Charades and Mystery Class

For some reason, my computer decided to shut off the sound.  And the only way to turn it back on again is with a password... which I don't have... which the IT guys hoard and never give out to anyone.  So now I have to wait for them to get back to me... which may be a while. 


No sound on the computer meant I couldn't have the class listen to the audio book we started on Wednesday.  Thankfully, I have a hard copy I borrowed from the Bookmobile, just in case.  It also meant we couldn't do a "listen to the song and write the story that goes with it" writing activity I wanted to do.  So we played Charades instead.  Mrs. E had gone through her game cabinet at home and gave my class a box of games to look through.  We got a bunch of good ones! 


Charades was one of those games.  A lot of the slips were hard to act out.  The toughest one was "Mind your Ps and Qs" and "Toy Story".  The easiest ones were "YMCA" and "Rock-a-bye Baby".


This afternoon, we only had an hour of class since the girls play basketball in Lakefield at 3:00.  I had the 7th graders for the hour.  We were supposed to take a science test, but we did Mystery Class instead.  This project goes from February to March.  Students record sunrise and sunset times of 10 mystery locations around the globe plus our local sunrise/sunset and find each photoperiod.  After tracking this data for a few weeks, we can predict which longitude line the locations are depending on whether the amount of sunlight increases or decreases.  For today, we just recorded data in our charts and on our graphs.  The 5th graders have never done MC before, so I had them stay in my room for their computer time so the 7th graders and I could teach them how to do it.  I think they grasped the instructions fairly well!  None of them complained that it was super hard or confusing... always a good sign.


Now, all my students are gone, most of my papers are corrected, and I can pack up and head down to the basketball games!  Woohoo! Go Braves!

19,872

This poor kid, the one who got sick earlier this week, is not having a very good week.  He had brought his spelling home yesterday to finish it since it was due today... it was on his bed, somehow fell on the floor, and... the cat peed on it.  Lovely.  So he a) didn't get his spelling done and b) has to buy a new workbook.  Bummer!


Our Jesus Food field trip went very well today.  Right away this morning we got on a bus (paid for by a kind soul at Good Shepherd... the same kind soul who paid for all the food we bagged up today) and drove to Good Shepherd Lutheran Church/School to package food for starving children.  The food we bagged today will go in a shipment to Iraq for refugees escaping from ISIS.  Each bag contains six servings.  We bagged 3,312 packages for a grand total of 19,872 starving children fed.  Woo!

24 hours

So the kid who threw-up yesterday? He was in school this morning.  Our school policy is that sick kids (with a fever or who have thrown up, etc.) stay home for at least 24 hours.  So.  After chapel, I called his mom and asked what the scoop was.  She had forgotten about the rule and found someone to come pick him up from school.  Well, it would be 24 hours in two more hours, and he'd already exposed everyone at school to his germs, so did it really make sense for him to leave? Eh, not a good situation either way.  I told her he could come back at 12:30, but she didn't want to be a bother to the lady she had coming to pick him up.  So he left school. 


Apparently purple is my color.  My outfit today is a purple sweater, purple/silver scarf, and gray pants.  People have been complimenting me all day!  The school nurse stopped by to ask a question and she asked the 7th graders, "Is your teacher human? All humans like to be appreciated.  So you should tell her when she looks nice.  Miss H, you look stunning today."  Guess I'll file this outfit away for when I need to look really good!

Fur Trade and Blankets

This week's first field trip was to MLHS for Arn Kind's talk on the Fur Trade.  He dressed as a voyageur and spoke in a French accent for the whole two hour spiel!  My kids thought it was his real accent.  He taught them to count to three in French.  He also dressed up a kid from a different school as a voyageur and explained why voyageurs wear the things they wear.  Belts- to look good and prevent hernias, belts just under the knees- to look good and provide extra strength when lifting the 90lb bundles.  Each guy would carry two or more of the 90lb bundles at a time!  Each guy was in charge of six.  The canoes were about 35-40ft long and could carry up to 8,000lbs.  And they were very tippy, but none of the voyageurs could swim! They were hired that way so they would take extra care in not tipping the canoe!  He also had audience participants bartering, one "Native American" to trade furs to the "voyageur" for trade goods.  He actually had goods for them to exchange so we could see what it was really like.  And the last thing he did was have 14 audience members come down to be voyageurs in the canoe.  One person pushed them away from rocks, one person was the steerer in the back, and the rest paddled.  Oh, and one guy was the singer to keep them paddling in rhythm.  They sang in French (he had a CD of the song).  My 6th graders thought it was better this year than last year (last year was on the Civil War). 


One of my 6th graders threw up not ten minutes into the presentation.  No one was sitting in front of him, which was good, because it spewed a good two rows in front of him.  Poor guy.  His parents work in Redwood Falls, so the presentation was over by the time someone came to pick him up.  And he threw up three more times in the bathroom.  Yeah, not fun.  One of the MLHS people cleaned up the mess, so neither Mr. E nor I had to do it.  We contemplated driving him back partway so he could get home sooner, but there wouldn't be enough drivers for the other kids if one of us left.  So he just had to wait. 


After all that, we went to Fairmont for lunch at Pizza Ranch.  More drama.  A bunch of kids only brought $10 for lunch, but lunch was $9.55 plus tax, bringing the total to $10.21, so a bunch were short 21 cents.  Some kids who brought extra loaned their friends some; others, I just covered their odd cents.  So we all got to eat lunch.  Except another kid who had a headache and said he didn't feel well.  His friends tried to get him to eat pizza, but I said that was a no go if he hadn't paid, plus pizza isn't good for sick people.  Another chaperone gave him some Sprite and not long afterwards this kid was in the game room yelling his head off with his friends.  But later he said he still had a headache.  No wonder!


We got back to school in time to do American History and have recess.  Then it was the end of the day!  Mrs. B, Angie, Miss N, and I went fabric shopping for Project Linus blankets.  There is a mega-sale on fleece until tomorrow, so we spent all the money we had saved for fabrics.  We ended up with fabric for about 30 blankets or so and saved over $1000 on the fabric we bought!!!  Plenty of blankets for the students to make during NLSW in March. 

Relays

Our all-school activity for this quarter was supposed to be doing a snowman building contest outside, but since the weather didn't cooperate, we did relay races in the gym. 


My favorite race was the Balloon-Head Race.  Teams made pairs of students about equal in height and they raced to the other end of the gym squeezing a balloon between their two heads.  Some students grabbed each other's heads so the balloon wouldn't fall out.  Others who weren't quite the same height squatted down or picked the other person up and carried him/her to the end (all while keeping a balloon stuck between the two heads).


I could tell Mrs. E wasn't a fan of the last race.  The smallest person on the team sat on a blanket carried by the rest of the team to the other end of the gym.  But the worst part wasn't the saggy blanket or the slippery fabric, it was the fact the students holding the blanket were supposed to close their eyes while the blanket-sitter gave directions.  Some of the kindergartners still don't know left from right! And they're supposed to be heard giving directions in a gym full of screaming kids? Not likely.  We teachers made some adaptations to that relay (relays were planned by the student council). 


Other relays included: Banana Relay (teams pass a banana to the end and the end person has to eat the whole thing before the other team), Cracker-Whistle Relay (eat two crackers and then whistle... many crumbs were sprayed in the making of this relay), and Basketball Spin Relay (spin around a baseball bat three times, then dribble down the court and make a layup). 

Medieval Life

The 7th graders started a history unit on the Middle Ages.  Their current assignment is to do research about a particular class of people in the feudal system and present it to the class in some way/shape/form.  Most immediately jumped to powerpoint, but I'm sick of them doing powerpoints only, so I said I'd give extra credit if they picked something besides a powerpoint to present their findings.  So far, one girl is writing a skit and two boys are making a comic strip.  The third group is sticking with powerpoint. 


My 5th and 6th graders ate hardtack in history today.  I had baked it last week and let it sit on my counter to "cure."  It's nice and hard.  All day they were asking, "When do we get to eat that hardtack?"  It was in a container on my desk so all day it tantalized them.  I passed out the hard biscuit and we discussed life in Valley Forge in the middle of winter as they ate.  Then we watched a video about the Revolutionary War (it was pieced together video game footage with captions).  They thought it was pretty neat and asked lots of questions while we watched.  A lot wanted to know the name of the game so they could play it!


Tomorrow's the end of the quarter.  The two boys with the most late work have turned in all their assignments! Woohoo!  One boy stayed after school today to get his spelling done, but he finished pretty quickly.  Now all I need is to enter grades in the gradebook!

Not Much

Not much to report today.  Pretty standard. 


The 7th graders got a lecture about being nice to each other... I had to break up a massive argument over noon recess because 50% of the 7th grade class were trying to stake claims on certain desks in my room for their class at 12:30.  Two girls ended up in tears.  So I kicked everybody out and when it was actually time for class, we drew sticks for first pick.  Maybe I should make a seating chart.


The end of the second quarter is Friday, so I've been pushing everyone to turn their late work in.  One 7th grader was missing six assignments for me as of this morning (and has been for a week or two... the numbers keep rising).  But he buckled down and handed everything in today!  Pretty sure his motivation was not wanting to stay after school on Thursday... Mr. E is having late-work people stay after on Friday, but I'm headed down to Fulda and don't want to be stuck at school for an unforeseeable amount of time.


This weekend is going to be a little helter-skelter.  Fulda-bound on Friday, then Saturday is my great-aunt's funeral.  No school on Monday as a teacher work day, but I don't get to stay in Fulda the whole weekend; Sunday I direct hand bells and have to be back in Courtland.  Which leaves me in Courtland for the rest of Sunday and all of Monday.  Hmm... drive down to Fulda again? work all day at school? hang out in my apartment? find other people to bum around with?  Time will tell I guess!

Integration

Mrs. B originally grew up in Chicago at the height of the integration movement.  Yesterday after class she volunteered to share what she experienced with my students, so today she did!  We looked up a map of her town... the kids wanted to see her old house so they instructed us to click the "street view."  Mrs. B told us that they had to bus white kids into black neighborhoods for school and black kids into white neighborhoods for school.  The people in her town had a meeting to decide what to do, and afterwards many found their tires slashed!  Her parents ended up sending her to a private Lutheran school a little ways away.


I introduced the science fair project today.  A bunch already had ideas for their topics.  A few wanted to do an engineering project instead of a science fair project, but I don't have that information laid out as neatly.  I'll have to do a lot more studying to get that ready if the student still wants to do it.  I think they're under the assumption that engineering project means they get to build something just to build it.  Instead, the engineering project is meant to solve a problem.  You look for a situation that could be improved with a tool, then you make the tool.  We'll see what happens.


I sent off the WEM application today.  Emailed it to the appropriate people just a few minutes ago.  Whew! Glad that's over with!  One of my students nominated me for an outstanding educator award earlier this year and the deadline for my application is this Friday.  Made it with a few days to spare!  The application process on my end involved writing a cover letter, answering nine essay questions 300-400 words each, and collecting three letters of recommendations from a principal, colleague, and parent/student.  My application ended up being 19 pages long.  They judge them at the end of February and results are announced in April.  So now we wait!

Movie kind of day...

I've always heard that if schools are in session over Martin Luther King Jr. Day, they're supposed to do something to teach their students about the civil rights movement/segregation/etc.  Since we had school today, I showed my class the movie Ruby Bridges.  Here's a brief summary in case you're unfamiliar with the story: Ruby is a first grade student who integrates the local white school.  People boycott and are prejudiced against her, but through it all, she stays positive and poised (many times citing her faith in God).  It's a pretty cool movie.  One that's school appropriate and yet it's deep enough to get kids thinking and asking questions. 


In the afternoon, we spent science class watching videos posted by the International Space Station crew about life in space.  My guess is we'll do the same thing tomorrow since we didn't see all the ones we wanted to.  Astronauts show how to make a pb & j, how they sleep, how they wash their hands and hair, how they recycle water, how they puke, and what happens when they cry.  Tomorrow, the ever popular question will be answered: how do astronauts go to the bathroom in space?

Dramatic Mimes

The 7th graders like to blurt out things.  Like, all the time. 


When they were in my class, we read a book called No Talking by Andrew Clements where the boys and girls have a competition to see who can say the fewest words at school.  The rules are: when a teacher calls on you, you can say three words, noises don't count.  Of course they wanted to play the game for themselves, so we did.  And we kept the competition going throughout the year. 


They came up with the idea to play again now that they're still blurting out comments (and it's taking away their study time... yes, it was their idea).  So far, the boys are losing 12 to six. 


Today's spelling test bonus word was one you can kind of sound out, but there's a tricky little vowel in there that makes a different sound.  I always pause for effect before giving them the correct spelling... I could see them following along on their paper, subconsciously bouncing up and down as I said each letter... and then came the twist... Immediately they were throwing their hands in the air (silently), mouthing words of agony and annoyance, rolling on the floor with frustration.  Ugh! They were so close!  And all this is done in complete silence.  It was hilarious.  Man they are so dramatic!


My class got out at 1:30 today so the girls could make it to their basketball game in Truman.  The boys too.  Some parents didn't get the memo until last night or this morning.  I'm surprised; you'd think they'd all rush home to tell mom and dad they get to leave school early for a day.  And I thought Mr. E would cover it in basketball practice.  But I guess that wasn't the case.  Anyway, all my kids went home, so I'm actually going to leave school before 3:00!  Woohoo! Early weekend!

Thank-yous

My mom was the kind of mother who made us write thank-you notes whenever we received a present.  Birthday.  Christmas.  Confirmation.  Graduation.  You name it.  And it had to be good.  Not just a "Thanks for the present. I like it a lot."  Generic stuff didn't fly. 


Most people probably don't expect a teacher to write a thank-you note... but since it's been ingrained in me from childhood, I figured I probably better should.  Did the kids pick out the present they gave?  Probably not.  Will they think it's weird? Possibly.  Will the kids appreciate it anyway?  In some cases.  Will I still write the notes anyway?  Yes. 


So last night I finished writing up the last of my long list of thank-yous.  I put them in mailboxes this morning and what do you know, I had three or four actually comment on them!  A lot were like, "What is this?"  But a few thanked me for the thank-you note.  One girl was so excited I had written her something.  After school I had a parent call on a different subject and she said her son had shown her the note, and then she thanked me for the thank-you.  So I guess it was worth it.  ...another instance of Mom always being right.  Thanks Mom! :)

Scarfless

After wearing scarves for the past...seven days? I went with a scarfless outfit today.  I hadn't thought about how many days in a row I'd been wearing scarves until one of my students made the comment, "Miss H, you're not wearing a scarf today!"  Huh.  I guess I'm not.  I'd been wearing the scarves people gave me for Christmas, partly to show them off to the students who gave them to me so they'd know that I liked them.  And then the weather was so chilly, I wanted to stay warm!  Tonight there's a PTL meeting and I thought I should dress a little nicer for it.  Funny the things students notice!


Another cool thing from today: a 2nd grade boy came in this morning while I was listening to memory work and stood patiently until there was a pause.  Then he handed me a dum dum sucker.  "Oh thank-you! What's this for?" He shrugged, "Just because."  And walked out of the room.  How sweet!


In about two minutes we have our rescheduled staff meeting and the PTL meeting to immediately follow, so I'll sign off here for the night!

Street Cred

My short-lived and vastly unimpressive basketball career was discussed in class today.  The subject first came up because the "Cutties" (aka- Lakefield basketball tournament) is in two weeks.  One kid asked if I'd ever been to Cutties... yes I played basketball there.  The next question, of course, was, "were you any good?"  Ha! Nope. Not at all.  At first, they didn't believe me.  So I spouted some of my stats: I never made a basket my entire career and I passed the ball to a teammate nearly as soon as I got it.  The one time I fouled someone was totally on accident.   My students were suitably shocked.  Of course, now that it doesn't matter I've improved. 


Afternoon recess today: a 6th grader passes me the ball, "Miss H, give it a shot!  Just one try!"  So with everyone's eyes on me, I took position at the free-throw line, carefully aimed, and... SWISHED IT!  Woohoo!  I definitely gained some street cred in my students' eyes.  A bunch came and congratulated me, "Miss H! You're one for one now! That's great!"


The other funny thing of the day was in social studies.  Today's topic: The Start of the American Revolution.  We watched a few School House Rock videos, "No More Kings" and "The Shot Heard Round the World."  After the first one, they clapped.  I heard some murmur, "that was actually pretty good!" (I have a few kids who aren't School House Rock fans... inconceivable I know).  Partway through the second one, I scanned the room and saw one 5th grade boy bobbing his head in time to the music.  He was really getting into it!  It was super cute so my face cracked a smile... and one of his classmates noticed and gave him a look, like "what are you doing?," so he stopped. 


After school plans: National Lutheran Schools Week planning meeting and watching more basketball games!  Then home to read a book or write thank-you notes... or take down my Christmas tree...

All Quiet on the Western Front

Away basketball games after school today, so school emptied out faster than a pan of brownies at a potluck!  For some reason, school is super quiet right now, quieter than usual.  Maybe it's the lack of wind outside. Or the light dusting of snow. 


It certainly wasn't quiet at noon recess today!  The girls spent the majority of recess dribbling basketballs, then shocking each other and screaming.  It was a bit scientific... they tested whether different surfaces would zap them... the floor, the wall, the bleachers, a headband.  In the last three minutes of recess they decided to start a scrimmage, but they dinked around shocking each other so long they only played for about a minute! 


I already changed my lesson plans for this week.  Instead of doing a NASA space activity, we finished up the STEM project I had my 5th and 6th graders doing Friday.  Half the groups finished today: their chairs successfully held "baby bear" for a minute.  One group had a few chair legs that didn't touch the floor unless they were carefully arranged.  Another group's chair was so low to the ground (it had balled up paper for legs) that they had to glue straws underneath to keep the soup can from bending the paper to touch the table.  But it held for one minute!

Finally Friday

This morning I had an "argh!" moment.  We were having mini-pancakes for lunch today, something I'm not incredibly fond of, so I actually packed a sack lunch last night... and forgot it in the fridge this morning.  I remembered it when we did lunch count for the day.  Shoot! 


Our day has been a normal Friday.  Reading buddies, spelling tests, Circular Stories.  Instead of doing art, my kids did a STEM project called "Goldilocks's Chair" where they have to build a chair that holds baby bear (a can of soup) for 60 seconds.  The trick is they can only use 2ft of string, a piece of printer paper, a coffee filter, and three straws.  I let them use a scissors and a glue stick for practical purposes.  The 7th graders did this project too, and they had more trouble coming up with ideas than my class did!  No one finished today, so we'll have to work on it next week sometime. 


We were supposed to have a staff meeting after school today, but Miss H couldn't stay, it's Friday, and it's snowing plus the wind is supposed to pick up.  So Mr. E is going to put an agenda in our mailboxes and we'll figure something out later.  The most pressing matter is to pick a student of the month, which we can do some morning before school starts. 


So I'm going to pack up and get out of here!  I'm heading to Fulda this weekend and I think I'm going to chance the roads.  I need to swing through New Ulm first (library) so if the roads are completely terrible, I'll turn around and go home.  Otherwise the roads from New Ulm down to Madelia should be a little better than the back county roads I usually take.  So here we go!

Aliens...

My kids are still learning about outer space in science, and they were super pumped to learn about today's topic... ALIENS.


There is actually one kid who believes aliens are real.  I did my best to impart what I know about the subject, and what the Bible says too.  We mostly focused on explanations of UFOs: lenticular clouds and ball lightning.  Both are very neat things that happen in nature.  Somehow we got in a discussion about cloning and if government experiments could go wrong and create alien life forms.  I don't know if we ever answered that question, but we did talk about some interesting things!  They'll go home tonight and say, "Guess what we talked about today in school..."


My dad and two siblings stopped by after school.  Ethan was touring South Central in Mankato and Eileen came along for the ride.  It was fun to see them in the middle of the week!  A few of my students noticed them here and stood awkwardly staring at the threshold of my classroom... I'm curious to hear what they have to say about this tomorrow.


Now that Epiphany and Christmas are over, the decorations came down.  My classroom seems much less festive of course, but it also feels emptier now that there's not a Christmas tree hanging out in the front of the room.  We still have some nativity pieces to put away.  They are occupying the lab table, which I need for an experiment tomorrow, so that will be a before-school-starts task. 

Red and Green

There's always been a red vs. green battle in my classroom... so I had Dad pick me up a Case IH calendar to hang in my classroom.  The John Deere boys noticed right away.  After their attempt at convincing me to take it down failed, one boy brought a John Deere blanket to school.  So the battle has been brought to the front burner.  Mostly I just smile at their comments, but the boys on the red side just can't let a negative Case comment slide.  They always have to retaliate.  So we've had many tractor discussions over the past few days.


We walked over to church for chapel today.  My kids were super excited since we haven't been able to do such a thing for a while... pretty much the whole school year.  Pastor wanted it at church since it's Epiphany today.  It was nice having it at church, although it took more time to walk back and forth, so we didn't have as much time in the morning for Daily 5 and Writer's Workshop.  We finished our latest read-aloud book (Prisoner B-3087, a book about the holocaust), which also factored into our lack of time.  Tomorrow we're going to listen to Jack Gruener talk about his experiences in the concentration camps (he's the guy the book is based on) via youtube video.  I still need to pick a read-aloud book.  We were going to do Space Case by Stuart Gibbs, but I didn't get my act together and place a hold at the library.  I have a different book, but it's a little more girly and the boys don't seem thrilled with it.  Maybe I'll read Holes. I don't think we've read that this year.  Or maybe I'll read some shorter books until I can order in the Stuart Gibbs book.  We'll see.


I'm a bit irritated with myself.  Over break, I used up the Barnes and Nobles and Amazon gift cards on books for my classroom... I neglected to notice the address Amazon is shipping my books to is Fulda and not school or my apartment.  I guess I'll just have to go home again to collect them!

NaNo Edits

Our first day of editing our stories actually went pretty well.  They seemed receptive to the idea of editing and a bunch dove right in.  Today our focus was on combining sentences so there are various lengths and the writing flows better.  I wish I would've glanced over more of their stories first.  Most of my students have difficulties placing periods, so their sentences are longer as opposed to shorter.  So our first topic should've been on chunking sentences.  Oh well.  There's always time tomorrow.  I'm still getting the hang of this writing workshop thing.  I wish I could watch a teacher in action so I'd know if I'm doing mine right.  I know there are things I could do better... it's just hard to know what to change.


Joe buried himself today.  There's a chance of snow tomorrow and a chance of freezing drizzle Wednesday night/Thursday morning.  Lovely.  My kids are all like, "Yeah! Let's have a blizzard!"


The IT guys installed the Promethean software on my computer yesterday, so I was able to use it today in class.  Ugh, I've forgotten so much since my technology class at Bethany.  I used to know how to do all sorts of things on it.  Now I have to feel my way around it and test out different things.  Time is what I need.


Still down one student.  The second one came back at noon and he's out playing basketball right now.  I have one sixth grade boy who hasn't wanted to eat lunch these past few days.  He was being super obstinate and the last time I tried to force him to eat lunch (earlier this school year), it was a bit of a fiasco.  Not a battle I wanted to fight.  So yesterday when he first declared he wasn't eating lunch, I emailed his mom to see what she thought.  She said, let him skip, but remind him he wouldn't be able to eat until after school.  So he didn't eat lunch.  Today he said the same thing, so I didn't mark him down for hot lunch.  But then he complained about being lightheaded and revealed he hadn't eaten any breakfast... so I emailed his mom again and she called and convinced him to at least eat a little bit.  He ate a tri-tator and some mandarin oranges, but hey, it's something. 


It bothers me that they don't eat!  Some of the other sixth grade boys have only been eating salads/fruits/vegetables because they don't like the main meal.  It drives me nuts!   A few will take a pb sandwich, which makes me feel a little better.  But still.  How is that going to last them all day?

Into the Swing of Things

We started off 2016 two students down... with a sore throat/the flu.  Lovely.  I did get my flu shot over Christmas break, so hopefully we won't go down a teacher!


As much as I always complain break wasn't long enough, it was good to be back in school.  Everyone was super chatty (as is expected), but they did buckle down and get their work done.  I had everyone print a hard copy of their NaNos so we can start editing them tomorrow.  This took longer than expected, mostly because they couldn't remember their passwords and either got locked out or had to change them.  And some computers shut off randomly, also messing up my plan to have everyone print quickly.  But one way or another we got it figured out.


Last night I got back to my apartment and unpacked my stuff, hoping to get a good night's sleep so I'd be fresh for the first day back.  I turned my heat up to a comfortable temperature, but an hour later I was still freezing.  When I looked at the thermostat, the dial hadn't moved; my apartment was still below 50 degrees!  But it had been running since I'd been home.  When I checked, I could only feel cool air coming out of the vents.  So I called the apartment after-hours-emergency number and the guy said he'd be there as soon as he could... he was coming from past Madelia, so it wasn't going to be all that soon.  By the time he got to my apartment, it was about 11:20pm and I was falling asleep in my chair.  I didn't even hear him knocking on my door!  He had to call my phone because I wasn't answering.  But he did get it fixed (shortly after midnight).  So I did get about six hours of sleep.  It's been working fine since then; let's hope it stays that way!


I had a surprise when I walked into my rom today, a pleasant one... the new Promethean board had been installed overnight!  None of the software has been downloaded onto my computer, but the board is there and it works.  So far, the biggest issues have been the glare on the board from the projector light and it's super sensitive and will sometimes enlarge my computer screen when someone brushes the board (even when it's off).


My kids were disappointed I didn't get more scarves for Christmas.  I only got two, bringing my grand total up to 36.  Today I wore the scarves I got from one of my students.  He didn't say anything about it, but his 3rd grade sister came up to me and said, "Miss H! You're wearing the scarves we gave you!!!" She was so excited. 


The funniest part of the day was with the 7th graders... (and slightly morbid too) Two of the boys made a parody of the Frozen song "Do You Want to Build a Snowman" titled "Do You Want to Hide a Body?"  It started out as just random singing in their study hall, but once they got going they kept coming up with more and more lyrics until they had a pretty big chunk of the song.  There was even some revising going on!  Here's their lyrics:


Do you want to hide a body?
And maybe throw it in the lake?
Come on let's shove it out the door,
the stench is no more,
it's time to go away!
We're going into hiding...
Let's not get caught,
what else are we going to do?