Presents

Last night's program went very well. There were a few hiccups, but overall it was great. So many people passed out compliments. Three people said it's the best program they've ever seen, ever, in all their time at Immanuel. Two of those people were crying when they told our principal. Many parents said they're still thinking about it today, and many others said they can't wait to come back and see it again Sunday.

It was hard to focus at practice today, well all day really. Everyone was just too excited to open presents! Including me! I think I talked about what I made them for Christmas in another post, but just in case, here's a refresher... in Writers' Workshop, they made a list of adjectives of each other and I compiled each student's adjectives secretly into a Wordle (or a word cloud) and printed off a fancy picture, wrote one of my favorite Bible verses on it, stuck it in a frame, and wrapped them all in brown paper.

The day I put them under the tree, of course they noticed right away, and they were curious who was giving all the brown presents out. Hmm, let's see, there are 11 of them and they're all about the same size... who could it be? Then they all tried to guess what was in the package.  They know in past years I give them a copy of their NaNo books, and the frames are a similar shape to a book, so at first glance all of them thought it was a book. But they weren't sold on that idea because they haven't edited their books yet. Then they thought I had somehow gotten my hands on the 8th Amulet book. It doesn't come out until sometime in 2018... there isn't even a cover yet, so that wasn't a possibility.

I couldn't wait to see my students' reactions to their presents, and I wasn't disappointed. They wanted to open their presents from me first (couldn't stand the suspense I guess!), so I passed them out with strict instructions NOT to say anything out loud if they had a guess what it was once they felt them. A few of them could tell it was a picture frame. The paper ripped off and...
"Wow!"
"I love it!"
"It's so cool!"
"I'm going to keep it forever!"
They couldn't stop smiling and neither could I! Half of them jumped up to give me a hug (even the boys) and the ones whose parents were still at school (they'd been serving the school lunch) ran off to the kitchen to show off their frame to their parents. Most of them set their frames up on their desks to be admired by all and they kept reading their adjectives over and over and over again. "It's the best Christmas EVER!"

My presents were good this year too. Six students went in together on a present and gave me a 31 bag with an embroidered cross on the front. It's the perfect size for books! Inside the bag were about six boxes of tea, mostly peppermint and orange spice. One of those students had sneakily found out my favorite flavors of tea by telling me her mom wanted to start drinking tea and did I have any kinds I liked the best and would recommend? Ha, I suspected nothing! Today I asked her if her mom was really going to start drinking tea and she revealed that, no, it had all been a ruse. So tricky! They also went in on a Kohl's gift card for $50 in a cute little snowman box. Wow! Other things I got: candy, a candle, lotion, soft socks, a water bottle cup thing, and an Avon set of three lotions.

The teacher gift exchange was fun too. Like my students, the teachers write down two initials of something they want and their exchange partner has to guess what those letters stand for. I had Mr. D who wanted CN. That was a tough one... chicken nuggets? carmel nougats? cat nibbles? Christmas neckties? I went with the last option and found the perfect tie right in the price range. It's red with a black silhouette of the nativity scene and little angels and stars going up the length of the tie. He did indeed want a Christmas necktie, so I guessed right!

My letters were KM, which stands for kitchen mat. I want one to go in front of my sink to stand on while I do dishes. Mr. E had me and he guessed knitted mittens. Not right, but still something I could use! Yesterday Mrs. E swung by my room to ask if there was anything else she could do for the Christmas program, but really she was their to scope out my coat to see what color of mittens her husband should get me! They match well; white with light blue mixed in. I think I'll wear them on my drive home!

Well, my room is all tidy. Everything is in it's place and ready for a week off. I have all my papers corrected and my only homework over break is to look over my lesson plans for the three day week we'll have after coming back. I still have some thank-you notes to write, but I can get them done today or tomorrow. The only thing left is to decide whether to bring tortoise Joe home with me tonight or bring him back after the Christmas program Sunday night...

Sickly

About half my class felt sickly right before lunch, right in the middle of program practice. I'm not sure what set them off, but they all of a sudden got a headache and their tummies hurt. They didn't look so good either. Once we got back to school, one of their classmates took their temperatures and they all came back normal. They all ate lunch and then laid down in the reading corner for a nap during noon recess (Mr. E kindly watched everyone at recess so I could supervise the nappers). None of them went home though! After returning from math, they were mostly back to normal.

I didn't think I had a ton to do at school today, but I guess I ended up staying pretty late. I had been planning to go to Advent services with my farmer, but he's still feeling sickly and told me to stay put again. So I'll go to Redeemer tonight. It's their Christmas service, so I'll get to see my kiddos who attend that church say their parts.

Since I'd be going to New Ulm, I tracked down the library books that should be returned before break. I found all of them except one... it was nowhere to be found! I even had some students help me look and they couldn't find it. It helped organize my picture book area, but we came up with nothing. Then, I happened to check my phone and found that another teacher had left a message asking if he could keep the missing book for another day! I forgot I had loaned it to him earlier this week! Oops... Well, the mystery has been solved!

Cookie Baking

Tonight is cookie baking at Pastor's house. Mrs. B had asked if I'd mix up a batch of cookies to bring along so we could start baking right away. I didn't have time last night, but this morning I whipped together dough for pepper nuts. I had wanted to make almond sugar cookies, except I don't have any almond extract. Shoulda got some yesterday while running errands!  All my Christmas presents are bought and wrapped now. All I need to do is put up my tree...

The chiropractor said my rib wasn't out of place. Whew. He thought it maybe had something to do with my gallbladder, which freaked me out for a bit, but after poking and prodding (and no pain/discomfort), he ruled that out. So he thinks somehow I bruised the cartilage on my rib. That makes sense, although I have no clue what I bruised it on. I don't remember hitting myself there at all... the only thing I can think of is the podium. Maybe I leaned against it and the corner dug into my ribs. Or I held my lunch tray too tight against myself and poked an edge into the ribs. Who knows. I put some bruise ointment on it and iced it, and it feels much better today.

Program practice continues to go well. We scrapped the dance at the end. Too focused on those kids instead of on everyone. Plus they were super self-conscious about themselves and thought the 7-8th grade boys would laugh at them. It's for the best though. Today, we told the students they could dance in place, but I don't like the look of it. It's too random and only a few are doing it; it's too messy. I'm sure we'll talk about it at cookie baking tonight.

Speaking of which, I should get over there!

Ribs

No, not the eating kind, unfortunately, although this story does take place around lunch time. After eating while I supervised noon recess in the gym, I noticed a sharp pain in my lower right rib. Oww! It didn't go away for the rest of the day. All I can think of is that somehow one of my ribs got popped out of place! Thankfully the chiropractor has an opening this afternoon so I can get straightened out. Hopefully it helps!

Tonight is the last free night I have this week. Tomorrow is teacher cookie baking night at Pastor's house, Wednesday night has Advent services, and Thursday is the first Christmas program. And there's supposed to be a storm that night. Depending how bad it is, we might have to cancel, but that's thinking a little too far ahead in the future. MVL was supposed to have a choir concert that night but they've already moved it to Wednesday night in anticipation of the storm. We'll see I guess!

The weekend was enough to get me over the crabbiness. Let's pray it stays that way! We had to change the seating chart of the Christmas program because we decided to have six risers set up instead of four. Now we don't have to have any chairs for the front row; they should all fit on the risers. Pastor built a little manger just the size for two people to fit in, so it takes up less space in front. It also covers up some of the people who sit directly behind the beams, hence the seating adjustment. I think we got everyone situated though. We'll find out tomorrow. Tomorrow will also be the first time we practice walking in and out. You wouldn't think this would be a tough thing, but it is. They have to go in walking next to a partner, who will probably be different each time they walk out. They have to walk not too fast or too slow, and they have to leave enough space between the people behind/in front of them.

Lots of germs are going around. At least four of my kids were feeling yucky and didn't want to stay for basketball practice. At least they stuck it out until the end of the day. Some of it could be in their heads... Thankfully, they have parents and grandparents who make them go to school even if their tummies hurt. But, 'tis the season for sickness, so who knows how many will go down before Thursday?

Dancing

The dancing has begun. The 5th grade girls spent their noon recess putting some moves together and it looks pretty good! There's one part when they stand in a line and each spreads her arms in such a way that all of them look like a star. They did it over at church during practice today, but it was kind of tricky without the risers or nativity scene to judge the space available.

The bell songs were pretty good. There's one song the 5th graders play bass with the 6-7th graders and today was the first day we practiced together. Apparently we've been practicing the song at a tempo that's DOUBLE what the 5th graders have been practicing. Oops. They're going to pick up the pace a bit when they practice on their own next week.

Everything at church got cleaned up on time and I think everything looks good for the wedding that's happening. People are lined up to set up risers on Sunday after church. Miss S will set the bell tables up on Monday with the 5th graders. Only four school days until the first performance!

Singing

Our first program practice over at church went well! My favorite part was the 3rd and 4th grade girls (the shy ones) singing their little hearts out in the front row. They were loud enough I could hear them and they sounded good! There wasn't a whole lot of silly business and people said their parts loud and clear.

There's a wedding in church on Saturday, so we couldn't set the risers up. We'll wait until after church on Sunday to do that. So everyone had to stand or sit on the floor for practice today (and tomorrow too). There are still a few kinks we can't work out until the risers are up. Mary and Joseph don't know how much room they'll have with the manger. The shepherds and angels aren't quite sure where to go for their parts. They move during one of the songs while they say their parts, which could be a challenge. I'm still working out the ideas in my head about that.

I was really crabby today, probably from stress with the Christmas program. When we went over to set up bells, everyone was running in church, not standing where they were supposed to, totally ignoring the fact that they were supposed to be setting up tables, etc. Then they were giggling/laughing at each other. Sigh, I'm glad tomorrow is Friday.

The bulletins are printed and kids have started coloring the covers. However, after school, we found out that Joseph's name is wrong in the bulletin. For some reason, I thought a totally different kid was Joseph this year. Nope. It's someone else. No one else caught the mistake. Too late to reprint. We'll have Pastor make an announcement and/or fix it on the screen. Such is life.

My kids had more fun with hot glue today. I don't even know what all they're doing back there at the lab table, but it's definitely messier today than it was yesterday. Two kids burned themselves on the glue. We eventually brought the whole bottle of aloe vera gel into our room so they could keep applying it without disturbing the piano players in the office.

I'm worried about everyone saying their memory work on time tomorrow. There are a lot of unsaid verses this week! I was worried about spelling too, but the slowpokes eventually got theirs done. One girl totally lost her spelling pages for this week (not one of the pokey ones). She remembers stapling it, and thought she had handed it in, but it was not in my stack. It wasn't in her mailbox either and it wasn't in her desk or crate. So we don't know what happened to it. She made a new copy and stayed in from recess to get it done. I wonder where it ended up...

Snowmen

It rained/snowed this morning on the way to school. It felt warm out, but the precipitation coming down was snow which turned into rain after I got to school. Weird. I wonder if there will even be snow for Christmas...

During read aloud today my kiddos made the presents for their parents... those toilet paper snowmen. It was hard to squish the whole roll into the sock, but I'd gotten the biggest socks they had. Some unwrapped a bunch of the paper so the roll would be smaller. That helped. I had accidentally bought more socks than I needed and ended up with double, so they used their extra toilet paper and extra sock to make a second snowman. The problem: no more styrofoam balls for heads. Solution: crumble up toilet paper to shove in the sock for a head, use a tube for a head (and have a square-ish snowman), or use a pine cone. There was excellent problem solving going on this morning.

I've decided that's my favorite kind of art project. I give them basic instructions, they figure out how to do it on their own. Some wanted hats, so I put out sequins and fabric paint and extra fabric and let them go to town. Solution: cut off the bottom of the sock (the extra bit that gets stuck up in the bottom of the tube) to use as a hat and color it with fabric markers, glue cotton balls to side of head to make earmuffs, make a headband out of extra fabric and sequins. Like I said, excellent problem solving going on, much better ideas than I would've come up with!

There is a big mess in the room though. They cleaned up pretty well, but it took longer, therefore, extra read-aloud time. And there's still a mountain of mess on the lab table, but at least it's contained.  Plus, I don't know how many will want those supplies tomorrow, so I thought I should leave them out.

My church doesn't have Advent services, so I find a different place to go on the nights we don't have the usual ladies Wednesday night bible study. Tonight is one of those nights. I had planned to go with my farmer, but he has a cold and doesn't want to share, so I'll probably go to Redeemer in New Ulm. They have supper before the service, so I won't even have to cook tonight!

The Nativity Story

We read Luke 1 today in class, well, we started to. We only made it up to the part where Mary gets to Elizabeth's house before it was time to stop (actually, we went over our religion time). They really wanted to start the movie today and convinced me that we could watch the movie up to the part that we'd read about in the Bible today.

They were so in to the movie, we watched the whole thing today, haha, big surprise right? I had been pausing it to explain a few things, historical/cultural things the movie did well. As expected, some of them were frustrated at how often I paused the movie. They wanted to keep watching! But then they'd have questions too, so it was fine. About a half an hour into the movie (it's 1:40min), we'd reached the part we'd read up to in the Bible. And they wanted to keep going. In my mind, I'd already kind of thought to just keep watching, but they thought they had to convince me.

"But Miss H, we should watch it all today so we can keep the movie fresh in our minds."
"We already know this story! We talk about it every year!"
"Plus on Thursday when we finish reading the rest of the Bible chapters, we'll be able to make connections to the movie."
"And we'll give up our read to someone round!"

So I was convinced. We took another bathroom break and they gathered up their hats and coats from the coatroom (It's cold on the floor! There isn't much insulation in my classroom) so we all bundled up and settled in. Another teacher told me she had heard my kids in the hallway this morning gushing over what a good teacher I am and how I'm the best teacher in the world since we got to watch the whole movie today. Oh kids are funny!

Sigh. I'm glad they enjoyed it so much. That movie is so good. I love it. It might become my new Christmas tradition to watch it every year.

Snowmen

I've been on a mission lately to find plain white socks with no other colors on them. They're nearly impossible to find! All the socks I found at Walmart had gray heels and toes or were mostly white except colorful writing across the toe parts. Tonight I stopped by Dollar General, hoping they'd have what I needed. Whew! They did! Having 11 kids in my class is almost the perfect number. I got six pairs of socks, one sock for each kid plus one for me to do as an example.

We're turning the socks into snowmen. I found styrofoam balls this weekend, we'll use a roll of toilet paper for the body (on sale this week at Cash Wise!), and color toothpicks/glue on buttons/tie leftover fleece for a scarf. Presents for parents.

I was impressed with the 5th grade problem solving skills today. The 7/8th graders were gumming up the works when the 5th graders came back at 1:00 to bring the bells down from our room to Miss S's. The older kids were sprawled around the computers working on a powerpoint, but they sat too close to the table for the girls to get the cases through. One lifted hers over the table. She had a little one so it wasn't too bad to lift. The other ones had larger cases though, and didn't think that would work. One girl said, "Here, shove them under the table!" She was tiny enough to squeeze past and the case was short enough to slide under the table right to the door. Perfect.

My old couch was reunited with its twin this weekend. My farmer helped me move it to my friend's apartment and she was very excited to get a larger couch for her to stretch out on. Now I have space in my living room again! Time to put up the Christmas tree... After running errands after school tonight I didn't have much time, so the tree is still in the box. Maybe tomorrow night my apartment will become more festive.

Papers, Papers Everywhere

Oh my, my desk is a mess! Papers everywhere! I don't even have piles. It's just one big blob of papers haphazardly sliding all over the place.

It's been a busy week, and there hasn't been much time for correcting. Both the 7/8th graders and the 5/6th graders took a test. They've been bugging me to show them their grades. I finished the 5/6th graders' test, but only got halfway through the 7/8th graders', so those papers are in limbo. They had a project due too, so all of those papers are scattered around. Then there are the spelling tests and handwriting and other various worksheets... blech. Lots of correcting to do this weekend. At least I have a super comfy couch to sit on while I do it!

The Truth about the Big Bang Theory

Ohhh today was a GREAT day! Yesterday we learned about the Big Bang Theory in science class, which made them think about the tv show, so we listened to the theme song to dissect what the lyrics all mean.  This morning, a few of the kids came in SUPER excited to tell me that they'd been rewriting the lyrics on the bus so it fits creation!!! They told me what they had so far and asked if they could work on it at school.  "Sure! You can do it right now. Or even for Writers Workshop." "We can?!" They were even more excited. Then they had the idea to have the whole class sing the song. Then we had the idea to make a video of the class doing it! Then we had the idea to turn it into a class project!

So the start of our day was planning out this project. We nominated people to be lyric writers, a few screenplay writers (to turn it into acting), a few prop masters (to build scenery if needed), some singers and some actors. Oh man, it was all we could talk about all day. AWESOME!

In religion, we reread Genesis chapter one and the lyric writers took notes to add to the song. It was so good. So. Good.

Afternoon recess we went outside to play in the snow. Kids were skating on the ice and rolling in the snow mountain. It was great to see them so lighthearted and enjoying themselves so much.

Sigh. A great day.

Adjectives

Our read aloud book has a super genius main character who keeps her smarts a secret because she wants to 'be normal'. The truth comes out and when she's feeling particularly down about the way things have been going for her, one of her teachers (a librarian) asks her, "Why do you think you are so smart?" We had a good class discussion about that, how God gave each of us talents and what we should do with them. I said I have a connection to that librarian because I am excited to see what my students (past and present) will do with all the talents I see in them. Then my kiddos wanted to know what I think their talents are.

So I turned it into an English lesson! Some other teachers had given me the idea for a neat teacher gift to their students. They have the students write three positive adjectives that describe each classmate.  Then, secretly of course, the teacher puts them into a Wordle (a picture made of words where words used more often appear bigger than the other words) for each student and frames them. That's my plan for Christmas presents this year. Now to find 11 picture frames...

Couch update: As requested by my students, I showed them a picture of my couch. They thought it looked super comfortable, but it's not the same as the ones their families got.

Couch

My couch came today! It's my first furniture purchase, ever. All the other pieces I have are hand-me-downs or are from family members, which I of course love, but I thought my couch could use an upgrade. I picked out a big chocolate brown one that feels like you're sitting on marshmallows.

There is another home basketball game tonight at school and I had to duck out right at 3:00 so I could be home for the delivery guys. My kids wanted to know if they could stay in our room after school before the game, but I told them not today. Then of course they wanted to know why...

Two of them think that I bought the same kind of couch their parents just bought. Maybe it is. I told them I'd take a picture to show at school tomorrow. It's a lot bigger than I remember. It fits along the wall where my old couch was, but there isn't room for my blanket rack anymore. I'll have to find a new place for that. It will be easier once the old couch has been brought to its new home (a friend of mine claimed it to match hers). This couch isn't as cushy as I remember the one in the store being, but I suppose this one just needs to get broken in a little. Who knows how many people sat on the one in the store?

Solar System

I've been blowing lots of minds lately. Outer space is a super hard concept for 5th and 6th graders to understand... it seems like they get it, but then they see how big space is and how small Earth is compared to it, and they just get lost.

They want to talk about aliens and life on other planets and details about the sun and galaxies. All things we'll talk about later on in the unit, but they want to learn it RIGHT NOW! Too bad I don't have an invention that will put information directly into their minds, like a sponge soaking up all sorts of stuff. They'll just have to be patient I guess!

There are basketball games vs. Janesville tonight and as usual, the girls are using my room to change. They all remember me from last year and of course Joe too. As they looked around the room, checking things out, one said, "What? You let them write on their desks?!" (referring to their names written on their desks with sharpie markers... my version of a name tag. It never peels off!). The Janesville girls were even more shocked when I revealed that I was the one to write on the desks. So I explained how it works and how you can erase the name tags by writing over them with a dry erase marker. Then they wanted to see a demonstration. So I complied. Yep, it still works! Their minds were blown.

We have a big meeting at church tonight. Well, maybe it's not big, but I've been dreading it ever since I heard about it. It's called a Reconciliation Meeting and it's for congregation members to basically hash out everything they're thinking and feeling about the church. I wrote down a few notes on what I plan to say (positive things in support). One positive that's come from all this is that my students and I have had some decent discussions stem from this meeting. They're all on the supportive side of things and even wrote down a few notes for me to pass on at the meeting (if need be). They're pretty sad that some people in the congregation don't like certain things that are being done/certain people who work in the church. They said they'd be praying the meeting goes well! And they want to know who the nonsupportive people are, but I won't tell them (I don't know all of them myself even) because I don't want them to think less of those people. Which led to a discussion about reputations and how we view people.

Well, I'm going out to watch the girls play. I got to see the last three minutes of the boys' game and my students have been asking me nonstop if I'm going to watch them play. So, here I go!

Last Day

There were tears today. At least two of my students were crying when Miss M left for the last time today. We pushed off our celebration/gift giving time since one of the girls was at a dentist appointment, but eventually we couldn't wait any longer. That student had been the one who was supposed to give Miss M the flowers, but since she was gone, we had to pick someone else. They did a decent job of keeping the surprise a secret up until the last minute.

Finally I announced it was time. The people with jobs stood up, walked calmly to the closet, and came out in a single file line to hand Miss M her presents. They were so serious about it! Then they gave her individual cards and read parts of them out loud. She was very touched. They gave her so much stuff she needed help carrying it out to the car, so everyone except the new girl escorted Miss M to her car and gave her one last farewell hug... and that's when the waterworks started. Miss S said when she saw my class at lunchtime, all crying and red faced, she first thought they had gotten a really stern talking to until she remembered it was Miss M's last day.

In other news, everyone made their NaNo goals! Only one student hadn't met his by the end of the school day, and he told me today he was able to write the last words he needed in the car before the basketball game. Woohoo! Our final tally was: 67,309/65,400, or 103% of our goal. I handed them a winner certificate and Miss M handed them a noveling sticker (provided by the NaNo site) and a NaNo pin (also from the NaNo site). Last night I baked gingersnaps for a celebration snack today and I too finished my novel. Whew! Now on to Christmas...

Normal

Another pretty normal day. Nothing too out of the ordinary.

Miss M's lessons went well. Bells went well. The weather was nice so we went outside for afternoon recess. They convinced us (Miss M and me) to read an extra chapter of our read-aloud book. Everyone got spelling handed in on time. Only two more people (plus me) need to finish our NaNos.

Miss M wanted to know what we do with them after we're finished. The kids looked up their books on Amazon and showed her the book covers. It turns out you can read the first few pages of the book... then they all wanted to leave ratings on their books.

Well, I'm going to head home and finish up my NaNo and bake cookies for Miss M's last day tomorrow!

Rocks

The 7th and 8th graders had a guest speaker today. Patterson's Diamond Center in New Ulm connected me with him. I had contacted them a while ago to see if they'd come talk about gems and jewels in my class, but this is their busy season and no one is able to get away. BUT! This guy, Steve, is super knowledgeable about rocks and minerals. He has the 4th largest private collection of rocks and fossils in the US. 

He brought a bunch of fossils he's found, plus a meteorite, and a whole bunch of other types of rocks. Mr. Patterson had loaned him some uncut gems to show the class, so we got to see the natural form of many kinds of gems. It was very educational! And Mr. Patterson also sent along uncut emeralds to give to each of the students.

We had a few rocks lying around from when I had the 7-8th graders bring one to class. One is a really pretty translucent-ish purple rock. Steve identified it for us: chalcedony (pronounced kal-sydney). Cool!

Presents

I had a very productive after school. Well, it was productive after chitchatting with the other teachers and having my last parent/teacher conference. I crossed a bunch of things off my to-do list, printed the NaNo winner certificates (half of them have already met their goals), and researched strategies to help students remember what they're reading.

I have a few students who don't remember what they read. They'll read fluently out loud, but when I ask questions about the story, they draw a blank or just remember specific details. I need to teach them to use their brain when they read. One student I met with today seemed to think she was a lost cause when it comes to reading. She doesn't like reading because she can't remember anything from the story. Challenge accepted. Miss S and I talked about it after school today, and it seems like we'll be able to help each other out.

My kiddos added to the card for Miss M today. The 5th graders were respectful of the 6th graders and didn't draw on the front page. They wrote 'thank you' on the back page and drew a gorgeous flower and a unicorn. The 6th graders were impressed. In total, the class brought in $20 to spend on things for Miss M (two kids forgot and are going to bring their money tomorrow, so I just chipped in a few dollars). I bought her a balloon that says "You Rock!" from the Dollar Store, two bars of specialty chocolate (on sale at HyVee), and a cute little bouquet of flowers (green and white) also from HyVee. Everything is stashed safely in my apartment. Now all I need to do is get my NaNo written so I have time to bake cookies Thursday night!

I also had time while running errands to pick up more NaNo prizes from the Dollar Store, swing by the library (where I didn't check out too many books for once), and... I bought a couch! Yay! I've been thinking about upgrading from my free/used couch I got after college. Last week on a whim I tested out a few at the furniture store and fell in love with a cushy, plush, brown one. I could not get my mind off the couch all week! So today I went into the New Ulm branch and it turns out they have one. And they gave me a bit of a discount since I know Mrs. E (she used to work there). And it will fit through my narrow porch door no problem! It will be delivered to my apartment next week. Huzzah!

Now, time to settle in and write some words...

Words

Ohhh boy, am I behind on NaNo words... 7,000 words behind. According to the NaNo website, I have to write 3,000 words per day in order to finish in time. Yikes!

I did write over Thanksgiving break, but not as much as I'd been hoping. This morning I wrote while eating breakfast in between correcting papers and refreshing my memory about the science topic of the day.

My students are satisfied with their progress. A few are finished with their stories, a few have met their word goals but aren't finished with the story (they're still writing), and a few are worried about making their goal and are begging Miss M or me to type for them. I have confidence they'll all make it. Me on the other hand... this is the first year I'm worried I won't make my goal.

When I admitted my lack of words to my students, they told me I should write right now at my computer! This was during Daily 5, so it was actually a possibility. I wrote a few hundred words and bumped my word count up to 20,000. Only 10,000 words to go until I meet my goal! Hopefully tonight will be a big word night.

My kids are all sad that this is Miss M's last week in our classroom. They wanted to do something special for her, so I asked if they'd bring in $2-3 to buy her some flowers or chocolates or a balloon for her last day. I think I'll make treats too as an end of NaNo party. One 6th grader handed me a stack of quarters he'd pilfered from his desk. "Here's my $3 Miss H!" he announced. At the end of the day I asked if they wanted me to send a Remind out to their parents so they wouldn't forget, but they didn't want me to do that. We'll see how many remember!

The 6th graders made a card in computer class today. The 5th graders will add to it tomorrow. The 6th graders got a little possessive of it and had strict requirements where the 5th graders could and could not write/decorate. I told them it's everybody's card and they weren't allowed to put so many restrictions on it. We'll see if they listen.

They want her to come back for our Christmas program and for the spring musical and for just visiting our classroom. When they found out we sometimes get a student teacher in the spring for science/social, they wanted me to email her teacher to ask that Miss M get put in our classroom again. I'm on the fence about that. It would be super fun to have Miss M back again, but it would also be fun to meet a new student teacher too... We'll see what happens I guess!

Family Write Night

Yesterday got so busy I forgot to post!

Right after school, my kiddos and I rearranged the classroom to make stations for Write Night. We set out games and prompts and candy. We had 45 people show up and all 10 pizzas were eaten. No leftovers! Everyone had plenty. There were only 10 pieces of candy left by the end of the night too. Good timing!

The new student's first day (yesterday) went well too. She was pretty shy and didn't say a whole lot, go figure. She seemed overwhelmed by the new schedule, but perked up quite a bit today. She raised her hand a lot more and was a bit more chatty.

I shared Guatemala pictures with the 7/8th graders and the 5/6th graders. It was so hard to keep it down to a half an hour. I could've talked at least an hour. But we had bells and Christmas program practice to get to, so I had to keep it short.

Well, I think I have everything wrapped up at school. We have the rest of the week off for Thanksgiving. I don't have a ton of papers to correct or too many lessons to plan. My NaNo words have been sadly lacking, so that's my big project for the weekend. I'm 8,000 words behind... yikes! Hopefully I can buckle down and write like my pencil's on fire!

WhatchamaDRAWit

I meant to write this earlier, except things got busy before I left school...

The new student and her mom stopped by later than I'd expected, but we had a chance to introduce ourselves and get her acquainted with the classroom, etc. I threw so much information at them, I will be surprised if any of it sinks in. Most of it is written on the papers I gave them, so if they look at that, they'll be fine. They don't have a working computer at home, so doing NaNo at home will be a problem... I'm not sure what to set her word goal at. We're halfway through the month, so it should be 1000 or less, but with Thanksgiving break in there, it maybe should be even less... Her homework over the weekend is to start her story by hand, and she can always type it at school. Which reminds me... she needs an account. You think the IT guys will make one for her before the end of the year?

We had time for art today for once, and we used the time to FINALLY do our leaf projects. We started saving leaves in September and pressed them in our Bibles to keep them safe. Not all of them had enough leaves, so they could go outside and get more. Lots of leaf piles on the desks. Some made their whole picture from leaves, some added pencil/pen lines to make their picture more detailed. After they finished that, we tried our new art game. It's super fun! WhatchamaDRAWit is kind of like Apples to Apples. A prompt card is drawn, and everyone has to draw what's on the card. After everyone is done, you get to vote for your favorite. Each pod got a stack of cards and competed amongst themselves. Examples of the cards include: an ice cream cone riding a bike playing the trumpet, or a friendly monster with 13 eyes, 8 arms, and three heads. During art, we listened to the Christmas program music. Man is it catchy! We start practice next week already.

The other fun thing we did today was for English. I had Miss M make construction paper folders and glue landscape calendar pages inside. Each student got one folder (numbered on the inside). They had to keep it a total secret while writing a story that takes place in the scene, or a descriptive paragraph of it. Then each got to read their paragraph while their classmates tried to guess which number the story matched with. They LOVED it. We have plenty of folders to do it again. And the end of the year is coming up, so people will be getting rid of their calendars. I can make some more! I wanted to make it challenging, so I tried to have some pictures that looked kind of similar, so they'd need to write more description to get their classmates to guess correctly. Miss M and I also wrote descriptive paragraphs. Pretty much everyone guessed everyone right!

PTC

Whew, this day has been a doozy.

Last night I typed up a pre-conference survey for my students to take, just to see what they think about school and how they're doing. I had to print everything off before piano lessons started this morning and the office was occupied.

School itself was a doozy too. Two girls strategized to use their seating swap coupons to their advantage and they used a 6th grade boy as a pawn. The only thing is, this boy is the only one who's ever been swapped with, so he felt like no one in class liked him; they all wanted to get rid of him. This isn't the case at all... he has just had good seats!  But in the moment that doesn't matter. He felt sensitive about it, which made the others get on his case even more, which made him even more emotional... bad cycle that wouldn't stop. He left the room to take a break and hung out in the coatroom for a while. I was worried about him and left the rest of the class to their own devices (spanish tap game) so I could have a chat with him and see how he was doing.

While we were out there, Mr. E stopped by to ask something and he assumed this student had done something bad and I was out there to chew him out... so he stepped in to reinforce what I was saying. Except (to me) it felt like we went backwards instead of forwards. Of course, it had to happen right about lunch time, so we had to wrap it up.

Our school has a 'feel better' program (that's not actually what it's called, but it's all I can think to call it at the moment) where students can write a person's name down and stick it in the box and someone will write an encouraging message to that person to make their day a little better. So I poked my head in the preschool room and asked Miss F if she could quick write one up for this student.  She did and enlisted the help of some 5th and 6th graders to sneak it into his desk. I found out from his mom later tonight that it helped turn his day around! Whew!

By the end of the day, he was back to his usual self and life was better in our classroom. At afternoon recess we played human tug of war and everyone had a blast. The two boys got to be team captains and we ended recess with a boys vs. girls match. Good times.

Parent teacher conferences went well. I stayed on schedule. Most parents got to leave early since their conferences didn't go the whole 15 minutes. A few went over a tiny bit, but the next in line was never out their waiting, so I'd say things went smoothly!

I also had enough time to plan next week's lessons (it's only a two day week) and print things off for our new student! All I need to do for her is to get a hymnal from the office and get a desk for her, things easily accomplished tomorrow.

Official

It's official! Our new student starts Monday. She and her mom will stop after school Friday to put stuff in her desk/get acclimated. Woohoo! It's definitely a God thing... a few weeks ago, I had just been thinking, "You know, it'd be nice to get a new student in class. It's been a while. I'd like to have one more." And lo and behold, here we are. God is awesome. That's all I can say about that.

Mr. E stopped in right before read-aloud to tell me it was official (while my students were getting their snack, getting a drink/bathroom break). I was so excited I decided to make the announcement right after he left. My face split into a huge smile and I told the students who were in the room, "I have some big news as soon as everyone is back in the room!" They lit up like they'd been jolted with a bolt of electricity and scurried to gather the wandering classmates. Before I could tell them, they tried to guess. One 6th grader shouted, "Are you engaged?!" I waved my empty ring finger at them and they all sagged a bit. "Aww! That was my guess." But they were all really happy when I revealed we'd be getting a new 5th grade girl. The boys were excited and then not as excited when they realized they'd be even more outnumbered... "How come it's never a boy?" one asked. "Why not recruit some? Talk to your friends at Nicollet. See if they want to come here. They could!" His argument was that one guy wouldn't change schools if he only knew one person at this school. My response, "Get like five of them to come!" Then we'd have 16 students. That would be amazing! Except it would be pretty crowded. But we'd make it work.

We had a bit of a crazy day today. This morning was super windy, so chapel ended up being over here at school. My class set up the altar and brought the piano in, except the usual space was taken up by Operation Christmas Child tables/boxes/toys prepped for packing after chapel. So we rapid-fire cleaned the gym equipment out of the corner and pulled the rest of the bleachers out. This is the first time Chapel has been in the gym this year and the first time we've ever had it on the far side of the gym.

Packing boxes was fun. Miss S did a fantastic job setting everything up so it would run smoothly. And the kids had a blast filling their boxes with toys and school supplies and hygiene items (soap, toothbrush, etc.). We packed 51 boxes!

They were pretty wound up after that, and the computers weren't working, and we were SO CLOSE to finishing our read-aloud book, that we ended up reading aloud the whole morning. The climax of the book we're reading is so emotional. And right after that part, there's another even more emotional part. First your mad, then you're scared/sad. Every time I read the second climax, I tear up. (Spoiler alert, the main character's baby sister sneaks out of the house as they're leaving to take her to school and the mom accidentally runs her over... but she's okay. But you don't find that out until later). I had warned them that I might cry while I read the book, which got them all intrigued (and a little excited too... after all, how often does your teacher cry in school?). And yes, I did cry at that part. Half the class did too, so I wasn't alone. It's one of those cases where seeing other people crying makes you cry more. But we got through it and they loved the ending of the book. And now we have to pick a new one to read. I have one in mind, but we're going to wait to start it until Monday so our new student can start it with us.

CPR

We had CPR training after school from 3:30-5:30. It was good, especially after yesterday's strange non-fainting situation, but it really sucked the afternoon away. I'm wiped out and am ready for a break...

My computer is being frustrating... the Bible school teacher asked if I'd be able to make a bunch of cds of the Christmas program music for the Bible school families to take home so they can listen/memorize the music better. I made 9 out of 20 when my iTunes froze up and now I can't get it to open again. I guess I should give up and go home and do the rest tomorrow.

Before I do, one quick story from today. One of the 6th graders is starting trombone lessons this Friday. He got his instrument last week (renting it from the public school) and wanted to show us, so he brought it to school today. It was cute; right away when he got to school he let me know it was here. Then before we went to lunch, he set the case on his desk, carefully opened it (making a big production out of it) and put the horn together. Of course everyone wanted to hear him play it, but it was so nervous with everyone watching he couldn't make a sound! He made everyone close their eyes or look away... even me! He did play it for us, which made most of his classmates laugh at the crazy sound.

At afternoon recess he put it together again and brought it outside, playing it when he could. He even found a way to get it involved in a game... he used it as the starting noise for a race between classmates.  So creative!

Everyone wanted to see how he got the spit out of the trombone. They also wanted him to play the song from this video (a class favorite). By the end of recess, he actually got it pretty close! The rhythms anyway. It made me miss band again. I want an instrument to play! I was this close to asking him if I could play it, but then I thought back to my band days and how grossed out I was when my band teacher played my instrument, so I thought maybe I better not.

This student promised to bring his instrument back and play us an actual song once he actually takes some lessons!

Timber

I had a first today... a student dropped to the ground while we practiced singing this morning.

Everyone was lined up at the front of the room. We'd been singing for a while when all of a sudden she stumbled and fell into the back row of boys. They all thought she'd tripped or someone had pushed her, and they tried to catch her, but she kept falling, sliding to the floor, knocking into other classmates, finally landing on someone's shoe.

The way she fell reminded me of other people I've seen faint, so I hustled over as fast as I could, calmly freaking out in my head, if that's possible. I got to her just as she hit the ground (her head landed on a classmate's shoe so she didn't get hurt as she fell).  I called her name (quietly so other kids wouldn't get freaked out). When she didn't respond I tapped her on the shoulder and called her name again. I must've done it about five times before she finally looked at me and said, "What?" That was the scariest part. Thoughts running through my head as I called her name: Oh boy, how to keep everyone calm when they find out something's wrong? Do we need to call an ambulance? How's that going to work? Should we clear everyone out? Is she having a seizure? No, I don't think so. Maybe she just fainted. Thank the Lord everyone is staying where they are and not crowding around her...

She said she just got light headed and that she'd felt sick all weekend and hadn't eaten any breakfast (plus it was pretty hot in Mr. E's room). So we walked her to the office and called her mom to come get her. She was fine walking to the office and our room to wait for her mom, but she did look awful pale.

The poor 1st and 2nd graders thought it was contagious... Miss S said they kept asking her if they'd fall over next. Everyone in my class was super worried until Mr. E and I came back in the singing room and gave them the nod/mouthed the words "She's okay." Whew! Something I don't want to have happen again!

Veteran's Day

Guess what! I might be getting a new 5th grade student! Another girl. It's a girl who currently goes to the public school, but I recognize her from church. And, word on the street (aka- the classroom), is that one of the 6th grade boys has a crush on her. Or his classmates tease him about liking her anyway. Oh boy... hopefully that is long gone and I won't have to deal with it (but I have a feeling it's not).

The Veteran's Day program at Nicollet was really good. The 5th graders did a presentation about the Constitution and the Articles of Confederation. Super interesting. We haven't gotten to that part of American history, but we will, so hopefully when the time comes my kiddos will remember that part of the service. The main speaker was a navy man who's from Nicollet. He worked for many years on a submarine and had done missions/work involving nuclear stuff. Whew! He was interesting, but used such unfamiliar, big words that my students didn't understand everything he said, which caused them to be a bit bored.

The band played. Oh man, it made me miss band. The choir sang too, but my heart isn't as tied to choir as it is to band. Both sounded very nice. This year, they told us the history of the 21 guns, or the beginning origins of the tradition... before a group would surrender, they'd shoot off 21 guns to use up their ammo and show that they were giving up peacefully; they couldn't fight any more.  My students were glad we could stay inside for the 21 gun salute. They don't like loud noises. The men went outside to shoot, but had the doors open so everyone could hear. Then they played Taps. It gets me every time. All in all a very nice service.

We got back to school right at the end of the day, prayed, and went home!

Kids...

Today's lunch discussion led to verrry interesting territory. It started by one of them going around the table asking what everyone's dream job was. Jokingly, the 6th grader asked me my dream job. "Stay at home mom," I said without missing a beat.  They looked shocked since they thought 'teacher'  would be my answer. "Teacher is my second dream job," I followed up. Then they asked about marriage and how old I wanted to be before I got married and somehow that led to what time am I going to make my kids go to bed when I have some. Which led to them sharing what time they have to go to bed... A few said 7:30, a bunch said 8 or 8:30. One said 9:30, and two said whenever they want. Then they remembered I hadn't answered.

"Miss H, what time are you going to make your kids go to bed?" My answer was not so polished: Uhh... well, I guess I haven't thought about it yet... Then I said I would probably wait until I was actually going to have a kid, then do research about it or read about it before I decided anything. They asked me a few more questions about my future children, most of which I didn't know the answer to, before I finally said, "You know, right now, you guys are my kids, so I mostly read stuff that helps me know how to teach you better. When I'm a mom, then I'll figure that stuff out for my kids."

Then they wanted to know if I would home school my future kids. I said probably not. "Why not?" they asked, "You're a teacher. Why wouldn't you want to teach them yourself?" My answer: oh because I think they should get to hang out with other kids and I'll still to 'teachery' things with them at home like reading before bed and devotions and stuff like that. That answer seemed to satisfy them.

Then we got back to the marriage topic... but I kicked them out to the gym for recess!

PTL

The PTL meeting just got over. Well, the main part ended at 7:30, but there was an 'open forum' to discuss the pork chop dinner and silent auction. Some people complained. Some people were near tears (or close to tears). Overall it was fairly civil, though I'm not sure that we solved any problems or issues. Other than that the meeting went well.

Since the meeting didn't start until six, I had time to spare after school. I cataloged the box of books that's been waiting patiently beside my desks for three weeks. They were books I got at library book sales. I was a little disappointed so many of the books were repeats, books I already have a copy of. But most of them ILS doesn't own a copy, so I'll just donate them to the school. I added some 'Miss H' reviews to the fronts of books I really love. Many of them are books I read when I was in grade school, so the covers aren't super appealing to the modern-day 5th/6th grader. Maybe the review will persuade some students to read those books!

The 7th and 8th graders had a test today in ancient history. It was on Africa and it was a hard test so I let them use their notes on it. It was still hard for them (some of the things Mrs. L hadn't covered very in-depth while I was gone), so I let them have open book too. Overall, I think they did pretty well. Hopefully these next units will be easier.

Prizes and Seats

Ah, the first day of a new quarter... always a full day.

First, we changed the seating chart. I did pretty good this time; only one person was dissatisfied with her seat. In preparation for the (potentially) many complaints about who has to sit by who, I made some 'Seat Switch' coupons they could earn by reading more books (BINGO prizes) or writing more words (NaNo prizes). They were huge hits. Since I was in coupon making mode this weekend, I made a bunch of other ones: Miss H types for one round, chew gum in class one morning, pick a redo round for Daily 5.

We only had time to pass out BINGO prizes today, so not many coupons were taken. NaNo prizes are on the agenda for tomorrow and I'm sure many coupons will be picked then. There was quite the class discussion about the use of the coupons, most resulting in a class vote. How many can people take at a time? The result from voting: up to three. Can people switch seats with people who don't want to switch? Yes, but if that person has a coupon, they could switch back. Can the seating swap coupons be used for lunch seats?

Yes, my class has not forgotten that lunch seats are assigned. Their choice, not mine. That was the second thing we did this morning. I had totally forgotten about it until someone said, "Yes! We get to change lunch seats today!" So we drew sticks right away since I knew they wouldn't be able to concentrate if we didn't get it out of the way. It mostly went the way people wanted it to, although two people are very disappointed with their seats. They were the ones who asked if coupons could be used for lunch seats. Surprisingly, the class voted that yes, they can be used. Personally, it doesn't matter to me, so if they want to use their coupon at lunch, by all means. Only four seat swap coupons were made, and they can't be reused until someone redeems one.

On a totally different note, some of the games for our Family Write Night came today. Super fast! I only ordered them Saturday. I wonder if my kids will notice them on my desk and ask to play them early. Perhaps. Or maybe they'll be too focused on NaNo to want to play games. Some kids are way ahead and some are way behind. It's a good thing Miss M is coming tomorrow; she can help type for kids too. I already have a meeting scheduled with one of the 5th graders who doesn't know what to write next in her story.

The prizes are a huge motivator. Two students told me they're going to write so they get over 1000 words so they can get a 'big' prize tomorrow (aka- a class coupon). We'll see! I still need to write my words tonight, but my energy is flagging. Running errands all over town will do that! The rest of the nights this week won't be much better, energy-wise. Tomorrow there's a PTL meeting, Thursday I have errands in Mankato, and then Friday I have nothing. So maybe I can take it easy Friday. Good thing it's a short week!

Fall Carnival

Whoa boy, today was a doozy. Go, go, go!!! All day long.

Spelling took longer to correct this morning than I thought it would, so I didn't have time to correct their science tests (a lot of them are worried about it). Then I thought I'd work on it at school before they came... I was halfway to school when I realized I left part of my Fall Carnival costume at home. So I turned around to get it and got to school later than I wanted to. Then there were emails to deal with and students who came early and questions to answer for the 7-8th graders. I got back to my classroom five minutes after the bell rang which pushed our whole morning off schedule.

But, as I knew it would, it turned out okay. We had enough time to squeeze everything in (spelling tests, carnival setup, Reading Buddies, preschool carnival). The preschoolers had a good party. We had enough time to do a Read to Self round and time to work on NaNos, although no one was very focused. We even had time to play the spanish tap game before lunch.

The 7th and 8th graders were supposed to present their video projects today, but not all of them had finished editing the videos. One one group of three was ready, and they were the group I had been most worried about finishing! Their video was pretty good too, although it took a while to figure out how to watch it at school. He uploaded it to Facebook, except he didn't know his password to log on via my computer. Thankfully, another classmate was friends with him, so that classmate logged on and we watched it through his page. The other two groups decided they would take a test instead since they wouldn't have their videos ready. Sigh. All that work for nothing. Yet most of them said they'd do a video project again. They just didn't get their act together in time. Maybe they'll send it to me over the weekend for extra credit.

It's the end of the quarter today. No school Monday! I'm excited to have an extra day since last weekend was pretty packed. Hopefully I'll have time to de-stress and get caught up on a few things. Everything is loaded in my car so I can leave straight from school. I'm Fulda-bound, with a possible detour to Truman, and a for sure detour to the New Ulm library for their annual book sale!

Pictures

School pictures came today. The kids were all excited, although some were not terribly thrilled with their photos. Retake day is coming up in a few weeks; some of mine will probably get retakes.

I got school pictures too. They give each teacher complimentary pictures. I liked mine better last year... oh well.

NaNo day two was even better than day one. A bunch had written at home last night and their word counts showed it. One girl (the midnight writer) wrote on her phone as she rode the bus to school! She's up to 800 words today. Two others are close behind, both in the 700s, one 5th and one 6th grader. They're having a competition!

Our total class goal for the month (including mine) is 755,000 words! So far, we've written a collective 7292 words! Woohoo! That's a lot of words. We'll get there though! I have a feeling some will boost their word goals more as the month goes on. I did get 2000 words of my own novel written last night. Let's see how many more I get tonight...

After school the Courtland Guatemala team had an interview over at church with the Lafayette Ledger for an article about our trip. She wanted more pictures of the kids doing crafts than Vicky had, so I volunteered to send her some. While I was at it, I made a sharing folder for the pictures so everyone on the team can upload there. Another person was supposed to do it, but she's swamped with school work, so hopefully she isn't disappointed I took that job off her plate. And hopefully everyone can add pictures to it. You need a google account. We added some other interested persons to the group so they can see the pictures, but can't upload. Good way to share!

My pictures are taking forever to upload them all. For some reason, my computer is being really slow. I think I may give up for the day and go home. It's time for me to eat some supper.

Speaking of food... there have been so many birthdays this week, and therefore treats! I've had three cupcakes, plus other candy my kiddos have shared. Today's lunch menu featured dessert, but I had to pass... just too many sweets this week. I still have one cupcake sitting on my desk, waiting for me to eat it, but the thought of more sugar just isn't doing it for me right now.

Tomorrow is the Fall Carnival, hosted by the 5th and 6th grade class. It's all planned and run by the students; I just organize the times and setups. Still, I should dress up, since it's my class. I think I'll go as Abigail from National Treasure. She wears jeans, a black shirt, and a tan leather jacket. Simple, comfortable, still festive.

Treats

Well, that student didn't wake up at midnight to write her NaNo... she forgot, which is fine since I'd rather have her at school well rested.

Whew! Today was a doozy. The NaNo site froze a few times since it's the first day. Then students couldn't figure out how to log in or why their word counts weren't showing up (they'd been writing in the Novel Notes section, not the Chapter section). But we got it all straightened out. The word count chart in the front of the classroom is sprouting little bars of color. One girl's goal (the midnight writer) for today is to get up to 500 words. She said if she writes 500 words each day, she'll meet her goal in 8 days! But she doesn't want to do that; I think she'll bump her goal up when she gets close to the 8,500 words she set.

I played music (instrumental) during the morning and shared cookies and hot chocolate from El Salvador (yes, I still had a little left). At first they all thought the cocoa was good, but I think I added too much water or else the cocoa settled at the bottom so it wasn't as sweet and flavorful as they thought. It's much different than American cocoa, that's for sure!

Half the cookies were ones I brought back from Guatemala (Lily, our Guatemalan leader bakes them and sells them in stores in the area... Walmart actually asked her to mass produce them for their store, but she didn't want to expand her business that much so she said no.) and half were ones I baked last night for trick or treaters. I had a bunch, all were kids from school. A few that said they would come didn't, but that was because they couldn't remember which house number I was. Oh well, they got cookies today! Only one kid took candy; everyone else went with warm cookies. Man, they were good! It was a premade jar someone had given me a while ago as a present... just add butter and an egg! Super easy, super delicious.

Our student teacher, Miss M visited after school. Oh the kids are going to love her! She's pretty and has a kind face (steps one and two to winning over my students' hearts) and a nice voice. I gave her copies of the class roster with pictures, a potential reading/English plan for the month, and the two books I use to run Daily 5 and Writer's Workshop. She's going to come in right away in the morning to help kids with math and other stuff, so she'll actually be here from 8:15-11ish most days. She starts next Wednesday.

All NaNo's Eve

The last day of October... that means tomorrow is November first, All Saints Day as well as the first day of NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month!

My kiddos are super excited after all the novel plotting we've done with their characters and conflict and dialogue. One girl said she's going to set her alarm for 11:45pm so she can wake up and start writing right at midnight!!! I wonder if she'll do it for real...

I hung up our NaNo stat chart, where they can keep track of how many words they've written. Today I met with a few students who wanted to go over what their story is about (matching it up with the Plot Rollercoaster aka rising action, climax, falling action, etc.) so they know what to write tomorrow. And we also went over possible ways to start their stories. Show not tell!

Tomorrow is also a staff meeting right after school along with my meeting with our future student teacher! I broke the news in social studies today. We are studying colonial America and the possible jobs/apprenticeships they could have. To explain, I used a teacher as an example, how I had to learn from another teacher when I was back in college... which gave me the idea to say that we're having a teacher apprentice come to our classroom! It wasn't as grand a reveal as I'd been hoping; I think I confused a few of them with my referring to her as an apprentice. Then the 6th graders got all excited thinking our student teacher from last spring, Miss W, would be coming back again. No, our new teacher will be Miss M and she'll be here for most of November, starting on the 8th.

The 7th and 8th graders were extra quiet today. It's either lasting effects from Mrs. L, or they were just happy to have me back. Whatever the reason, it was nice. Bells went okay today too. We had to highlight our new songs and one of them threw me for a loop. The second page had two sharps instead of one but I hadn't noticed a key change, and when we played it, it sounded awful, like a totally different song. Just random notes. The bottom of the page didn't have the double bar showing it was the end of the song, so I figured we were just missing a page of the song. It turns out Miss S had accidentally copied the second page of a totally different song! So she copied the correct page and I stuck it in all the folders. Thursday they'll have to re-highlight that page, but I'm sure the song will sound MUCH better.

My kiddos said they're coming to my house trick or treating tonight, so I should head home to pass out candy. We talked about the tradition of Trick or Treating and where it came from, how Martin Luther probably went door to door and got cider and some kind of treat/snack... I said I thought about baking cookies too and passing them out. Some kids said they'd rather have cookies than candy! So maybe I will mix up a batch...

Back Again!

Well, Guatemala was fun! We had no trouble traveling there or back (or in the country, for that matter). We learned interesting things and have much to think about for next year's trip. They're talking about going again at the beginning of June. I already have travel plans at that time, so I won't be going along, but perhaps a future trip.

My students missed me while I was gone. Their parents told me so at church on Sunday, especially the 7-8th grade parents... that was a bit unexpected! One mom told me I'm never allowed to leave again because they miss me so much!

The reformation service went well. My kiddos said their parts wonderfully and knew their song verse the best out of all the grades. Our bell songs... eh, the first one was a bit of a disaster. It's a challenging version of "A Mighty Fortress" and we had trouble getting it down during practice. Miss S did the best she could practicing with them this week, but having a huge audience at church psyched them out and they got lost and kept messing up and all we could do was keep playing... Yeah, we've had better performances. But the point is to give glory to God, so even though it wasn't the best sounding song, our hearts were in the right place.  On the other hand, the song we played for offering was great!

The mixed choir song at the end of the service sounded great too... quite a few of my kids commented on it after church and even at school today. It's called, "Here I Stand" and includes quotes from Martin Luther including his famous words, "Here I stand, I can do no other." The song ends with a high A for sopranos (optional) and each week we practiced I thought about trying to hit it, but I wasn't confident. Practicing before the service I gave it a shot and nailed it! Woo! So I ended the song on a high note ;) and hit it then too.

School today was pretty good. My kiddos literally ran into the classroom (still in their hats and coats) to say good morning to me. It felt good to be loved. The first 15 minutes of the day were spent complaining about the sub... not that she was bad, she was just stricter than I am and she wouldn't let them use the iPad to look up words the whole week, so spelling took extra long, and she wouldn't help them on their homework, they had to figure it out for themselves, and they had to be super duper quite during their rounds and she made them split up if they whispered too loud and she did lunch count weird... haha, I can't remember all the stuff they said. But I think the week went better than they made it sound, and I think they liked her more than they made it sound too.

They did say she didn't read our read-aloud book much while I was gone. They said she didn't seem too in-to the story and only read a few pages. And she didn't do the voices of the characters so they couldn't tell who was saying what. She ended up reading them other books, like a Martin Luther book I had left out on the podium. Can't say I'm sad about that. Now they learned more about Martin Luther and I get to read my favorite parts of our book!!!

In summary, it's good to be back.

The other exciting thing we did today was carve pumpkins! Mrs. B had about 20 left in her garden and she offered as many to me as I could use. So I brought 12 over to school over the weekend before the hard frost came. One pumpkin had frozen a little and was a bit mushy. One pumpkin was too thick and hard to cut into, so we left that one. It's a good thing I brought extras!

It worked out perfectly because the 7-8th graders were gone in the afternoon for a field trip to drug court (trials/hearings for people arrested for drug use/possession).  No math, which gave us an extra hour to use up... art time!

I brought a few knives from home to cut the tops out, but otherwise we used the dissecting kits at school, specifically the scalpels (they're not that sharp). Most of the pumpkins were under-ripe so their skin was tough to cut into. Still, we made it work! We had to get creative with fixing bits where too much was cut away or attaching bits that fell off with toothpicks. I think they turned out great.

Packing Up

There are lots of notes on the board. We were a little rushed at the end of the day... I forgot to have them fill out their Writers' Workshop self assessments and their Daily 5 sheets before lunch, so it was a last minute scramble. And some of them still didn't turn their forms in. My sub won't know who hasn't turned everything in, so I made a note. We didn't finish our Thanksgiving webquest today, so I made a note of the students who haven't finished. And of course our daily to-do list.

Before I leave, I want to have everything laid out for my sub. It will be weird to leave my flashdrive and clipboard here! Those things are never far from my side since they hold pretty much my entire life.

Last night I packed my suitcase and backpack. I have plenty of room in there, even with my rubber boots (it's supposed to rain all seven days) and the extra toys people donated after Sunday. I'm bringing a bunch of snacks... crackers, fruit leather, and granola bars. Hopefully it's enough! I also started my malaria medication today; it starts two days prior to travel. Can you believe I leave in a day and a half? Yikes! I still find it hard to believe.

My plan for tonight is to finish correcting my papers, hand them back to students, and work on Upwork lesson plans. I have one more lesson assigned to me that I want to finish before I leave. After that, I can assign myself lessons to write (this is for the freelance writing work). Tomorrow's Lutheran Educator Conference starts at 8:45 and goes until 5. Then it will be an early bedtime! We're leaving for the airport Friday morning around 1:15am. Ufda! It will be a long day...

Picture Day

Today's high was 75 degrees. Normally, I'd just roll with the temperature, but today was picture day. I had my outfit all picked out... except I thought it was supposed to be in the upper 60s/lower 70s, so my outfit was built with cooler weather in mind. I thought about wearing it anyway, but my classroom is not a great conductor so it's hard to keep the temperature constant. I knew my room would be hot in the afternoon (we turned the air conditioner on today even!), so I changed clothes at the last minute.

Blech, guys have it easy! Throw on a shirt and tie and you're good to go! I found an okay outfit and my hair looked okay, so I guess picture day was fine after all. Still, I wish I could've worn my original outfit! It was way cuter than what I actually wore. Oh well.

We had an impromptu guest speaker before lunch. It was a volunteer coordinator from a Thanksgiving dinner celebration. They make homemade food and serve it free to anyone who wants to come. They have a garden to grow onions, potatoes, squash, and pumpkins for the meal. They've done it for the past 30 years and serve around 1000 people every year! Wow! The committee has placemats on each table, and they ask local schools to decorate them. This year our school was picked. They needed 400 placemats, which means each student would have to make 8. That's too many, so we're making 200 and the volunteer will ask another school to decorate some too. One last thing to start before I leave for a week!

I have most things ready to go. Tonight my goal is to pack my suitcase. Tomorrow I'm hoping to hang out with my farmer one last time before I leave the country, so today is kind of my last day to get things in place.  Most things at school are printed out. I have a few more things to set in prominent places, but I can't do that until all the kids are gone (resetting the classroom for next week). Man, I hope I remembered everything. I'm sure if I did forget something, it'll be fine. Still, I'd like to be as prepared for all eventualities if I can be.

"No Mom"

My kids were chatterboxes today. This seems to be the usual Monday pattern. They just can't seem to keep their mouths shut in my room. They all say they know when they're supposed to be quiet, but for whatever reason, they don't do it. It's super frustrating. The worst part is, they don't get that it's being disrespectful towards me. Or they do get it, but they don't care. Or maybe today was just a crabby day and tomorrow will be better.

During Daily 5 time, a few of them picked Read to Someone since we don't have spelling or handwriting (it's a short week because of MEA). One of the books they read is called No David and is about a boy who keeps getting into trouble. All the words in the book are from the adult/teacher chastising David until the very end when he does something good. They've read that book hundreds of times and might even have it memorized. To mix things up today, they decided to switch "David" for "Mom".  Boy, that made the story silly.  I'm sure they pictured their mothers sticking gum in their hair or shoving in the lunch line or digging up plants they weren't supposed to... "No running, Mom." "Clean up your mess, Mom." Lots of giggling from that corner of the room.

Mrs. L (my sub) visited today. She didn't stay as long as I thought she would, it was maybe a half an hour? My students wrote a 'Welcome' sign on the board and had everyone (me too) write their names up there. She and I went over a few things, but she's taught in a small Lutheran school before, so she didn't need too much going over. She had brought her baby along, and the kids couldn't keep their eyes off her (she was in a front pouch backpack thing on Mrs. L).

After school I printed a bunch of stuff for next week. I still have more to do, but I had to leave to run errands. I did get my errands run, one of which included putting money on a prepaid international card so I don't have to bring my debit/credit cards along. I snuck in right before closing time!

Volleyball

Well, B squad volleyball is officially over. Our last game was last night; the A squad has a tournament this weekend.  The girls played hard the first game and went into triple overtime. You have to win by two, so we went back and forth with Janesville about three or four times past the usual 25 points. But we lost.  And we lost the second game too, although it was close for a while. The last game we finally won! Yay! But it was neck and neck towards the end again.

So many exciting things coming up... my sub visits Monday morning, I leave for Guatemala in less than a week, and I have a student teacher coming in November! This morning I got an email from the BLC placement teacher that told me what her name is and a little more about her. Now I'm even more excited. I told myself I wouldn't tell my kids right away because there are already so many exciting things happening and I don't want the student teacher to be overshadowed by the other stuff. So I'm making myself wait, even though I really want to spill... Oh it was so hard today! I kept thinking of how to get the student teacher involved in our reading routines which made me smile, and of course my kids noticed that, which meant they wanted to know why. Some chalked it up to other random things, but at the end of the day, they figured out I had something exciting to tell them. They were not happy when I wouldn't tell them. "Does it have to do with just you or does it include us?" they asked. And they were even more frustrated when they found out it had to do with them.

"Why won't you tell us????" they whined.
"I will tell you, just not until after I get back from Guatemala."
"But that's SO FAR AWAY!" 
"You'll survive."
Boy, I hope I can hold out that long...

Sub Plans

Whew, I think my sub plans are complete! I spent last night working on them again and I think I even have the week after I get back planned out two. Hopefully not too much changes!

In NaNo prep I introduced the concept of conflict to them. They understood the concept, but they're having trouble applying it to their stories. Monday I will meet with each of them and try to help them iron it out in their stories.

Mrs. L will be in school with us on Monday too. She's coming at 9:30, so it's really important that we stay on track! We'll see if that happens or not... although lately I have been better about sticking to our schedule.

Today started out right on track; we even wrapped up religion a bit early. But since there was a little time, I looked up a version of the song we're singing in church on the 29th on Youtube and they liked it so much we had to watch it twice. (It's funny because before that they had all been grumbling about practicing music. But once they recognized the song, they loved it!). That reminded me of another 'Christian power jam' song, so we listened to that one too. Which reminded them of another good christian song, so we listened to that one too. We still had time to do read aloud, DOL, Workshop, and all our rounds, so we weren't too far off schedule.

I had forgotten that a grandpa was bringing in his Native American artifacts today... he's brought them before, but not since my first year teaching when his other granddaughter was in my class. I forgot he was coming until I saw his head peek in one of our windows. So I had a 6th grader open the side door for him and he set up his artifacts while I kept teaching English. We took a break to look at his stuff. He had scrapers, arrow heads, broken knives, fire starters, and pottery with designs etched in.  And a light up magnifying glass! Boy they had fun with that. Before the grandpa left, he told me if I want him to come back again (even if he doesn't have a granddaughter in my class), he still will come, I just have to let him know. I'll have to keep that in mind!

Pokey Little Puppies

Holy cow my kiddos were pokey at the end of the day! They came back from PE and lingered at the lab table, talked to each other a while, turned off the computers... but they never came back to their desks so we could pray and go home! They wasted almost 10 minutes! Finally I got most of them rounded up, but man, it took a while.

My sub binder is finished. I still need to write plans for the week I'm gone, but the 'Sub Tub' has allllll the info my sub will ever need while I'm gone. Routines and procedures, student lists/photo directories, fire/tornado evacuation plans, nurse contact info. For real. It's all in there. Whew!

The fire fighters came today. My kids were quiet at first, but they got warmed up after a few questions. I got some good pictures of them outside by the fire trucks. They got to try on the uniforms  (boots and helmets too!) and even sprayed the fire hose for a while. That took up most of our morning after chapel. We finished the morning with extra read-aloud time and a short round of read to self. They are super into the new read-aloud book we switched to! I've read it before, but I'm still sad that I'll miss reading to them for a week. I hope the sub has as good a time as I do reading it!

NaNo

My kids started brainstorming about their characters today. I did too, and now I'm excited to write my story! Only 21 days and counting... My writing prompt board on Pinterest is full of funny dialogue lines that seem spy-ish, so my main characters are 21 year old twin brothers who are spies; one is smart/sarcastic/responsible and one is kind of crazy/doesn't always think before acting. Their family is rich and they have a sister getting married (and the wedding goes wrong because of them). My students want the boys to meet a girl and argue over who gets to be her boyfriend... we'll see if that actually happens. That's about all I have so far. Tomorrow we're having a work day and then Thursday we'll talk about conflict and what our characters want most in the world. I have no clue what my characters want. Things to think about!

Mondays

Oh Mondays... my kiddos are so chatty on Mondays! We got eight blurts today, which means that three people have sentences. Yikes! I told them their sentence assignments would be on their desks tomorrow, and my intention was to have them written down before I left school today, however, another teacher was feeling chatty and someone stopped in for their silent auction items, and I had to leave school early to get to our second to last volleyball game on time, so I did not write them down.

The games went well. The A squad played great, as always. The B squad didn't go for the ball nearly enough, as always. B= lost all three, A= won all three. After the game we went out to eat as a team as our end of the year volleyball party. Only one more practice, one more game, and one more tournament... all this week! I will be glad once it's all over. Hopefully I'll have time to focus on other things, like writing.

We started preparing for NaNoWriMo today, writing a list of Good Books and Gross Books. We also analyzed why the books are good or gross and talked about how to make our own books good instead of gross. They gave me suggestions on what to teach them for NaNo, like how to start a story, how to end it, how to make it suspenseful or exciting, so now I have plenty of ideas for November. We even updated our class NaNo page (it's a site where students have accounts and can write their stories online wherever they have internet, at home or at school). Now they want to start writing! But they have to wait to write this story. Only 22 more days! I'm excited and at the same time I'm slightly dreading it... how am I going to have time to write my story??? My teacher goal is 30,000 words, same as last year. 1000 words per day.

Our practice fire drill and other fire drill went very well today. The first one was just our room practicing by ourselves. I knew there'd be an official drill later on and I wanted my students to be prepared, so we practiced lining up and walking out to 2nd base on the kickball field. They did great! I asked them to stay standing in a line once we got out there so it would be easier to count them, and they did! About an hour later, Mr. E pulled the fire alarm for our official drill. Everyone in our classroom jumped when the alarm went off, even me, and I knew it was coming! Still, they all remembered what to do and we got it done in record time. The fire fighters come Wednesday morning for Fire Prevention Week. I should ask them if they'd let my kids use a fire extinguisher. We talked about how to use the one in our classroom, but it'd be cool if they could actually practice on a fire. I did it once for RA training back in college and it was neat.

Holes

We finally had a chance to watch the movie Holes. I only planned to watch a little of it today, but they convinced me we should finish it. One 6th grader has seen it over 10 times, so as you might imagine, he could quote pretty much the entire movie. I'm glad we watched it all. Quite a few kids made plot connections from the movie that they didn't connect while reading the book. So reading the book ahead of time helped the movie make more sense.

We were supposed to practice our fire procedures today, but I forgot in the morning and then it down poured the rest of the day, so we didn't. I did tell them where we're supposed to go in case of a fire... out our side door and stand on 2nd base by the kickball diamond. Maybe we'll have a chance to practice right away Monday morning.

I got slightly more caught up on my correcting. Pastor had an electronic copy of the Reformation service and emailed it to me. My students picked their parts today and we'll work on them next week, so I'm feeling more relaxed about that project. This weekend will hopefully give me a chance to get caught up on a few other things. I do wish it would stop raining though! We're going to float away pretty soon.

Radio

My kiddos were on the radio today, KNUJ community events, to promote the Pork Chop Dinner. Before the five of them left school (I didn't go along), they asked if I'd be listening to them on the radio. So I found the live streaming and listened.

During school, we talked through some of the possible questions, but I didn't give them specific things to say. They did great! The DJ asked them what their favorite subject in school was, why it was their favorite, what part of that class was their favorite, why they go to ILS... and their answers were amazing. Almost every one of them said because it helps their faith to grow and the teachers are nice. Of course, they said more than that too, more things about the dinner and what they'd be doing to help. A parent gave more details about the silent auction and the dinner menu, etc. of course.

I had thought about going along, but it was my only night free this week, and then it turned out to be not so free anyway.  After school, a parent dropped off more silent auction items, but we decided to store them at church. Another parent wanted to talk about silent auction things too, so I ended up leaving school at about sixish. Then I ran errands in New Ulm and got home about 7:45.  I still have a huge pile of papers to correct, but my gumption is running low.

The stress is catching up to me... getting midterm grades ready and working on all the things I need to do before Guatemala and getting hand bells ready to play the Sunday I get back and prepping stuff for the sub, and working on the special service the kids are doing in church to celebrate the Reformation in church (also the Sunday after I get back from Guatemala), and current lesson plans, and coordinating communication between parents for the Pork Chop Dinner/Silent Auction this weekend, and volleyball stuff, and my freelance writing... whew. I wish I had a pause button so I could get everything done. But it will all get done eventually. So I'll keep plugging away. But a few extra prayers would be appreciated.

Jogging

We were on time to chapel today! It was close though!

Firefighters dropped off Fire Poster information yesterday, so when my students saw they could get started, my students put that at the top of their priority list. Of course when the bell rang they didn't want to stop. After we did our normal morning routine they were sure we didn't have enough time to do our pre-chapel hymnsing, but we still sang a few songs (partly because they said it... what can I say, I'm stubborn!). They have a habit of writing random numbers on the board, not even checking what song it is. There were two who picked a real song, and by real, I mean they actually requested a song they wanted to sing. So those were the ones I picked.

We had about five minutes-ish to walk over to chapel. I wasn't sure if we'd make it or not so I directed the class to speed walk. That still wasn't fast enough and soon we jogged. Nothing like getting the blood pumping before chapel! My students were surprised I jogged with them and had no qualms about sharing that fact with their seat partners. "Miss H, were you really running???" everyone wanted to know.  "No, absolutely not! We were jogging!" was my answer.

Volleyball

We're on the downhill slope of volleyball. Only two games, two tournaments, and two practices left. This is good because with volleyball stuff almost every night, I haven't had enough time to get everything done that I want to. My paper correcting has fallen behind, I have a box of books to sort through, and midterm grades to enter. And I leave for Guatemala in about two weeks. Yikes!

Yesterday we had an away game at Mt. Olive in Mankato. I was a little worried about getting there on time because our game was at 4:00 so I'd have to leave at 3:15, plus I brought some players with me, so it was even more important to leave on time. Five minutes before we were supposed to leave, the tortoise vet called me to talk about Joe. He doesn't think what Joe has is shell rot; he thinks it's because Joe needs more variety of nutrients in his food. So even though Joe doesn't like it, we have to sprinkle mineral (calcium) on his food. And it's okay to give him a little tomato or a grape or other fruit/veggies as long as it's a little amount not all the time. We'll see if my picky tortoise eats it!

The games went all right. The B squad team played four games since they had a 5th grade team and  a 6th grade team. We won one out of four games. It was hard to watch because the girls wouldn't go for it! They stood there and let the ball drop right in front of them. Or it'd hit their arms and fall off because they didn't try to hit it. Grr... frustrating. What can you do? The A squad did better. They played the A team and won all three games.

VIP day

Guess what? Our guest speaker for VIP day didn't show up. The parent who had originally suggested him gave him a call and he had totally forgotten all about it and was in a different town. So we fed the VIPs donuts as planned, had an impromptu singing concert with the 1-4th graders, and sent them home. The songs were ones they'd sung at the nursing home's annual birthday party (minus the Happy Birthday song), so they were able to sing them on the spot.  Some of my kids were bummed we didn't do an 'open mic' time where they could tell jokes or something.  Oh well.

After that my class helped put away the tables and chairs. We put the chairs out in the ball shed behind school instead of in the closet by Mr. D's room. The preschool teacher wants to store stuff there, which makes more sense than her putting her stuff out in the shed. We only use the chairs 2-3 times per year, so having them in the shed isn't a hassle. We did have to move a ton of stuff to make room for the chairs. Ugh, the ball shed gets to unorganized so fast! It was just organized over the summer and now it needs it again! Part of the problem is that we took out a bunch of stuff to be disposed of and someone (we're not sure who) went back there and put it all back in the shed. Probably because that person thought we should keep it.

The rest of the day was a blur. The 5/6th graders presented their Native American tribe powerpoints, or started to anyway. We made it through two groups leaving three groups for tomorrow. They've been great so far! The 7/8th graders are on the Weather unit in science. Today's topic was Thunderstorms and we had the weather to match! It's been raining all day. We talked a bit about lightning (also Wednesday's topic) and after school one of the 7th graders said, "Guess what! I saw that thing we talked about today... that lightning thing... leaders!" Yay! He remembered something from class!

Camp Omega

I forgot to mention the other day that our Jello plant cell did not set. It was still totally liquid when we took it out of the fridge, probably because we used real pineapple and the enzymes in the fruit kept it from solidifying. Still tasted good though!

Camp Omega this year was, as always, a great trip. And, as always, had it's ups and downs. We had perfect weather: no rain, mid-60s, lower 70s, sunny, just a little wind.  This is the first year I wasn't cold sleeping in the cabins! It's also the first year I've actually felt relaxed and trusted my kids enough to let them be in the cabins by themselves or in a different room without an adult watching over them. We played a ton of Ga Ga Ball and a new game called 9 square. It's like volleyball four-square but with nine squares and the squares are on seven foot poles. You can learn the rules here. It's our new favorite game and now my class wants to get one for our school. Shouldn't be too hard! You just need a bunch of poles and brackets.

Other activities we did: archery, canoeing, dissecting owl pellets. They liked that activity a lot more than they thought they would. There was the initial gross factor that they had to pick through 'owl barf' with their bare hands (no gloves!), but once they found the first bones they didn't care. Plus our leader assured us they were sterile and no one would get germs by touching the pellets. Many kids brought their bones home with them, tiny little skulls and pelvic bones and rib bones. Pretty neat!

Shelter building had a big mishap. It started out great; everyone was excited. We added a layer of intensity... Zack would be testing how water proof our structure was by dumping water over the shelter while the builders sat inside it! Yikes! It was incentive for everyone to work hard. The poor 5th grade girls unearthed a hornet nest in their search for building material in the woods and two girls and their chaperone got stung. They screamed bloody murder and refused to go back to that spot. So of the three that didn't get stung, two joined my group and the other helped with first aid. Even a day later their stings still hurt and are itchy (and feel warm). We think they disturbed the queen which brought all the other wasps out to sting.

Of the two shelters we built, one left everyone soaked (the boy shelter), and one (my group) only let in dribbles.  But ours wouldn't have been good at keeping anyone warm, it was too open.

Fire building was also a challenge. It was a lot harder to get the fire going and keep it going than any of the groups anticipated. One group (the 5th grade girls) gave up after their fire died down the first time. The other groups kept going, collecting more sticks and adding them. Each group got the string to break via fire burning, although the 5th grade girl group had help and even then they bent the string down so it was closer to the fire. By late morning, everyone needed a break from each other and it was time to go home. Although I still had students ask if we could stay another night or even a week! Yikes! Too much for Miss H to handle.

VIP day is Monday at nine, so once we got back to school we helped clean out the gym and put up tables/decorations. If anyone wants to come we have classroom tours at 8:30, donuts in the gym at 9, and entertainment at 9:15. This year's entertainment has something to do with wild animals...

Reading!

Exciting times in Reading coming up... we're having a student teacher! I don't know what her name is yet, but the BLC coordinator emailed today to say she has someone picked out for me! Yay!

I haven't told my kiddos yet... I'm waiting until I know more about him/her. It might get a little tricky for me, planning-wise. The teacher starts in November. I'm gone to Guatemala the last week of October. I think there will be a few days in between for me to get re-acclimated to what happened while I was gone.

The book sale at the library last night was a success! I got a whole box for $1.  I haven't had time to delve into my finds quite yet. I've been cataloging the other books I ordered from Betterworldbooks.com.  When they had a sale, I placed two orders (to get maximum discounts), but they shipped all my books in one box. That part is fine. However, they didn't send four of my books. I emailed them about it and I'm sure they'll get back to me soon. They generally have great customer service.

Tomorrow we leave for Camp Omega... I told them who was riding with which driver, but the other female chaperone suggested we try to fit everyone in her van and the male chaperone's car because we'd probably all fit.  I'm still waiting to hear back from the dad about how many people will fit in his vehicle. I have a feeling we'll be short one spot. Oh well, it's probably for the best. She and I had been talking about that switch at volleyball yesterday and some little ears picked up on it... they had no hesitation telling everyone else in the class about it today, which caused some waves.  Some people are happy about cramming together, some are not. And they all try to change my mind one way or the other. Sigh... at least they're enthusiastic!