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!

Indian Flute Music

Oops! Forgot to post last night! I ran out of time after school and thought, oh I'll just do it when I get home. But I got home later than expected and it slipped my mind completely.

After school, I had to wrap things up quickly so I could make it to Mankato for our first away volleyball game. It went well; we won all four games and then played a 3rd up to 15 just for fun (and won that too). Prior to the game, I was at the Mankato library for their annual book sale... as many books that fit in a bag for $1. So I got a lot of books!

Before I left school, I cleaned up from our juicy Jello plant cell lab. We learned about the parts of a plant cell earlier this month and yesterday we built a plant cell out of jello and assorted fruits (to represent the organelles). The jello is supposed to be slightly set so the fruit doesn't all float to the top or sink to the bottom. This is always tricky since I don't have any prep time. Thankfully, our cook was willing to help out and she made the jello for me. The only problem was, I had her make it too early, so by the time 1:30 science rolled around, the jello was set. We tried melting it in the microwave for a bit, and it worked a little, but not enough. Thankfully, I'd bought a second package of orange jello and we mixed that up, which melted the first batch. Our fruit did float to the top a bit, but some sank to the bottom, so I guess it kind of evens out.  It'll still taste good today for snack!

Instead of canned pineapple, I bought a real one so we could try growing the top of the pineapple into a new plant. There was only one ripe pineapple at Walmart when I picked it out, and man, it was so tasty! Juicy and flavorful and just right. Thanks God! After the lab we sliced up the rest of the pineapple and passed it around. Oh, it was good.  It made a bit of a mess, but we cleaned it up and still had time for recess.

My kiddos are really getting into their powerpoints! Two groups are finished already and will present next week. One group tried to learn how to do a traditional dance their tribe did by watching a youtube video. Another group found flute music and let it play while they worked on their presentation. "It's so calming!" they all said. After a while some found it distracting (especially when trying to read), so we turned it off.

Tire Trouble

Got a flat tire this weekend. Thankfully I made it to my destination all right and my farmer was there to help me put the spare on. Unfortunately, the wheel weight I ran over wrecked the tire and I'll have to get a new one. I have a warranty on the tires, but to get some money back I'll have to go to the place I bought them from just outside Sioux Falls. Looks like I'm making an extra trip to Fulda this weekend! I had an 'old' tire that still has some tread left from back before I bought my new tires, so my dad brought the tire to my farmer's place and my farmer brought it up to me yesterday. After school today I took it in to the tire place in New Ulm and had them switch it out with the spare. I'm so thankful they were able to squeeze me in! It was really busy, but they got me in and out in about 40 minutes, plus I had a book along, so the time passed quickly.

Another frustrating thing happened after school... Joe has had some spots on his back where his shell is flaking off, so I contacted an exotic animal vet in Mankato (I know, I didn't think they'd have one either). They wanted me to call back, but when I did the doctor was busy. When he tried calling me back, the number was listed as restricted, so I didn't answer. The third time he finally left a message, but I don't have number to return his call. So now I have to wait until Monday because he's going to be out of town the rest of the week.  Argh!

School today was fairly uneventful. More volleyball drama to deal with. A grandparent associated with our school accused the Sioux Falls team of stealing her nice water bottle at the tournament; we got an email from the principal at MLHS (the host of the tournament) saying they found it in the bleachers. Great. Another negative thing to add to Courtland's reputation.

We finished our first read aloud book, Holes. Of course I hadn't planned to finish it today, but you know how the endings of books get! There were too many cliff hangers for me to stop! One time I tried to be tricky and I slowly reached for the bookmark (the signal I'm done reading for the day), hoping to get them to protest at the terrible stopping point. They did! Hollers all around the classroom, "NOOOO! Miss H! You can't stop there!!!!" And I didn't. I kept reading way past time. Then I taught the 5th graders how to use PowerPoint, and that took the rest of the morning. So we didn't read today. We didn't do Daily 5 today. But what we did do was worth the time. They're starting a powerpoint project about Native American tribes in the USA. Today they picked partners and also picked which tribe they'll research. Most have a pretty good start! I'm interested to see how they do with the rest of it.

Church Year Chain

For art today we built our annual church year chain.  It's a chain that marks the colors of the altar paraments at church (handy since my class is in charge of setting up the altar when we have chapel at church).

The 6th graders were super excited all day.  Last night I wrote the number of strips per color we needed to cut and then wrote the order we needed to put them in, so they've been staring at them all day.  There was a brief argument over who got to cut the strips; it's a big deal because they get to use the huge paper cutter from the office.  I solved it by saying the 6th graders get first chance since they won't get to do it next year.  Then the ones who got to cut strips last year were put out of the running, leaving us with two sixth graders to cut the strips.  They did a good job taking turns.

The hardest part about this project is finding enough jobs to keep everyone busy.  Someone collected staplers from other classrooms, someone else got colored paper from the office, still others kept track of the order the colors needed to be in, and then there were the staplers who created the physical chain.  We didn't finish in record time this year (too many strong personalities for that), but we finished in time to have recess before the end of the day.

I actually remembered to take pictures of the process! Last year I had to covertly take pictures when no one was looking since they didn't like having their picture taken and would hide from the camera.  I started out doing that again, but when they noticed the camera out, all of them posed for pictures!  Even the boys!  And some who were so camera shy last year actually asked me to take a picture of them working on their job!  It was crazy and it took some getting used to.  It all comes down to these fifth graders; they love having their picture taken, so it rubs off on the sixth graders too.

After School Yoga

The girls were all excited for the time between school and the soccer/volleyball games.  Last game, they rolled out the yoga mats and had 'exercise class' while they waited and they couldn't wait to do it again.  This time, it was even more organized.  They lined up the mats, had two 'instructors' who sat on yoga balls and said yoga catchphrases.  Then they found the resistance bands I bought to tie to the desks as footrests (it didn't work, they kept slipping down, so I shoved them in the podium).  Boy they had a hay day with them!  They stretched their arms and feet and legs and all sorts of stuff.  Annnd rushed out of the room for the soccer game without putting most of it away. However, they did put everything back before they went home tonight, so there's that.

The volleyball games went pretty well, we played the Northrup/Truman/Fairmont team (they have to combine three schools together to have enough girls).  The A games were intense!  We won the match though.  We lost both B games, but they played really well.  And there was not that much drama either.

The next big thing is the A squad vb tournament on Saturday.  Only one coach will be there (I have my sand volleyball tournament this weekend) and it turns out two of our star players have a wedding to go to and will only be able to stay until 11.  We play at 10.  Their mom doesn't want to drive two hours for them to only play a one hour game.  So I emailed the tournament director to see if our games could be moved earlier so they can play in both.  It's a long shot.  If they don't change it, the two girls won't go and we'll only have five players at the tournament.  The A coach kind of wants to pull out of the tournament if that happens, but I'm not so sure if we should... I guess we'll have to see what he says about switching us earlier.

Lower Octaves

Wednesday= chapel.  Before we walk over to church, we do a hymnsing from the 'old' red hymnal.  Last year I was really bad about doing it because first there was the detour so we had chapel at school right away, no time for it (plus the keyboard had to be in the gym). And after the detour was over, it was winter and we had chapel at school again.  When we did go to church for chapel, the keyboard was always in the office for piano lessons.  So this is the first time my 6th graders are experiencing a hymnsing.  

I don't think they understand the concept yet, which is strange because they're not hard to understand at all.  Pick a hymn you want to sing from the hymnal, write the number on the board, then we sing those songs.  Granted, this is only the second or third hymnsing we've done this year.  

Today everyone asked if I could lower the song an octave so it would be easier to sing... we all have colds.  I did, and I was pleasantly surprised by how low everyone could sing!  It was fun.  They have the hang of it now, so next week should be even better.  Some pick random hymn numbers, others actually flip through to find a familiar one.  Some songs I pick.  It's great when they recognize a melody, "Hey! We sang this in church before!"

My kiddos are in love with weaving.  We're doing a paper plate weaving project that involves using different colors of yarn (if they want), so there are little schniblets of yarn scattered all over the floor.  I keep seeing the dark colors out of the corner of my eye and think they're Joe, out of his tank!  Last night he almost spent the whole night out of his tank.  Someone had taken him out after they fed him, and they forgot to put him back.  Thankfully it's my habit to look in on him one last time before I go home for the night, and when I didn't spot him in his tank, I had to scour the room for him.  He was wedged under the beanbags in the reading corner.  Whew! That was a close one!

Focusing Folder

Well, the Focusing Folder is coming in handy more than just during Daily 5.  The Janesville girls are changing in my room and some are a little shy about changing in front of the other girls.  They are taking turns changing behind the two cardboard folders.  And they're admiring all the different seats in the classroom.  And Joe.

Later, after the game... we lost all three B squad games, but they played pretty well.  My room now smells like perfume which is giving me a headache.  I'm not sure if I have allergies or am just fighting off a cold, but my head has felt stuffed up all day.  Others are fighting off colds/sore throats, so it's not just me.

Today the 5th and 6th graders had trouble focusing... So. Much. Blurting.

We had some frank conversations about not talking when I'm trying to teach.  It didn't work.  We tried playing the No Talking Game, but that didn't work either.  So I started writing "Blurt" tallies on the board every time someone talked out of turn.  I probably should've been stricter on the tallies, but sometimes they talked when I wasn't talking (down time between teaching something).  We'll work on it tomorrow.

The 7th and 8th graders weren't a whole lot better. We had hearing and vision screening today (7th and 8th graders first) and I was told to send the kids down at a certain time. But they didn't have their papers. So while we rushed around finding their papers, they created chaos.  You'd think after all these years they'd know better, but they were loud and shoving and broke one of the pairs of glasses.  It fell on the floor and someone stepped on them.  And then I got chewed out by the helpers.  So we all went back to class, I chewed them out a bit, and they settled down.  We got through one slide of the powerpoint when the nurse told us she had the papers.  I don't know if anybody else's class had such troubles or if it was just mine.  It seemed like it took forever and everyone was discombobulated.  Probably because we were the first ones to go.

Comic Club

It's been raining all day.  Literally pouring rain.  Every hour or so it stops for a bit, but then it picks right back up again.  Since the entryway to my classroom has a metal roof, the sound of rain is pretty noticeable.  If we shut the door, it's hardly audible.  

This is good because we had our first day of FAST testing.  They did the reading test and most did pretty well.  The majority of the 6th graders held steady even over the long summer. Some were surprised by their scores; they thought they'd be lower.  The 5th graders did well too.  Most of my students only dipped a few points, if any.  It'll be neat to see how they do when we retest in January!

I might be getting another BLC student teacher for a reading clinical this November.  I haven't had one for that class yet!  Since it's November, we'll be doing NaNo, and whoever I have can do some great mini-lessons for adding detail to writing.  And the reading lessons can match up!  Yay Daily 5 and Writing Workshop!  

Still waiting to hear official word on a substitute teacher from my college professor.  She is checking with a former student (actually someone I went to BLC with) who might be free.  It would be fun to have her as a sub!  If that falls through, a senior student will probably sub for me.  One way or the other, I think it's covered.  Praise the Lord!  My back-up, back-up plan texted today and said she for sure can't sub for me, so it's a good thing there are other options.

During Workshop today some of the 6th graders invented a comic writing club.  They've been drawing pictures and writing stories to go along, and today they made 'officers' and name tags with their positions listed (post-it notes).  I hope they still get some writing done! I'm thinking about printing off some comic book paper, something that has the comic panel lines already printed.  But they seem content to write in notebooks for now, so perhaps I'll leave them in peace.

Book

It was the sweetest thing ever... this morning an 8th grade girl came in my room holding a book.  When she was in my class she'd read a book by the same author (a Mankato author) and the author came out with another book.  Last night the author had a book signing and the student and her sister went.  They knew how much I love books so... they bought me a copy and had the author sign it! It says, "for Miss Heintz- Enjoy the story! Rebecca Fjelland Davis".  The book is called Slider's Son and it's a historical fiction.

It didn't get as hot today as we all thought it would.  My room was actually chilly up until the last hour of the day, and even then it wasn't too warm... low 70s.  It actually rained for a bit this morning/afternoon.  I didn't know there was rain in the forecast; I had cracked open my car windows since it was supposed to be so hot... I ended up running out there in the rain to close them!  Sigh, it always happens!  Oh well, the seats weren't too wet.

Now I'm headed over to church to set up for the spaghetti fundraiser for Guatemala.  The breadsticks (donated by Olive Garden) were dropped off at school so all the kids saw them and drooled over them.  Hopefully it convinces a few more people to come!

Meetings

Guess what. I forgot Joe's food again.  Poor guy.  The girls went out and picked grass for him, so he didn't starve today.  Okay, I gotta remember for tomorrow!!!  I wrote myself a note, so it's promising...

I feel like I got caught up on a bunch of things today.  My Camp Omega note went home, the Focusing Folders got made (cutting the giant cardboard down to size and writing 'Focusing Folder' on the outside), my desk is somewhat cleared off, my classroom is tidy, and the bell gloves are out so someone can match them up tomorrow morning (people haven't been folding them together when they're finished so the gloves are all loose and it's hard to find a match).

We were going to do FAST testing today, but religion went long which meant that read-aloud went over, which meant DOL went over, and I almost got back on track, but then I gave them more writing time (they were super into their projects!), so we started Daily 5 late and decided to wait until next week to do our FAST tests.

My book orders came in last night, so I got to do 'book commercials' for my kiddos.  Gosh, I love those 5th graders.  Every book they were like, "Oooo! I want to read that one! I can't wait!" And then they wrote them in their reading notebooks.  Even the 6th graders got excited about these books.  One we're saving to read-aloud (the third Bowser and Birdie book... we read the first two last year).  Another the 7-8th graders want to read aloud.  Actually, it's just one boy.  Last night two 8th grade boys brought the box down to my room (I was in the office doing something so I told them to drop it off). They asked if I wanted them to open it for me, so I said sure.  It turns out they just wanted to see which books I ordered!  By the time I got back to my room, the books were laid out on the table and the boys were looking through them.

The meetings last night went late, as expected.  I didn't get home until 9:40.  So I'm leaving school 'early' today.  I have a big pile of correcting to do, but hopefully I'll have time to read a bit and work on freelance lessons a bit too.  The bookmobile came for the first time this year, and I checked out a few movies... hopefully I have time to watch them!  I avoided looking at the books since I have so many waiting for me at home...  Maybe this weekend I can catch up!

Food for Joe

Yep, I forgot the lettuce for Joe in my fridge.  It happens every time!  You'd think I'd learn by now, but no.  Sometimes I'll leave it in my car overnight for this exact reason, however it's been pretty hot out and the forecast didn't sound like it'd be cool last night, so I left it in my fridge.  I also thought there'd be more food left at school.  Nope.  Well, the only lettuce left was pretty slimy so we threw it away.

Yesterday in our talk of flowers, one of the pictures on the board reminded my students of a hibiscus.  One girl had some in her garden, and when she found out Joe could eat them, she volunteered to bring one today.  Joe hasn't eaten it yet.  He's kind of a picky eater, so that doesn't surprise me.  Still, we needed some lettuce to give him (since a flower isn't all that much).  The new cook has been buying iceberg lettuce instead of romaine, which Joe can't eat, so we can't feed him any of that.  When she found out we were looking for food for Joe, we got to talking about leafy greens, etc.  She might bring some kale from her garden for him.  Or some other stuff.

Later this afternoon, while I taught the 7/8th graders, she poked her head in and laid a paper towel on the end of the table, "I just thought maybe Joe would eat some dandelion greens, so I went outside and picked some and washed them off."  Aww, how sweet! She's definitely a keeper.

We did our first round of FAST testing this morning.  Since some students forgot their earbuds, we did the oral fluency test.  Overall they did all right.  I can tell some of the 6th graders slowed down over the summer... one boy said his goal is to get all the way up to 150 words per minute!  He has about 50 wpm to go.  That's a hefty goal!  Still, I noticed today he volunteered to read out loud twice when normally he doesn't at all.  Progress!

Another cute thing happened when the 7/8th graders had study hall... the girls didn't have much work to do, so they all sat in the reading corner and read the 'new' library picture books.  One girl even read the others a story!  Aww!  It was the one I would've picked to read aloud too.   I still haven't made it all the way through my stack of picture books at home.  There are maybe 15 more on the pile?  I read two more last night, but then spent the rest of the evening doing my freelance writing.

Before that, I had stopped to get the last shot I need before traveling to Guatemala.  Afterwards I went grocery shopping and I did something dumb... I held the basket with the arm they put the shot in.  Yeah, not a good idea.  It was fine at first, but by the time I got home my whole left side was so sore I could hardly move it.  I never realized how much I rely on my left arm!  Throughout the day it's been feeling better, but I still can't lift it very high without feeling sore.

Tonight in addition to volleyball practice (I'm skipping out), there's a PTL meeting and a Pork Chop Dinner planning meeting.  So my work day won't end until at least 8:30, probably later.  Sigh.  At least there's dinner on the menu.  The Nicollet County chamber of commerce always puts together a back-to-school meal for teachers, and lucky us, it's tonight!  Thank-you God!

Dissecting Flowers

Science so far this year has been all about plants.  Now that we've had a few lessons, we're starting to get to the more interesting stuff.  Today our topic was flowers, and I figured it'd be easier to remember the parts of a flower if they each had one in front of them.  The hostas in front of school are all in bloom still, so each kiddo picked one and dissected it at their desk as we went along.  We were able to see the pistil, stamen, and even the ovary/seeds.  It kind of weirded them out that flowers have boy and girl parts...

The prairie garden has a bunch of types of flowers. The next time we have science, I think we'll go out there and pick/dissect some more.  We'll see how much they remember!

A giant, empty (for now) fish tank is on the lab table waiting to be filled with water.  It had a lot of minerals around the edges from the tank's previous occupant (two axolotls that now live at the library in different tanks), so I had some eager students cleaning it out before the bell rang this morning and at snack time.  Some of it won't come off, but the worst of it is gone.  We're going to attempt growing things in water.  One student volunteered to bring an avocado seed to grow.  I'm picking up more lettuce for Joe tonight when I run errands.  I think I'll buy a pineapple too.  We'll probably try growing a potato and carrot the same way... I need to do more research on how to grow them that way.

I also brought a piece of onion from home we're going to examine under a microscope.  We didn't have time today, but I took out the microscopes so they'll be all ready to go tomorrow.  Except we're supposed to do history tomorrow... maybe they can look at it before school or at snack time.  We'll see I guess!

Mosquitoes

Wow those volleyball girls are hard to focus. They had all their homework done (or wanted to bring it home), so they were looking for something to do.  They wrote stories on the computer, let Joe walk around, fed him, cleaned his food dishes (we cleaned the tank earlier today), did 'exercise' to warm up for the game (involving yoga balls and yoga mats), ate snacks, asked others for snacks, and talked to me.  Yeah, I didn't get much work done.  Oh well, I didn't have a ton to do.

The mosquitoes were killer today!  Outside at noon recess I got at least five bites in the 10-15 minutes I was out there... ugh.  The 5-8th graders came inside from PE early today because Mr. E couldn't handle all the bugs... and he was in a suit!  It's not fun.

My students are totally in love with our new cook.  She's so friendly and chipper all the time!  Plus they adore her lunch menu.  Last week the full September menu came out and I could hardly hear over the roar of approval from my students, "Hot ham and cheese?! Taco in a bag?! Mastacholi?! All in one week??? ...She can never leave."  It's true, we've had a lot more variety in our menu since school started.  I'm so thankful we have a cook!

My new magnetic whiteboard still hasn't been installed yet.  I was hoping someone would do it over the weekend, but it didn't happen.  It's heavier than the previous one, so I'm not sure if it can use the same brackets that are there or not.  One of the 8th graders wants to install it (he's pretty handy), but he and Mr. E haven't had a chance to check it out.  Hopefully it will happen sometime this week!

Jammin' Out

Art today was pretty good, if I say so myself.  I actually taught them some art concepts instead of my usual, "Here's what we're making, here's how to do it."  After giving out instructions, I put on music.  The 6th graders have their favorites from last year: "Dig It Up" from the movie Holes, "Green Onions" by Booker T, spanish music (good for dancing).  Some of the girls requested country songs, which I also had in iTunes, so I could grant their request.  A lot of them asked for songs that aren't school appropriate (because of language or themes/content) or are songs I don't like.  Why should I have to listen to them if I don't like them?  One song, the whole class sang along to (well, everyone except one person who doesn't listen to country), "Wagon Wheel" by Darius Rucker.  After that, we went out for recess.

Some of the girls wanted to play music outside too, and even though they dragged the big boom box outside... they couldn't find a plug.  And the iPad wasn't loud enough, so they gave up.  Two other girls brought Joe outside again.  We figured out the Ga Ga Ball pit was a great corral for him when they wanted to go play for a while without worrying about him wandering off.  That's what happened toward the end of recess... they went to retrieve him and couldn't find him at first!  He had buried himself under some straw/dried grass along the edge of the ring, and it was long enough we almost couldn't see him.  I'm glad he didn't escape!

Joe Outside

Remember the group of 1st and 2nd grade cheerleaders from a number of years ago? The ones who practiced in my room and were in love with Joe?  The ones who played 'hide and seek' with him and wanted to put him on different book shelves as a hiding spot?  Those girls are now my 5th graders.  And they still love Joe.

I have a birthday balloon on my desk from my birthday way back in April last year.  Yeah, the helium is still in it.  Since it's in the mid 70s today, we thought it would be a good idea to take Joe outside with the balloon tied around his waist (so we wouldn't lose him).

It was a little windy, so the balloon blew all over the place.

Joe didn't move much, probably because the ribbon tugged at him and the balloon cast shadows and bounced closer and further away.  Eventually when he did walk, he slipped right out of the loop we'd tied.  So we put the balloon back in the room and let Joe wander free under my eagle eye.  Eventually, some of the 5th grade girls came and supervised him.  They put him on the pearock, then the sand, then the grass, to see if he would move more on the different surfaces.  He moved fast on all of them except the grass!

When he was on the pearock, he found the bin/bench thing where all the construction toys are kept.  There was a crack about 3-4 inches wide and he crammed himself in!  He had to turn sideways to do it, but he made it.  The girls pulled him out and put him on the sand where he still tried to make it to cover.  On the grass, he didn't move fast enough for them, so they moved him to the playground again.  It was just like cheerleading practice all those years ago... "Let's see if Joe will walk on this! Oh wait, no, that's a bad idea.  Let's try this!"  Pretty soon they moved on to playing house, "Okay, let's pretend Joe is my pet!  And I have to buy him from the pet store!"  They scanned him with the checkout beeper and his new owner took him home.  The girls were petting him and cuddling him... it was crazy.  Next week is supposed to be nice/hot too, so maybe we'll take him out again!

Honkers

Walking over to chapel this morning was a hoot!  

All sorts of big semis were driving down the road.  And since my students are typical elementary students, as soon as they saw one coming, they pumped their right arms up and down in the air, making the universal (at least in Minnesota) sign for 'honk the horn please!'  The first one did, long and loud the whole way it passed my class.  The next one came closely after that, so as soon as my kiddos put their arms down, they spotted it and the arms went back up!  The semis came so close together, their arms were pumping practically the whole way over to chapel.  They looked hilarious all flapping their arms in the air, going faster and faster as the trucks came closer (as if that would be more convincing).  Two big white utility vans came next, and although my students tried to get them to honk, neither did.  But we were still in a great mood when we got to chapel. 

Pastor had the great idea to do 'prayer partners' this year.  Each student got a little pink heart to write their names on (teachers got a bigger red heart), then we put them in a basket, and each person drew out another heart.  That is the person they'll secretly pray for for the rest of the year.  And at the end of the year they'll tell their person.  Teacher did the same, but with teachers (and Pastor is in there too).  

We had a faculty meeting after school.  Surprisingly, my to-do list didn't grow very much during the meeting.  Usually I have added a ton of things I need to get done, but not this time.  I did get some potential leads on a sub for the week I'll be gone in October.  Hopefully at least one of them could do it!

Tonight I have bible study, and then probably working on the freelance writing I've been neglecting since Saturday.  I should run errands, but it'll be late-ish by the time bible study is over, so I'll wait and do it tomorrow.

Full Moon

The start of the day was quiet, but by the time my kiddos came back from math, their voices were in full swing... and it never got any quieter.  Whew!  I could hardly get a word in edgewise during science time!  Thankfully we had outdoor afternoon recess, so they could be as loud as they wanted without getting in trouble.

A lovely lady from church has doozied up the playground over the summer.  She brought extra toys and extra seats for teachers and made a minigolf course and has drawers for all the fun toys she brought and... the list goes on and on and on.  Over the weekend she stopped out to add a few more things and she was kind of sad about how messy/dirty the new toys were.  So this morning the whole school had a meeting to talk about keeping everything clean.  I totally forgot about the meeting; Mr. E had to call my classroom to remind us!

Mrs. E's speech must've made a huge impression on my girls, because for afternoon recess they all cleaned the dishes and put them away in the drawers.  They had a blast! They even scrubbed down the plastic picnic table and the playhouse.  I got served 'ice cream', 'hotdish', 'pizza', and 'apple juice'.  There is a fake old fashioned telephone (pink) that makes noises when you pick up the headpiece, so my kiddos were having a blast yelling into the phone, pretending they ran an ice cream parlor.

Somehow during the day my 6th graders were reminded of a video we had watched last year, a 'commercial' about identifying gun violence before it happens.  So they wanted to watch it before we went home for the day.  It was created by the Sandy Hook Promise group; you can watch it here.  Intense!  They wanted to rewatch it after the first time through, so we watched part of it (we had to get out to the buses).  And then they had all sorts of questions!  Why would someone do that? Will that happen in our high school?  I answered them as best I could with the time allowed, but we could've had a much better discussion if we had more time...

After school a bevy of volleyball players hung out in my room. Yeah, I didn't get much done.  They all went out to the soccer game at 4:00, so I got a little done then, but I still had work to do after the games.  The other team didn't know we were planning an A and B game; they only had one team of 4-8th graders.  So they were frustrated we wanted to play two matches.  Then they were even more frustrated when they found out the A squad was supposed to start at 6pm.  The B games only went until 5:35.  But we couldn't start early because not all our players were there (some had dance).  We ended up playing a third B game to fill the time.  Then came the A games.  And afterwards I found out a parent was upset because her daughter didn't get to play the whole game and the coach's daughter did.  And the coach was upset because her daughter's first jersey was stained and the letters were peeling off... thankfully another jersey was unearthed from the loft, so that problem was taken care of.  Unfortunately, that's not the end of the drama.  The other two coaches have a hard time working together because one of them wants to run the whole show, but she hadn't been at practice so she hadn't worked with any of the girls.  And now the one who's been at practice doesn't want to coach because of the drama, I don't want to coach because of the drama, and none of us know how to talk to the other coach to see if she'd just coach B squad so we can avoid the drama.    

So, it was a frustrating end to the day.

I was able to go for a walk with a good friend and vented all my issues, so I feel better now.  But looming in the distance is the selection of Camp Omega chaperones... and two moms already told me they'd like to do it... how to choose???