Pi Day

On a day like Pi Day, it goes without saying that there should be pie.  So I baked some this weekend.  Mrs. B gave me some homemade apple pie filling from the year their apple tree produced a bazillion apples.  Then Saturday afternoon I made some crusts and dumped the filling in, easy as pie!  The filling had spices in it already and was fairly solid; I had to use a spatula to break it apart in the jar.  I made a separate pie for my family to eat as a test run... my kids are usually pickier than them.  Most pre-taste-testers thought it was good, but could be sweeter.  Brady said it was an 11 and my kids better not eat all the pie 'cause he wanted more later.

I had three pies for my class of 15 and the 7th grade class of 5.  This morning the cook warmed up the pies in the oven and at snack we sliced them up and served them with ice cream.  You'd think I'd learn by now that my students are not to be trusted to give equal serving sizes... they started scooping ice cream while I served up the pie pieces.  And we were halfway through the ice cream cube before half the class was served.  Shucks.  Everyone who wanted it got some, though there wasn't a ton left for the 7th graders.  Only 8 of the 15 took pie, the rest just had ice cream.  Oh well.  The 7th graders made up for it.

Mr. D's class goes out for recess when I have the 7th graders.  When we do study hall, sometimes the 7th graders do their work by the window and he chats with them.  He saw them eating pie and asked if there were extras.  So he got one of their leftover pieces. I dropped off the last cut piece to Miss N after school (turns out she loves apple pie).  And that leaves one whole pie left... I guess Brady does get his extras after all!

Fine Arts Fair summary: Art projects did well- a bunch of blues and reds, a few whites.  Science fair projects were about the same. It took them a while to judge all ours; there was a crowd of people waiting outside the room so they could see the results.  And when the door finally opened, there was a mad rush to see who got what.  Our bell ringing was an interesting endeavor... the guy in charge didn't organize the bells very well.  He only had enough tables/foam/covers for two set-ups: Truman and Fairmont.  And I think they both brought all their own stuff.  We did bring our bell stuff down, but then the guy in charge asked if we could just share bells with Truman.  Sure, why not? Less stuff we'd have to set up and move around.  I figured Truman would have nice bells since they always play very well and have a great director.  Nooo, turns out our bells are actually better.  I didn't discover this until right before the concert.  My kids were taking their positions and were not impressed with the bells they had to play.  They looked over at Fairmont's shiny bell setup and wanted to know why they couldn't just play those bells.  Mr. E talked to the guy in charge and he said the Fairmont director was not here at the moment, he was rushing back to pick up some forgotten music.  So no using those bells.  And there was no time for us to pull ours out. So we made due.  And it sounded fine.  They actually played really well.  I messed up in my introduction of the choir; I said, "we will be singing 'For the Beauty of the Earth'" instead of "playing" or "ringing".  And as soon as I said it I realized I'd said the wrong thing.  Oops! Oh well! Not the end of the world.  Our school song, "The Tree Song" sounded amazing, and the whole-mixed-school choir sounded really cool too.  No one knew how all the kids were supposed to stand up there, so we had them filter in wherever there was space.  The lady directing messed up in her directing and had the choir repeat the verse she messed up on so she'd feel better about it.  But it did sound nice.  I am very thankful the Fine Arts Fair is over... much less for me to think about!  Although we did start musical practice today... that's the next big thing...