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...