Summer Vacation!

Well, the weather certainly hasn't felt much like summer these past few days... cold and rainy.  It's raining right now and I have to wonder if we'll end up having volleyball tonight...

Most of my end-of-the year stuff has been wrapped up. Only a few more things on the list.  I'm bringing Joe back with me tonight so he can go to the library tomorrow. I'm sure the kids will be happy to see him again!

I wanted to post a few pictures of our NaNo book launch party on the last day of school.  So, here you go!

10 students= 10 books, the bottom two in the stack each wrote over 10,000 words in their stories!

 (above) My favorite cover... makes me laugh every time!

And one final goofy picture to end the year.  (Notice all the boys who hate having their picture taken are doing 'the dab', conveniently covering their faces).

#1 Last Day!

Umm, so school is over. I don't need to plan any more lessons, grade any more papers, enter any more grades... it's weird. And hard to believe.

My goal was to get report cards out by the time of the awards thing tonight.  I made it! They went in mailboxes right at 6:00.  And I even filled out their yellow school record folders too!  Now I really don't have any schoolwork to do over the weekend.  They all remembered to pick up their report cards too.  Well, one student left hers behind, but I know she looked at it.

Even with a full last day of school (in the past we've ended at noon), I used all the time we had.  Religion, read aloud, reading buddies, BINGO prizes (9/10 got at least one bingo!), cleaning out desks, collecting the tomatoes from the beginning of the year (yes, they were disgusting... one of the glass jars leaked on the lab table, but my kiddos cleaned it up before I even noticed... the jars went right in the dumpster), opening our time capsules (comparing how much we've grown over the year), taking down posters/decorations, handing in books, and FINALLY opening the box of NaNos.

I had wrapped each book and put it back in the box, retaping it so it looked like the box hadn't been open.  Right before lunch today we sliced it open and passed out the books.  They opened them on the count of three... and everyone loved them! They kept saying over and over, "Wow Miss H! I love it! This is awesome!"  It was the best way to pass them out, I think.  This year, some of them had asked if they'd be able to get more copies of their books, so when I published them, I allowed the books to be visible on Amazon and Createspace.  My kiddos were super excited to hear this and immediately made plans on how to spend the millions of dollars book sales were going to generate... They were only mildly disappointed when I said the money we earned from selling copies of their books would go to buy more books from the classroom.

They must've told their parents about it because by the time we got back from closing chapel, one person had already looked up her book on Amazon and found it.  She told me tonight that she sold two copies already! (Her uncle bought one).  At school, some of them were arguing over whose book was better because one cost $5 while everyone else's cost $4.  Well, that's just because the $5 girl wrote way more so her book is bigger.  Anyway, I'd say NaNo was a success this year!

Another cute thing happened today at lunch.  As per usual, I sat on the bleachers finishing my lunch, but then a 7th grader came up to me kind of covertly and said, "So Miss H, last weekend me, [a 7th grader, another 7th grader, and another 7th grader] had been by the pond in Courtland and we found a dead baby turtle. So do you want it?"  Oh it still makes me laugh!  I said, "Sure!" So then he went and got it, kind of sneakily digging it out of his pocket (it was in a ziplock bag and was very dried and very dead).  We looked at it for a while, and then he said, "When we found it, I thought of you."  Aww! I'm glad I'm the kind of teacher that kids think about when they find cool things in nature.

Tonight's potluck/awards night/carnival was a hit.  We did it inside due to the chilly weather; the 7th and 8th grade parents planned everything so I didn't have to do anything to set up.  Nice!  The school board gave all us teachers a nice thank-you at the awards night, which resulted in a standing ovation.  Afterwards as I mingled, two sets of grandparents came up to me to tell me how much they appreciate me as a teacher here at Immanuel.  The one grandpa brought me to tears with all his kind words!

I don't think the fact that school is over will sink in for a while... there were a few students who didn't want the year to end (ahem, the 6th grade girls).  They're not ready to be 7th graders, they said.  After school, some of them stuck around to help their parents set up for the carnival.  They popped leftover microwave popcorn from the 7/8th class trip and offered me some.  As we chatted for a bit, the 8th grader said, "Yeah, we've just been using this as a snack at school. I mean, why not? It's fast and easy!"  One of the 6th grade girls chimed in, "Hey! Miss H! We should do that for our snack!" The 8th grader and I just stared at her until I finally said, "That's a great idea, but, we're not having any more snack... school is over."  She looked at me blankly until it sunk in, "Oh! Whoops!" Not even two hours after we dismissed and she'd already forgotten school was out for the summer!

#2

Wow I am ready for school to be done... Today was a 'bang your head against the wall' kind of day.  The 5th graders were vicious to each other, purposely leaving people out and being mean about it.  Then that person retaliated and everyone was yelling at everyone. And no one could focus.  Four kids had to stay after school today to finish assignments they hadn't taken home for homework (even though they knew everything was due today). Two are still finishing up their last assignments.

This morning I had written names on the board for each assignment I was missing. The board was packed!  And now it's mostly white again.  Whew!  There were some other things I needed to do after school, like set out the BINGO prizes and dig out our time capsules, but I am so beat from corralling kids and forcing them to do their late work that I just want to go home... But someone came into my room to talk to me, so I ended up cleaning off the lab table and setting that stuff out anyway.

My large pile of papers to correct has been tucked in my bag and after this I'm going to head out.  I can actually go out the side door again! This morning I found a note from the school trustees noting that they replaced the door handle.  It's been nice to be able to use that door again.

Miss S was home sick today. She has pink eye.  It made today crazy since we don't have any subs to call.  Miss F took over after sending the preschoolers home for the day at 11:00, but until then the 1-2nd graders had a smorgasbord of supervisors.

The after school cleanup crew got the gym all cleaned up. Only one parent showed up.  I had thought about helping a little, but with all the students staying afterwards to finish homework, I didn't have time.  But I did my part on Tuesday. Glad that job is done!

Our Australia speaker was good. He spent a lot of time talking about the sports of Australia such as rugby, cricket, and Australian rules football.  Man, those sports are intense!  We watched some YouTube videos of sports highlights and he explained what was happening. I might take up watching rugby; it was crazy!  (It also helped to have someone explain how the game works!) Here are the videos we watched: Australian Rules Football, Rugby, Cricket.

Tomorrow's balloon activity: Book Launch (no, not 'book lunch' as so many people thought I said)

#3

Two days left! Two days left! Assignments and projects are being handed in, some are early which is nice because I can get a head start correcting (hopefully won't be so much to do tomorrow night).  We were supposed to have another cleaning session after school today, but the weather was bad... tornado sighted in Lake Crystal and flash flooding in New Ulm, so we postponed that event until tomorrow.  I don't think the kids will be thrilled with the stuff still taking over the gym.  We have tables on their sides at half-court so it's harder to get to the stuff from the shed.

I introduced my students to Shirley Temple today.  She was referred to in our read aloud book (the character wanted to tap dance like her and thus carried tap shoes with her everywhere), so I looked up some videos on YouTube.  Yes, that got us distracted for a good 20 minutes.  Still educational though... pop culture!  We watched her sing "Animal Crackers" and "Good Ship Lollipop" and watched one of the baby movies.  I wanted to find the wild west one I remember from my childhood, but we'd already spent enough time on her, so we moved on to different things.

The other cool thing we did today was with wordless picture books.  I borrowed a whole bunch from the library on Monday and had each student read three of them and write a paragraph/Venn diagram describing what each story was about, how they were similar, and how they were different (many of them were by the same author, so it would be easy to compare).  After they quit complaining they had fun!  And it didn't take them as long to do as they thought!  Teacher win!

I also had my class fill out a Teacher Survey and a Reading Survey to see what things I should keep the same/change for next year.  They're always fun to read.  A lot of them want better places to focus, or for me to teach them how to focus.  Put that on next year's list of things to do.  At their suggestions, I plan to find ways to partition sections of the classroom so they can read in peace (if not quiet), although I have a feeling next year will be calmer without the 6th graders in here to distract.  Each individual student isn't distracting on his/her own, but put them all together with the 5th graders and they can be quite volatile!  The incoming 5th graders are all (mostly) quiet, studious girls who (as far as I can tell) are able to focus.  That should help the noise level!

Tomorrow's balloon prize: play any game you want during Word Work and Work on Writing.

#4

Caswell Softball Day. Even though the forecast was 86 and clear, the entire morning was rainy.  Still, we played ball.  The kids were super excited to play in the rain. Most were entirely happy to get soaking wet.  After a game and a half, the guy in charge postponed the games for ten minutes (it looked clearer to the west), and the rain did slow down after the 10 minutes.  We won our first two games (the only games we played in the morning), then had a break until the tournament started at 12:15. I sat in my car to dry off, ate lunch, and finished reading a book.  It was lovely.

I didn't have nearly as many kids in my car as I thought... two of them found rides with funner people. ;)  One kid didn't show up at school ever.  So I only had one person in my car.  I dropped him off at home afterwards (he lives in Nicollet so it was only a little out of the way).

We did very well in the tournament. And although our team played pretty sloppy, we won both and took home a 1st place trophy!  The only negative thing about the day was a passive aggressive parent at the end when we took a team picture.  On Sunday, I had send a bunch of Remind messages to parents about upcoming field trips, due dates, school stuff, etc. Apparently, this mom did not like getting so many messages on Mother's Day.  She didn't say this to my face though. She said it to another parent (very loudly, making sure I was in earshot). She also complained that since I send them Sunday night, what are they supposed to do about them? She thought they should be sent on Thursday or something.  Grr... Thankfully, the other parent didn't chime in on the badmouthing. He just said, "Well, there's only three days left."  True, very true.

When I got back to school we had 'clean out the shed' time.  Only one parent showed up to help, but it was a parent who loves being organized and is fun to be around, so we had a good time.  We took pretty much everything out of the shed. Tomorrow's crew will clean the floor/shelves out there, put everything in totes (today's parent is buying tonight), and stick them back in the shed.  We marked a bunch of stuff to get tossed in the dumpster, so there will be much more room for things, hopefully making it more organized in there.  Only one mouse was spotted the entire time.  We cleaned with the door to the gym open, so now a whole bunch of flies are buzzing around my room.  Looks like the boys have fly smashing duty tomorrow morning!

Tomorrow's balloon activity: read aloud all morning.

#6 and #5

Track and Field day had perfect weather.  I always work at the long jump station and even though I was the most experienced 'track and field day' person there, we had enough helpers to finish before noon! We were still the last group done, but it went much smoother than other years.  The best part is, I didn't get sunburned!!!

I don't think I got sunburned today either. The day started out sunny, got cloudier the closer we got to canoeing time, and looked pretty thunderstormy as we paddled out on Swan Lake.  But I still put sunscreen on!  This trip was so tricky to get chaperones for... lots of parents have used their time off or are working in the field.  One parent had said he'd drive, but he ended up getting sick and couldn't come.  Pastor's son was available to help (Pastor would have, but he's at a conference), but we still needed one more person besides me. Thankfully, a farmer dad was finished enough he could help us out for a few hours. He had a great time and said anytime we needed someone for something like that again, he'd be there!

God was really good to us today.  We had just enough time to paddle Swan Lake and load the boats before it started raining.  Most of us stayed dry, but a bunch of the girls were soaked because they got a little crazy with the paddles.  That canoe also had trouble with getting stuck in cattails.  We all made it out okay though!  Swan Lake is the largest wetland habitat in North America, 10,000 acres to be specific.  We heard lots of bird and even saw a beaver swimming by the landing.

The 7th and 8th graders had a very interesting class session today... the Reproductive System. I showed them the first half of "Fearfully and Wonderfully Made" a video lecture by Dr. David Menton that goes through how babies are made/develop.  It started off slow, and we just got to the interesting stuff when we had to end for the day.  Halfway through class, we paused so the 5th graders could nosily grab things to work on, and that's when the questions started.  Their assignment for this body system was to fill out a KWL chart as they watched the video.  They could write what they already know (a little awkward, but better than sharing out loud).  If they thought of questions during the video, they were to write them in the W-Want to Know column.  And then the L-What I Learned column was for interesting facts from the video.  I had them turn them in after class so I could maybe answer some of their questions.  We'll pick up where we left off on Wednesday.

Tomorrow's balloon prize: Caswell Softball Day.  My car is filling up awful fast.  I went from having only one kid to bring to now having four.  One of them is a somewhat cranky 5th grader who was not happy to find out the rest of my passengers are annoying boys...  Tomorrow will be another sunny day with a chance of thunderstorms.  I'll make sure to slather on the sunscreen yet again!

#7

Talent Show tonight. We had practice at 1:30, but didn't get started until 1:45. Unfortunately, we had to cut acts short so we could get back to school in time for buses.  And even so, the buses were 10 minutes late leaving school.

After school, we teachers ran through our skit a few times, but we didn't have our bobble heads to practice with. By the time the heads arrived and we ran through it a few times, it was after 5.  The E's cooked dinner for us and now I'm wrapping things up in my classroom before heading over to church to check on root beer float prep. My class is in charge of serving (as a fundraiser).  Whew! What a week!

Today's pinata breaking activity was kind of rushed.  It was our head cook's last day, so we had to sing to her.  But she wanted to watch the pinata breaking, so she followed us outside! Oops!  She went in after a few break-opens to serve lunch and we followed her 'covertly' inside and sang with the rest of the school. She is such a good cook; we will miss her very much.

Tomorrow's activity: recess all day! Not as cool as it sounds... tomorrow is Track and Field Day!  In past years, they've asked, "If it rains and T/F is cancelled, do we still get recess all day???"  No such luck this year; it sounds like we'll have lovely weather tomorrow.

#8

Whew, lots of energy today. And hot tempers.  One 5th grader broke down bawling during recess because he got out in GaGa Ball and everyone told him so.  Then there was name-calling and comebacks... and it was just not good.

We have a lot of things due tomorrow since Track and Field day is Friday.  I wrote the list of missing things on the board; it's quite extensive! Miss W is coming to collect the 7-8th graders' things tomorrow over the noon hour.  I printed new copies of their missing worksheets so no one can say they don't have them!

I don't think anyone used marker today. Our day was a bit of a whirlwind.  My kiddos had to be crossing guards and offering takers for chapel today since the 7-8th graders were still gone.  After chapel, we stayed at church to practice our talent show skit.  My camera battery almost died, but it had enough juice to film them so they could see how they looked.  It's coming along!  We should be ready for tomorrow night's performance.

Remember the timer the boys set on the iPad last week to see how high the numbers would go? It's still going.  Today it was at 145 hours.  Next year, the 5th graders want to start the timer the first day of school and see how many hours we get at the end of the year.  I wonder if anyone will remember it next August...

Tomorrow's balloon prize: break the pinatas! I still need to put candy in them. I did hang them up this afternoon.  I suppose I should've just waited and put the candy in them and then hung them up.  Oh well.  I should do it today, knowing me, I wouldn't have time to put candy in tomorrow before school.  Mrs. B invited me over for supper tonight since bible study starts at 6 and there's a Guatemala meeting afterwards at 7:30. It will be a long night, but now I don't have to rush home for supper before bible study!  Last night was a productive one after I got home. I took the plastic off my porch, swept floors, took garbage out, did laundry, ran my dishwasher, and read a book.  Who knew I had that much energy left after a field trip?

#9

I smell like sunscreen. Tis the season I suppose!  We had beautiful weather for our field trip today. It was a little windy on the petroglyphs, but overall, nice and sunny and mild.  We had a different tour guide today than in previous years. He was a bit long-winded and didn't seem able to tell when the students got antsy.  Still, I think they all had a good time looking at the carvings. In past years, the guide used a board and a flashlight to make the carvings stand out.  This time, they used a spray bottle of water to darken them up.  It worked pretty well!

Of course bale tag at the farm was the highlight of the trip.  They also enjoyed swinging on the rope up in the haymow and petting the bottle calf.  One girl found a batch of baby kitties up in the haymow! They were super tiny, probably only a few days old (as far as I could tell).  They loved petting the cats as they followed us around the farm.  Surprisingly, the pigs were a huge hit.  There were a few students who would've stood there for a lot longer than I let them.  We didn't see as many peacocks as I thought, though my students were super loud everywhere they went... I'm sure it served as a warning siren.

Tomorrow's balloon activity: use marker all day. One girl asked, "Even on math?"  Sure! I said (we don't have math tomorrow). Someone else caught on to that fact and mentioned it to her.  Then she amended, "But what if I have a math redo or a math assignment to do. Can I still use marker?" Hmm, probably not since Mr. E is very picky when it comes to writing utensils.

I was going to hang up the pinatas after school today, but I helped get props ready for our teacher skit instead. Then I went on a walk with Mrs. B. It would be nice to have the table space again, but it's late enough I think I'll save that for tomorrow.

#10

Today's balloon prize was to make a special mother's day project.  Our mother's day projects are... interesting.  They're making a vase with stick/paper flowers held in place by small rocks at the bottom of the jar.  I kind of turned them loose on the project; I gave them each a mason jar, had ribbons and glitter glue set out, and plugged in the hot glue guns. But first I had to find the glue guns. The box of hot glue sticks was in the office, but none of the glue guns were in the box! We asked other teachers until we scrounged up a few.  Still, I don't know where they went!

Most of them had trouble keeping the glitter glue stuck on the jars. It didn't dry fast enough and slid down the sides. At least three of them wiped off what they had and started over.  One girl asked to use glitter on hers.  Ugh, glitter.  Since she's responsible, I dug it out of the closet.  But one person turned into two people and pretty soon there was a glitter explosion over the table.  Most of it is cleaned up, but of course glitter is never truly 'cleaned up'.  A few stray pieces are always lurking...

Now my school email is acting up.  I tried scanning the track/field day note to myself, but the email didn't go through.  Grr... And now I can't send any emails either...

Well, I think it's time to go home. I've been futzing around school long enough for one day.  Time to run errands and get groceries!  I need to remember to buy sack-lunch-ish type things for the many field trips we have coming up.  Tomorrow is our first (and also the balloon prize of the day): visit the Jeffers Petroglyphs and Heintz Farms. Sounds like good weather and nice temperatures are in the forecast.  The kids are super excited for bale tag and playing with the kitties. But mostly bale tag.

#11

I think my class printer is broken. I tried printing some things front-to-back and the printer groaned and creaked as the spinners tried to grab paper.  Grr... People have been in the office all day with piano lessons or meetings, so I can't just print things to the office.  Guess it'll have to wait until Monday.

I got a second graduation invitation today... it doesn't seem possible that students I've taught are graduating from high school!  Granted, both students were 8th graders my first year teaching, so it hasn't been that long, but still.

Our giant to-do list has been erased!  I now have a mountain of papers to correct... but no school tomorrow.  Looks like I better bring a few red pens home with me. All the pinatas got finished, some look better than others.  I didn't get the chance to hang them up yet.  Another Monday job.

Well, I gotta keep this short. Tonight there's a Habitat for Humanity fundraiser event in Mankato, so I'm meeting up with some college friends.  Then I'm off to Fulda Friday morning so I can see my brother graduate from his one year welding program in Sioux Falls.

Monday's balloon prize: make a special Mother's Day gift (extra art time!).  Oh yeah, today's balloon prize didn't go as planned either.  My computer froze up and then wouldn't open up iTunes, so we were unable to listen to music during Daily 5.  They were testing again, so I suppose it wasn't the worst thing in the world.  I guess we'll do that Monday too!

#12

My kiddos were not happy today.  Mr. E sprung the mile on them.  It was supposed to rain this afternoon (and the 7-8th graders were having Junior Achievement), so he wanted to do it at 11:00am.  One of the 7th graders showed up at 10:55 and asked if we were free... my kids wanted me to say no.  But we were.  Two boys didn't run it today, one because he only had Crocs and the other because he had a bad cough/cold.

We did get the chance to read outside though. After chapel we had snack on the playground.  They had a blast eating snack, working on their pinatas (due tomorrow), putting together the geography puzzle... I got annoyed because no one was listening to the story.

Two 10th graders (past students of our school), visited classrooms today as an assignment for their careers class.  They spent all day here poking in and out of classrooms.  They came into my room about three times, each time for about 5-10 minutes.  They did this in the other classrooms too and spent the majority of the day in Mr. E's room.  All in all, their visit could've been better planned.  But maybe it's a new class and they're still working out the kinks!

Tomorrow's balloon activity: listen to music during Daily 5. (And probably eat lunch outside since the weather is supposed to be nice and we didn't get to do that the other day).

#13

Not much to report today. It was sunny so we went outside for recess. They wanted to eat outside for lunch, but it was too short notice.  We'll try on Thursday.  I was the Mystery Reader for Mrs. E's kindergarten class at lunchtime today. We read the book Grumpy Bird. It's always a fun one to read aloud!  Guaranteed to make you smile (and can push you out of a bad mood).

Our skit went better today too. Some of the 5th graders safety pinned the sheets together, so our caterpillar didn't separate as much.  A few more days of practice and we'll be right as rain!  We were going to practice a second time this morning, but we didn't have enough time.  We're doing standardized tests this week (FAST testing) and I wanted to get through all the read-aloud tests.  Got all but two. And I think everyone improved at least a little since winter.  Tomorrow we're doing the reading test and Thursday will be math.

The book fair is packed up and pick-up is scheduled for tomorrow.  I will be so glad to have this project checked off the list!  I still need to send the overall check to them... Money is always tricky; I want to be sure I'm doing it right.

Today's balloon activity was drink gatorade/juice in class.  No pop. One girl only brought pop because it was all she had.  Oops. I didn't let her drink it.  Tomorrow's activity is: read outside.  If it's nice, maybe we'll do our rounds outside too!  Oh wait, we have FAST testing to do... okay, maybe some of our rounds...

#14

Another rainy day. We didn't get any snow though (well, my students said there were little flakes when they got on the bus this morning, but I didn't see any).  My kiddos were CRAZY today. Not misbehaving-wise, just super hard to focus and settle.  The 7/8th graders were too.

We had math this morning since the 7/8th graders went on a field trip to drug court. They were gone all afternoon and Mr. E and I wanted to have class (since we only have 14 days left!!!), so we switched in the morning.  It was weird.  Still, it opened up the afternoon a lot.

We had the chance to practice our skit for the talent show.  It made vast improvement in the 20 minutes we practiced. Our skit is about a hungry worm. One person is the trainer and her worm will eat anything. She gives it all sorts of stuff!  The rest of the class is covered up by blankets and passes the item down the line, finally chucking it out the back end.  One of the 6th graders can burp on command, so every time he throws something out from under the blanket, he burps.  The skit ends when the trainer runs out of food but the worm is still hungry... and it eats the trainer!  What comes out the end is a spare shirt and her shoes.  We need to safety pin the blankets together so they don't keep coming apart. Once that happens it will go a lot smoother.  I videotaped them doing it (since they're covered up by blankets and can't see how they look) and they thought it was HILARIOUS! We filmed it three times and it kept getting better and better.  Hopefully another week of practice will make it really good.

Two 5th grade girls wrote a 'peace treaty' during writing workshop. They listed bullet points and had spaces for names and a signature line even!  It was very impressive.  I'm not entirely sure why they're signing a treaty... to be friends and always nice to each other??? The other 5th grade girl was offended she wasn't part of the treaty, and she thought that she wasn't best friends anymore with either of the girls.  Sigh, drama drama drama.

Everyone enjoyed chewing gum today.  Tomorrow's balloon activity is drink gatorade/juice in class.