Quite the first day in our 5th and 6th classroom! All but three of my students were in the room by 8:10 and quickly finished the to do list on the board. By the time the bell rang, we were already working on putting our desks into our new seating chart. Boy did that take some finagling! Some of the 6th grade boys took it upon themselves to help the smaller girls get their desks where they needed to go... even lifting the desks over the other ones. They were all super polite and nice about it, even when people were blocking the way.
We had just enough time to do our hymnsing before chapel. They actually put some thought into which songs they picked from the hymnal. And we got to all the songs! Last year we'd have to skip one or two. Chapel was in the gym today since our road has been getting heavier traffic from the various detours on the way to Mankato. Huge semi trucks book it past school, not slowing down, so the powers that be decided we should have chapel at school until further notice. Kind of a bummer since it was so nice out this morning. And our gym's sound system was making weird noises. Pastor ended up just talking loud and not using it at all.
This morning went by pretty fast, learning our procedures and starting Daily 5, but not as fast as the afternoon! We learned our Spanish colors right before lunch (and the 5th graders were practicing them the rest of the day! yay!) and had a picnic outside. We did the Adams Family prayer for lunch... last year when we'd say this prayer it would be kind of confusing since I learned it differently than my students did, so we'd each say it the way we learned it. Well, one of my 6th graders was ready to shout the prayer at the top of his lungs... but he sang the "days of the week" song instead! "There's Monday and there's Tuesday, there's Wednesday and there's Thursday..." It was about that time I realized he wasn't saying the prayer, and the rest of the class was just singing along with him! So we started over and prayed the actual prayer.
Recess was a good time too. Two former students came over to play football with the boys and those that didn't want to play football played 4-square. I even got in on the action. Last year one kid always scratched his head when he was cheating or about to cheat (smacking the ball in the corner so you can't hit it and you get out) and he was right back at it again. Scratchy-head Syndrome I think. Another boy picked it up too! And yes, he was trying to cheat too. But eventually they got out.
This afternoon we did a "guess who?" game. They wrote down three interesting things about themselves and we had to guess who wrote what... they are super good guessers! They guessed all but one right away. I stumped them for a couple seconds when I read my three interesting things... I can't stick out my tongue, I'm the oldest on both sides of my family, and I spent a week digging holes this summer. It was the holes that gave me away. Of course then I had to demonstrate my lack of skill.
The coolest thing we did today was an experiment with apples. I've been saving glass jars all summer and had enough for each student. Mrs. B let me pick apples from her tree yesterday and today my kids put an apple in a jar and wrote a hypothesis on what they think will happen. They made observations and wrote them in an official science notebook! And they'll keep making observations each day for as long as we want it to go. Maybe until the end of the year! Who knows! Some smashed their apple through the opening. Some used a hammer to get it in. Some cut it into pieces. And some had a big enough jar it went in without a bruise. Some shook their apple around so it got all mushy. Some had worms or earwigs in them. Some put their containers by a window or in the closet or in a desk or by the AC. I'm very much looking forward to seeing the results!
We ended the day with school rules and three minutes of recess. For some it was hard to believe it was the end of the day already! As for me, I was ready to sit down and rest my voice! I'm going to need some cough drops by the time this week is through. My voice isn't used to talking so much.
My other favorite part of the day (besides the experiment) was this morning... one of my students' moms came in with a jar of flowers I'm guessing she'd picked from her garden. They're so pretty! Reds and yellows and some dark purple leaf-ish kind of things. I'm debating whether I should bring them home or not so I can keep on enjoying them. But I spend so much time at school I think I'd better leave them here...
And now since I have the whole week planned, I think I'm going to head out "early". My goal this year is to leave school before 5:30 (at least on the nights I don't have volleyball practice/games). Let's see how long I can keep it up!
No comments:
Post a Comment