science lab. Ha. I made them work together anyway and moved another person over from a different group. But in the meantime, everyone else was throwing in their two cents (more like five cents, if you ask me) and messing around with each other so you could hardly hear. Maybe that's why my throat is sore. So Chameleon Girl took a break for a long time, tried to come back to tell me something, went back on break when I wouldn't listen to her, and finally joined her group, with more meltdowns to follow. She had missed the first part of the lab and didn't know what was going on. Then she wanted a turn dripping in the ammonia. Then... you get the idea.
But once we actually got started, the lab went smoothly. They were doing a titration involving vinegar, red cabbage juice, and ammonia. The red cabbage juice looks bluish/purple, but it turns red in vinegar (acid). We add a base to it (ammonia) to get it to turn purple (neutral) and finally green (base). Last night I experimented with the amounts so the smell of ammonia wouldn't overpower them, cutting it with water. It still was quite pungent. A lot of my students held their shirts over their noses the duration of the experiment. But they got it done and cleaned up in record time... and then came graphing the data. It took them a while to figure that one out. I wanted them to work in groups to do it, but everyone wanted to go solo. So I ended up explaining how to record the data on the graph over and over and over. Mrs. B was around to help explain, but the students didn't like hearing they were doing it wrong and chose to ignore her suggestions. Then I came around and made them change their work.
We didn't have time for recess after that, but I let them run a few laps around the gym and that made life a little better. I feel like I'm going crazy trying to keep track of all the forms that are supposed to be coming in to school. And half the kids I'm missing them from keep forgetting them at home! Even their homework! Two kids have their handwriting from last week to turn in, but it's always left at home. Science fair projects too. Hopefully they'll all remember them tomorrow and they'll walk into the classroom tomorrow with their memory work memorized and can rattle it off and ace it. Yeah, keep dreaming.
Anyway, I'm off for my weekly night of correcting. All I really want to do is eat some chicken noodle soup and read a book. Maybe if I get all my correcting done, I'll have a little time to read...
Wednesday, February 4, 2015
RIP Spike
Today had a surprising amount of trauma in it compared to most days.
One of the triumvirate of typical troublemakers in my class stayed home today. His ankle was swelled up and hurting, so he stayed home to rest it. It made for a very quiet morning. Sadly, it was quite refreshing.
At chapel, we found out that Spike the dog (one of my 5th graders' pet dogs... his favorite... the one he wrote his NaNo story about) got run over. One of the 6th grade boys had a birthday today (along with my mom! Happy Birthday Mom!) and he commented, "Man, my birthday is one of the saddest days of the year! It's a horrible day!" (referring to his friend being sad about Spike). The 5th grader and his 8th grade brother were so upset about Spike, they went home early from school. After a couple hours calming down at home, they came back just in time for noon recess.
But before that, my 6th grade chameleon (the girl who pretended to like everything her boyfriend liked, just because) made herself cry thinking of her dog that died last year. It was funny seeing her classmate's reactions. First they were all worried, "Why are you crying?!?!" "Because I'm sad about my dog dying." "Your dog died?" "Yeah, last year. I just get sad thinking about it." Moment of silence, then, "You're crying because your dog died last year? But it was a year ago!" And that was when they discovered she was just doing it for attention. We outlawed the topic of pets for today so hopefully no one would be reminded of sad memories (because someone kept bringing it up and wouldn't stop talking about it).
Anyway, the birthday boy didn't bring treats because he didn't have time to make/get any, so we didn't really do anything exciting for his birthday. He did get to be helper of the day, and he got his picture in the paper. Some people donated books to our school for "February I Love to Read Month" and we needed a representative from each class to accept the books.
Mr. E took extra time in math today, so the 6th graders had time to kill after bells. The birthday boy wanted naptime and I had nothing else for them to do, so he curled up under the rug. He's so small it was hard to tell there was someone under the rug! One of his classmates decided she should make a birthday card for him, but it should be a secret. I don't think she knew he was under the rug because she was telling me her grand secret plan in her normal voice, and I was standing almost right next to the rug. She even looked around and said, "Oh good! He's not in here. We'll have to be quick before he comes back!" The other 6th grade boy looked at her in amazement and spilled the beans, "But he's right under the rug!" She still didn't hear him and kept carrying out her scheme. Only after the 5th graders came back from math did she finally figure out he had been under the rug the whole time. She got the rest of the class to sign the card and asked, "Hey where is [birthday boy] anyway?" The rug let out a yelp. Her eyes got huge as she realized he'd heard her whole plan. Oops!
My secret plan, on the other hand, went perfectly. I got The Fourth Stall Part III from the library last night and brought it to school this morning. I even put it so the pages were facing out on the bookshelf so no curious students would read the title on the spine before read aloud. This morning two boys were discussing how we could get the book sooner... one boy thought his sister might be able to get it on her Kindle/Nook thing... Oh their faces when they saw I had the book! We're already on Chapter 3.
The only thing I need to do to get ready for tomorrow is to test our science lab. We're doing a titration of vinegar and ammonia. Red cabbage juice is the indicator, which I made earlier this week. Hopefully everything works like it's supposed to and I'll be out of here by 5:00!
One of the triumvirate of typical troublemakers in my class stayed home today. His ankle was swelled up and hurting, so he stayed home to rest it. It made for a very quiet morning. Sadly, it was quite refreshing.
At chapel, we found out that Spike the dog (one of my 5th graders' pet dogs... his favorite... the one he wrote his NaNo story about) got run over. One of the 6th grade boys had a birthday today (along with my mom! Happy Birthday Mom!) and he commented, "Man, my birthday is one of the saddest days of the year! It's a horrible day!" (referring to his friend being sad about Spike). The 5th grader and his 8th grade brother were so upset about Spike, they went home early from school. After a couple hours calming down at home, they came back just in time for noon recess.
But before that, my 6th grade chameleon (the girl who pretended to like everything her boyfriend liked, just because) made herself cry thinking of her dog that died last year. It was funny seeing her classmate's reactions. First they were all worried, "Why are you crying?!?!" "Because I'm sad about my dog dying." "Your dog died?" "Yeah, last year. I just get sad thinking about it." Moment of silence, then, "You're crying because your dog died last year? But it was a year ago!" And that was when they discovered she was just doing it for attention. We outlawed the topic of pets for today so hopefully no one would be reminded of sad memories (because someone kept bringing it up and wouldn't stop talking about it).
Anyway, the birthday boy didn't bring treats because he didn't have time to make/get any, so we didn't really do anything exciting for his birthday. He did get to be helper of the day, and he got his picture in the paper. Some people donated books to our school for "February I Love to Read Month" and we needed a representative from each class to accept the books.
Mr. E took extra time in math today, so the 6th graders had time to kill after bells. The birthday boy wanted naptime and I had nothing else for them to do, so he curled up under the rug. He's so small it was hard to tell there was someone under the rug! One of his classmates decided she should make a birthday card for him, but it should be a secret. I don't think she knew he was under the rug because she was telling me her grand secret plan in her normal voice, and I was standing almost right next to the rug. She even looked around and said, "Oh good! He's not in here. We'll have to be quick before he comes back!" The other 6th grade boy looked at her in amazement and spilled the beans, "But he's right under the rug!" She still didn't hear him and kept carrying out her scheme. Only after the 5th graders came back from math did she finally figure out he had been under the rug the whole time. She got the rest of the class to sign the card and asked, "Hey where is [birthday boy] anyway?" The rug let out a yelp. Her eyes got huge as she realized he'd heard her whole plan. Oops!
My secret plan, on the other hand, went perfectly. I got The Fourth Stall Part III from the library last night and brought it to school this morning. I even put it so the pages were facing out on the bookshelf so no curious students would read the title on the spine before read aloud. This morning two boys were discussing how we could get the book sooner... one boy thought his sister might be able to get it on her Kindle/Nook thing... Oh their faces when they saw I had the book! We're already on Chapter 3.
The only thing I need to do to get ready for tomorrow is to test our science lab. We're doing a titration of vinegar and ammonia. Red cabbage juice is the indicator, which I made earlier this week. Hopefully everything works like it's supposed to and I'll be out of here by 5:00!
Tuesday, February 3, 2015
Birdseed Mining
The most traumatic part of the day (for my students) was during read aloud. That's right. They convinced me to finish the book today. We read aloud for 45 minutes! A lot of them took the opportunity to clean out their crates. Boy, was there an uproar after I read the last sentence! They kept trying to think of ways that we could get the book sooner... I had ordered it from the Bookmobile, but they don't have it and the inter-library loan system is getting switched so no new holds can be placed. So I told the class we'd just have to wait until our copy comes in at B&N. But... after everyone was started on their Daily 5 rounds, I looked at the New Ulm library to see if they have a copy. Woohoo! They do! So I put a hold on it and we'll have it for tomorrow. After the games today I'm headed in to the library for a "New Adult" book group. It's this new genre that is geared for college-age and slightly older adults. Anyway, before that we have two B squad basketball games against Janesville and cheerleading at both.
The 8th graders presented their projects on Asia. Then they put up a fuss because their Middle East projects and map tests are due very shortly after these ones (test next week). But once I explained why (we don't spend a long time on the Middle East and we have a basketball tournament on weekend that would give them less time to work on it), they said "oh fine, leave the schedule the way it is."
To learn more about mining, I had my class mine objects from a pie tin of seeds by using tweezers. They had ten minutes to get out as much as they could. Then we did some math to find out how much money they made. Only a few color beads got put in to represent gold, silver, and copper. Circle noodles represented iron. The rice, rocks, and popcorn were waste and not worth any. Some kids spent all their time looking for beads. Some spent their time focusing on popcorn or rocks. Some just tried to get a bunch of everything. They all had fun. If their workspace was messy, I gave them a fine that had to be subtracted from their total profit. I passed out more fines for fighting than I did for messy workspaces.
... Well, the games are nearly over. The girls lost in a nailbiter. Janesville pulled off a victory by two points in the last 15 seconds of the game. The boys are still playing, but we're ahead by about 15. My cheerleaders were really squirrely in the first game and by the second game they were playing with the plastic of their pompoms and sitting on the ground. So Mrs. E and I sent them back to sit with their parents and we just did some cheers for halftime. Ugh, it's just two little girls that don't want to be there, and yet they're still at all the games! I don't know what we're going to do for our tournament next week. It's just not fun to be the coach when you have to get after them to stand up and stop touching each other and to smile and to pay attention...
The 8th graders presented their projects on Asia. Then they put up a fuss because their Middle East projects and map tests are due very shortly after these ones (test next week). But once I explained why (we don't spend a long time on the Middle East and we have a basketball tournament on weekend that would give them less time to work on it), they said "oh fine, leave the schedule the way it is."
To learn more about mining, I had my class mine objects from a pie tin of seeds by using tweezers. They had ten minutes to get out as much as they could. Then we did some math to find out how much money they made. Only a few color beads got put in to represent gold, silver, and copper. Circle noodles represented iron. The rice, rocks, and popcorn were waste and not worth any. Some kids spent all their time looking for beads. Some spent their time focusing on popcorn or rocks. Some just tried to get a bunch of everything. They all had fun. If their workspace was messy, I gave them a fine that had to be subtracted from their total profit. I passed out more fines for fighting than I did for messy workspaces.
... Well, the games are nearly over. The girls lost in a nailbiter. Janesville pulled off a victory by two points in the last 15 seconds of the game. The boys are still playing, but we're ahead by about 15. My cheerleaders were really squirrely in the first game and by the second game they were playing with the plastic of their pompoms and sitting on the ground. So Mrs. E and I sent them back to sit with their parents and we just did some cheers for halftime. Ugh, it's just two little girls that don't want to be there, and yet they're still at all the games! I don't know what we're going to do for our tournament next week. It's just not fun to be the coach when you have to get after them to stand up and stop touching each other and to smile and to pay attention...
Monday, February 2, 2015
Super Prepared
Man, I am ready for this week. Maybe not all the way mentally... but lesson plan wise? I've got everything covered. This is pretty rare for a Monday. But this weekend I visited Fulda and Ethan convinced me to watch the first Indiana Jones... which turned into an all afternoon movie marathon (We skipped #4 though). So I watched movies and added pictures to all my powerpoints for the week. Two days this week the 5th and 6th graders have labs, and I have all the supplies for them; I'll just need to set them up the day of the lab.
I cleaned off the lab table to make room for our upcoming labs. Wow, our vinegar/egg experiment really got the table dirty. Maybe I can convince one of my early-to-school kids to wash it off for me... Lately, if my kids leave important books (i.e. math books) somewhere not in their desk overnight, I've been confiscating the items and making the owner do a job to get it back. I've been having trouble thinking of jobs, but now I have one in mind! Looking around the room just now I think they're picking up after themselves pretty well.
The Lakefield tournament was this weekend. The girls got 2nd out of 4! The boys got 4th out of 4. They played really well; the other schools are just way taller than our guys. But everyone had fun at the pool. Of course, they're all super tired today. After we practiced our February bell songs, the 8th graders begged for naptime. So we did. They shut off the lights and some of them curled up on the bell foam while others snuggled with the reading corner rug. Not too comfortable, but hey, it's better than nothing.
This is pretty much the last week of basketball. There are games today, tomorrow, and Thursday, plus practice on Wednesday. Next week, we have a few away games and our home tournament. After that, basketball is over. The 8th graders always plan dress-up days for the week of our tournament. This year's selections are: PJ Day, Camo Day, Goofy/Silly Day, Class Color Day, and Braves' Day. By the time the 8th graders got to my classroom, all the good colors in the rainbow had been picked already. Only yellow was left (perfectly good color... just not easy to find clothes that match), so we picked "neon" for both grades. My class has a lot of neon clothes they wear on a regular basis so it shouldn't be too difficult for them. Me on the other hand... I'm going to have to dive deep into my closet.
With all my extensive planning this weekend, I really don't have all that much to do now. It's 5:15 and I'm off for home! Maybe I'll actually cook something for supper. I brought some eggs back with me; I think I'll make an egg bake. Or an omelet. But an egg bake I can eat all week... hmm... things to ponder on the drive home.
I cleaned off the lab table to make room for our upcoming labs. Wow, our vinegar/egg experiment really got the table dirty. Maybe I can convince one of my early-to-school kids to wash it off for me... Lately, if my kids leave important books (i.e. math books) somewhere not in their desk overnight, I've been confiscating the items and making the owner do a job to get it back. I've been having trouble thinking of jobs, but now I have one in mind! Looking around the room just now I think they're picking up after themselves pretty well.
The Lakefield tournament was this weekend. The girls got 2nd out of 4! The boys got 4th out of 4. They played really well; the other schools are just way taller than our guys. But everyone had fun at the pool. Of course, they're all super tired today. After we practiced our February bell songs, the 8th graders begged for naptime. So we did. They shut off the lights and some of them curled up on the bell foam while others snuggled with the reading corner rug. Not too comfortable, but hey, it's better than nothing.
This is pretty much the last week of basketball. There are games today, tomorrow, and Thursday, plus practice on Wednesday. Next week, we have a few away games and our home tournament. After that, basketball is over. The 8th graders always plan dress-up days for the week of our tournament. This year's selections are: PJ Day, Camo Day, Goofy/Silly Day, Class Color Day, and Braves' Day. By the time the 8th graders got to my classroom, all the good colors in the rainbow had been picked already. Only yellow was left (perfectly good color... just not easy to find clothes that match), so we picked "neon" for both grades. My class has a lot of neon clothes they wear on a regular basis so it shouldn't be too difficult for them. Me on the other hand... I'm going to have to dive deep into my closet.
With all my extensive planning this weekend, I really don't have all that much to do now. It's 5:15 and I'm off for home! Maybe I'll actually cook something for supper. I brought some eggs back with me; I think I'll make an egg bake. Or an omelet. But an egg bake I can eat all week... hmm... things to ponder on the drive home.
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