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Variety Night went really well.  My students' surprise in their skit "Mitch's BIG Surprise" really brought down the house... everyone jumped when underneath the present was a person waiting to cream the "birthday boy" with a whipped cream pie in the face!  And they didn't get too much whipped cream on church's carpet, so I was happy.  The birthday boy was another story.  He'd brought clothes to change into, and once he'd run his head under a faucet, he cleaned up pretty good.  The other outstanding talent of the night was the 8th graders' show... synchronized swimming.  They had two 6th graders hold up a big tarp so the audience couldn't see the floor.  Then the 8th graders did swan dives and fancy arm waving and twirling in circles... it was quite good.  And the teachers had to follow that up.  We did all right.  Afterwards, one of the 1st grade boys said to me, "Miss H, I never knew how talented you were." 


Our bake sale/root beer float serving was a good fundraiser.  Nearly $350!  We ran out of orange pop almost right away, and we ran out of ice cream at the end too.  Just a little bit of root beer leftover.  I jotted down notes for the next time we do this. 


Today's trip to the zoo had perfect weather: not too hot, not too cold.  We were a little disappointed with the amount of animals there (we visited Como Zoo).  Sigh, no elephants.  Or hippos.  My favorites were the giraffes, polar bears, and the sea lions.  I walked around with my troublesome sixth grader and the 2nd grade girls and Mrs. B and her preschool daughter.  Wow were they energetic!  It was always go, go, go, on to the next thing... "I see it! I see it!  Come here and look!  Mrs. B said not to go ahead! Slow down!  Wait!  Shouldn't they be waiting for you?"  A lot different than my usually indifferent 5th and 6th graders.  Still, a nice change.  The gift shop was my least favorite.  Even though only a few parents sent money, it was crazy trying to get the purchasing students to pick something to buy! And of course their friends had suggestions.  And no tax was included in the prices, so they'd think they could buy it, but no, not enough money.  Seriously, gift shops should just have the tax added into the prices.  It'd make it a lot easier for us teachers.


Riding the bus wasn't that bad.  Pretty quiet actually.  The 2nd grade girls thought ahead and brought markers and coloring pages and paper, so they wrote notes to the teacher.  "You're the best 5th and 6th teacher ever, Miss H!  I can't wait to go to the zoo! Love, [student]"  After that got old, they played a game where every time we drove under a bridge we had to duck or our head would be chopped off.  That lasted until we got to the zoo.  Do you realized how many bridges there are on the way to the zoo in the Cities?  A lot.  I had brought a book to read on the off chance I was sitting by someone quiet.  I did get a little chance to read, even with all the "Duck! Put your head down Miss H or you die!"  The ride home was a little quieter.  I sat in the back with one of my students and we played rock-paper-scissors and I-Spy for a while, then I pulled out my book and read the rest of the way.  Some of the boys in the back tried to get the other drivers to wave at them.  One girl was flossing as she was driving!  We passed a bus and one of the kids on the other bus licked the window at us.  Not sure if that's what he intended to do or not.


It will be weird to have our school week start tomorrow on Tuesday.  It kind of feels like a Friday.  We didn't get a chance to pop the balloon today.  I suppose we'll do it tomorrow morning.  The activity is: work without your shoes on.  Not sure how well that will go over with everyone.  I'll probably have a lot of complaints about the smell.  We'll see what happens I guess!