Sermon on the Mound

First day of musical practice at church went super well! Oh man, it's going to be good! People are getting their parts down, we're figuring out where people need to stand and what they need to do... ideas for chorus members' extra 'stories' keep popping into Miss S and my heads. We have a talent scout with a notebook, a whiny girl asking for a hot dog, a girl who is soooo warm, a #1 fan, cheerleaders... and we keep thinking up more!

After school Miss S thought there should be an old man who hobbles into his seat and is cranky at the annoying hotdog girl. It's morphed into two grumpy old men. I can't wait to tell those boys tomorrow!

Students keep coming up with ideas of what they can do and what they should wear. My favorites are the ones who say, "Miss H, can I do this?" Yes, yes you can. Some of them are really great ideas! I can't wait until practice tomorrow.

For those of you interested, our musical will be performed next Thursday, May 10th. Piano students will have their spring recital beforehand from 6-6:20ish. Afterwards we'll have art and science fair projects on display and my class will be serving root beer floats as a fundraiser for Camp Omega next year.

Last Day

It was Miss T's last day today. My kiddos quickly made a card for her this morning during read-aloud. It wasn't anything fancy (most of them had a to-do list a mile long they wanted to get to). Earlier this week I bought her some chocolate, a balloon, and a small vase of flowers. The flowers hung out in my fridge all week so they wouldn't go bad. This morning only a few of them looked past their prime. Thankfully, my birthday flowers from my farmer are still going strong, so I cut two green spiky ones off and swapped them out. Perfect.

Our first balloon was popped at the end of the day too. Monday, day #15, we'll get to eat lunch outside. I hope the weather is nice! I did check the forecast before putting up the balloons on Monday and at the time it seemed decent (only a 30% chance of rain). Haven't checked it since then, so we'll see what happens!

One of the speakers in a webinar I watched recently stressed how crucial it is for teachers to have LinkedIn accounts. I'm familiar with LinkedIn, but never created an account since I thought teachers didn't really need one. I guess I was wrong! His thinking is that teachers should be connected to people in other businesses so they can make connections to help their students like bring in guest speakers, set up field trips or job shadowing opportunities, etc. What he said made sense, so I made an account.

Today, I got a message from a reality tv show casting service out of LA who is looking for farmers who are passionate about their livelihood and want to share their story. Interesting. I have a feeling that all the farmers in my life would say NO, but I messaged her back anyway because I'm curious. We'll see what she has to say!

Play and STEAM

We've had a rush, rush, rush day... or at least it's felt like that to me. Maybe the word I'm looking for is 'steady.' We've had to work steadily all day to accomplish all the tasks we needed to.

This morning, I did oral FAST testing with 9 out of 11 students. I still had to meet with my normal Thursday people, so it felt like we crammed a lot into the three rounds we did. Also, our piano schedule was more tightly packed this morning since we went to the MLC play this afternoon.

We left right at 12:20 so we'd get there in time for the 1pm show. I had a student getting picked up at 12:30 for an appointment and worried about what to do with her during the 10 minutes between when we left and when she got picked up. We couldn't just leave her by herself at school alone! Thankfully, my recess helper agreed to hang around until the student's mom picked her up. Whew!

The play was decent, Cinderella and the Substitute Fairy Godmother. It starts at fairy godmother headquarters where the boss is pre-celebrating the company's success with the upcoming Cinderella job. After she marries the prince, everyone will want a fairy godmother and they'll be wildly popular! But at their pre-event celebration, all the fairies eat potato salad that's been sitting in the sun too long and... they get food poisoning. Cue the substitute fairy godmother. Except, it's actually a fairy godfather whose passion in life is selling scented candles (scents like toe fungus and hog barn). His last mission ended up turning Pinocchio into a yak instead of a real boy. But there's no one else!

Meanwhile, Cinderella's family ordered 100 llamas so they can make cheese and sell the fur and make lots of money! And Cinderella has to stay home from the ball to build the barn, dig the new outhouse, and wait for the llamas to come. Her godmother sub arrives and doesn't do his magic right, summoning the three pigs instead of footmen and the big bad wolf wearing an ugly dress instead of dressing Cinderella in a beautiful ballgown. (My favorite character was one of the pigs: the one dressed like a gangster. The others were dressed as a cowboy and an English gentleman.)

The substitute godmother gives Cinderella money to hail a cab and she makes him fork over his smelly moccasins since he can't make glass slippers. But! Things turn out in the end. She goes to the ball in the ugly dress, smelling like cows, wearing the moccasins, riding in a taxi. She dances with the prince, leaves at midnight, and arrives home to find all the animals still there. Then the stepfamily shows up.

It ends where the prince followed her home by talking to the cabbie, he asks her to marry him, the fairy godfather tries to transport everyone back, but it doesn't work, so they have a dance party while they wait. Kind of an abrupt ending and it felt like there were many loose ends.

There have been better plays, but man, they really outdid themselves on the hallway decorations! I wish we could've lingered in the hallway a bit more to really look at them.

We barely got back in time for the buses. After school we set up for STEAM night. It was a roaring success, but man, I'm beat! My table had two stations: which shape paper column holds the most books? triangle, circle, square; and build a flotation device to hold an action figure's head above water for at least one minute.

The flotation device activity was SUPER popular. It makes sense; who wouldn't want to play with water? We made a big mess, but just this afternoon a helper dropped off towels for us to use, and we used them all! Most everything is put away now, or it's at least out of the gym; I have materials spread out on tables in my room that I'll put away tomorrow. Or have some of my students do it. ;)

Week of Webinars

There's a site I like to use to listen to educational webinars: edweb.net. It's awesome: it's free, you can earn continuing ed credit for listening to them, you can preregister and they send reminders, you can watch it live or watch a recording later.

This week I've had a webinar every day so far. Monday's was during the school day, so I couldn't watch it live. Instead I watched a webinar about the benefits of audio books. Tuesday's was about classroom management techniques. Today's was not from edweb, but from the FAST testing company about how to use test data to decide what to teach/how to group kids in the fall. Tomorrow I don't have one scheduled, but I'll watch the recording of the one I missed on Monday (it's about ending peer cruelty).

Today was Miss T's last day of teaching. She'll be here the rest of the week, but tomorrow afternoon we're going to the MLC Play and won't have time for science or social studies. Friday is an art day. My favorite education professor from Bethany came to observe her. It was so good to see her again and catch up! I love when she comes to observe because the suggestions and comments she makes to the student teacher are good reminders for me too. Every time she comes it seems like I learn something I should be doing different or better.

The three of us had an interesting chat while the 5-6th graders were at PE with Mr. E. We were talking about the merits of getting students to make connections to the content they're being taught, and Dr. B summed up her viewpoint of teaching. "Teaching can be boiled down to two things: building vocabulary and making connections." That's basically it in a nutshell.

I also heard some sad news today. We've been praying for Dr. B for the past few months because her cancer came back. I hadn't heard any updates on it, so I assumed it was going well. Mrs. E also has a student teacher that Dr. B observed today and the two of them got to talking. Dr. B shared with her that her cancer is Stage 4 and in her bones. You'd never guess to look at her! She's her normal perky and cheerful self. She's taking treatments, but even if it would go away, it would likely come back. But what a great witness for us! Living the life God gave her to her full capacity, knowing heaven is waiting when God decides it's time to take her home. Still, I'm going to keep praying for a miracle...

Sweet

My students are so sweet... one of them made me a card for me for my birthday. This morning I heard them whispering as I left the classroom to make my rounds at the 7-8th grade room. Something about a card and they had to sign it. I had seen her typing something last week with my name on it (she covertly tried to minimize it whenever I got close to her, but I still caught a look).

Here's what it looks like:
 

Then, during lunch, one of the recess helpers left me a little something on my desk... it was a bag of loose leaf tea, lavender/peach... mmm! How sweet! Can't wait to use it!

The day ended on a not-so-sweet note though. One of the 5th graders landed on her ankle wrong in a game of wagon wheel (like tag) and could hardly move her foot. Two classmates carried her inside, got her an ice pack, and comforted her while I checked her out and called her mom. She could still wiggle her toes, and over the course of 15 minutes the pain lessened, so I don't think it's broken. Maybe a sprained ankle? Not that I'm an expert! Her brother has broken his ankle three times, so her mom knows what to check for!

No Shoes

Boy, was there a lot of attitude at school today!

It was so nice outside that my class wanted to go outside for recess. The 7th and 8th graders always pitch a fit when we do that. If it were a Tuesday or Thursday, I could appease everyone by going in the gym for noon and outside for afternoon recess. But there was PE today, so no afternoon recess. And no helper had signed up to watch recess, so I couldn't even divide and conquer.

We ended up going outside at noon (I had them ask Mr. E what he thought). But the 8th grade boys wouldn't listen to me! They kept shooting baskets in the gym! So I tattled and Mr. E kicked them outside. One of the boys said he couldn't go outside for recess because he was wearing $100 tennis shoes. They had a specific name, but I don't remember. That's probably an accurate price. So when Mr. E sent him outside, the 8th grader left his shoes and socks inside and rolled his sweatpants up high so they wouldn't get wet. He was obnoxious all recess, making bets with his classmates about how long he could stay on the snow pile with his bare feet...

Normally it's the 5th and 6th graders I have to watch most closely at recess. This time it was the 7-8th graders! They were throwing snow at each other, shoving each other in the snow, trying to tackle each other... it was exhausting. Meanwhile, the 5-6th graders played a (mostly) friendly game of 4-square. In the end, the upper grades did have fun; one boy asked if we'd be going outside again tomorrow. Weather permitting, yes!

Jazz

Ooo, the BLC Jazz concert was amazing! Since my classroom has windows facing the parking lot, my kiddos were super distracted starting when the band pulled up. Once they set up in the gym, they ran through a few of their songs, which my class could hear through the door to the gym... Yeah, it was tough to focus.

The songs they played were energetic and got our toes tapping. There were quite a few who sang vocals along with the band. The first young lady who sang blew everyone away. The little first grade boy who sat in front of me turned around and said, "Whoa! She sounds like really good, kinda like a professional. She sounds like you do Miss H!" (He sits next to me in chapel so he hears me singing).

The last song was called "Minnie the Moocher" and whew! The guy who sang really belted it out! He did some scat singing with us echoing him. Great way to end the concert!

Our school cook said she wants a concert like this every Friday.

My 5-6th graders 'toured' the instruments afterwards and listened to how each one sounds individually (since we're learning about sound and all).

The rest of the day was kind of crazy. We turned in answers for Mystery Class, did pinatas, played outside on the giant snow pile and got soaking wet (my students at least). One girl spent recess cutting stairs up the pile. She was like a crabby janitor, "Don't wreck my stairs! ...Now I gotta do them all over again!" It was good-natured though. I wonder if the pile will still be there on Monday... we're finally getting nice weather!

My birthday is tomorrow, so I'm Fulda-bound again this weekend, probably with a stop off in Truman. Mr. and Mrs. E gave me African Violets, a balloon, and chocolates this morning, so they are currently brightening up my desk. Now, to bring the violets home or leave them at school?

Found Poetry

My kids LOVED what we did for Writers Workshop today. I knew they would, so I was super pumped to show it to them. It's called found poetry. You take a page of a book (or a page of typed words), pick out specific words here and there to make a poem, and blackout the rest of the page.

That's where it gets interesting. You can blackout everything regular all over, do it in patterns, make a picture... possibilities are endless!

I had a stack of book pages in my apartment leftover from when I made my Pride and Prejudice book purse (cut out the inside of the book, leaving room for purse stuff!). Good thing I kept them! They were perfect for found poetry. Lots of them didn't want to stop; some even brought extra pages home so they could make more! Yay!

Here are two that I made:
 

No Snow

Yes, we had school today. I didn't even have to scrape anything off my car this morning. Snow began to fall around 10:00, and it still is snowing, but nothing is sticking to the ground. Lots of schools south of us were called off though! I heard that at the very north part of Iowa got seven inches in about two hours. Yuck!

The 7/8th graders were supposed to go tour MLHS today, but they didn't have enough drivers, so they decided not to go. Well, they were cancelled today so it's just as well! It left me in a bit of a bind though, planning-wise. At the beginning of the week I didn't expect to teach them Wednesday, so my student teacher wasn't either. We're learning about early American cultures like the Mayas, Incas, and Aztecs, so I thought why not have a movie day? We started watching The Road to El Dorado today and have about a half an hour left. The movie features people who share a culture similar to that of the Maya and the Olmec.

This morning when I told them we'd be watching a movie, they were excited to not have normal class, but then they thought it was an educational movie and got less excited. Only one of them had seen it before, and he started to talk about it... that got everyone excited again.

Miss T taught the 5-6th graders again. The best part of her lesson was when she had them guess what decibel different sounds were. She rubbed her hands together, flipped pages in a book, played the recorder, and sounded the alarm on her phone. Students had a chart on the board that gave common examples of sounds at specific decibels. It was neat! I tucked that idea away for future years...

Watchers...

I got a text this morning from Mr. E saying the school board would be visiting classrooms today. Other teachers like to know ahead of time to make sure their rooms are spotless and they have fantastic lessons planned. While I too want my room spotless with kids well-behaved and fantastic lessons, I know from past experience that the school board members never come in right when you plan them to, so it's better to stick with the routines.

My class was one of the first ones visited since the other classrooms were at recess when the board members arrived. Two of them made the rounds today, and they spent quite a bit of time in my room. Both stayed about a half an hour each (at different times) while we did our Daily 5 rounds. One of them is a dad to one of my students, so he asked if he could come back later and eat lunch with us. Of course!

After lunch, the same dad/school board member asked if he could come back in and watch in the afternoon. Uh, okay, sure... slightly panicking internally... Most of the time they each stay for maybe 10 minutes to watch. Now they want to come in again? Either I'm doing a bad job or my class is really interesting...

Both men came back around 1:00 to see me lead bells. One of them said he wanted to see what all went into getting a song ready before we play the song in church. Afterwards he asked questions like 'how long have you been practicing this song?' 'when will you play it in church?' So, pretty mundane questions and I had nothing to worry about.

The dad of my student stuck around after bells too. I introduced him to my student teacher, who was teaching a lesson today. She did a Mystery Science lesson with the class, and it was so interesting, he stayed the whole half an hour instead of just 15 minutes like he'd originally planned. Mystery Science is a program I just was introduced to last week. They have interactive video lessons for the kids to watch and then do exploratory activities about particular topics. Normally you have to pay ~$100 for a year subscription, but they're giving away 1,000 free memberships, so I signed up! They're pretty neat! I look forward to using more in my class next year.

Meh

Today was a 'meh' day, for all involved.

I got snowed in in Fulda this weekend. It was nice to be with my family so long. I helped brother #1 and Dad with sheep stuff and bottle fed lambs (in the midst of a blizzard). Sunday was still pretty iffy out, so I stayed another night and drove up to school this morning. Thankfully, it was two hours late, but even if it hadn't been, my principal said it was okay for me to be late. "Whatever your dad thinks is best!" is what he said.

Being off my routine threw me off, I think. I got to school shortly after 10:00 (after swinging by my apartment to change). School started at 10:30. We had musical practice, then two Daily 5 rounds. In the afternoon, my student teacher was supposed to teach. She texted me before she got to school saying she was feeling overwhelmed with the amount of lessons she'd agreed to teach and was wondering if she could cut back on how many she was doing. It's fine of course; I don't want to burn her out. And she did pick a lot of lessons to cover. I wish she would've told me sooner so I could've gotten things ready over the weekend.

The kids were off today. They're always chattier on Mondays, and on late starts, so it was no wonder it was tough to keep their attention this afternoon. They were feeling 'meh', Miss T's lessons were kind of 'meh', she said herself she was feeling kind of 'meh' today, and for that matter I was too. The worst news is that there's more snow/sleet/rain coming Wednesday, this time in the morning. So we'll just get to school and then it'll get bad. Blech. I hope it either doesn't come (ideal) or it comes sooner than expected and no one has to go to school at all (second best option).

After school today, the 7th and 8th graders served at Pizza Ranch Mankato for tips. 10% of peoples' bills gets donated to their class fund. My friend K and I went out to eat. Mr. E paid for our meal and we left the kids the tip (100% of tips go to them). This fundraiser wasn't well advertised, unfortunately. It was only in the bulletin one week, this past Sunday. With the storm, there had only been about 25 people in church, so not many people knew about it. There was supposed to be a Pork Chop Dinner hosted by the men's and women's clubs at church. They still had it, even with the crummy weather, but Mr. E said maybe 50 people came as opposed to the 250 people they'd been expecting. Bummer...

Storm

Oh boy, the storm that's coming is already causing waves!

Although it rained last night, it was gloriously sunny on my way to school. By snack time, the skies were dark and ominous. We went outside to look at the clouds, but the wind and lightning chased us back in. Soon after, a student reported that his mom in New Ulm said it was hailing there. So I went back out to put the cover on my windshield, just in case. Sure enough, about ten minutes later little pellets of ice sprinkled the ground. Our classroom got so loud with the ice plinking off the metal roof.

The poor preschoolers were traumatized. So were the 1st and 2nd graders. Miss S called my room a half hour before reading buddies were supposed to start saying her class was in hysterics (I could hear sobs in the background) and she couldn't get them to calm down, could we do reading buddies any sooner? Yes, yes we can.

It was her turn to host, but in the interest of keeping kids calm, we had them join us in our classroom. My class did a fantastic job cheering them up. We pulled the shades down, had one light off so it was cozy instead of scary, set beanbags and blankets and books in friendly places... by the end of reading buddies everyone was back to 'normal' or at least more under control. Whew!

The hail lasted about a half an hour, then it turned to rain. This afternoon the rain stopped, but I'm sure round two is right around the corner. I'm headed to Fulda for my youngest brother's 18th birthday. Dad has a spot in the machine shed ready for my car! I really hope we don't get the 10-15 inches predicted... 0 would be a nice number!

Quiet

Today was Miss T's first lesson with the 5-6th graders. She did pretty well, though she was really tough on herself. The lesson was about light, light waves, and how we see color. It was a tough topic to teach. In the end, the students did understand the concept we wanted them to, but it took a while.

My class was a lot quieter and more respectful today! We had another talk about voice levels this morning during Daily 5 and man, it was super quiet the rest of the morning. I wonder if having the lights off helps. This is the second day in a row we've worked with both lights off. It's still light enough to see, but maybe the dimness helps eliminate the other distractions?

There's always a big crowd that likes to sit in the reading corner to work. Usually they get chatty. I didn't have to meet with as many people today, so after I wrapped up my meetings, I took a book and read with the reading corner group. All chitchat stopped immediately and everyone refocused their energy on their work. We had some very productive rounds that way. Plus I got a little reading in myself!

Pick, Pick, Pick

It was a lot quieter in my room this morning. One student was out sick (a normally talkative one), and they were all trying harder to be quiet after our talk yesterday. They did well! I hope they can keep it up the rest of the week.

A student asked if she could have a private talk with me sometime. This is the second time in two days she made that request. Yesterday was because some classmates were picking on another student on the bus and at school. She wanted me to give them all sentences every time they made a rude comment. The trouble is, they'd never get anything else done. Plus sentences won't solve the problem. I suggested she talk to her friends and let them know their mean words made her uncomfortable, but she thought they'd turn on her and pick on her next, which is probably true.

Today she brought it up again. Again, she wanted sentences. I said I'd talk with the students making the comments and probably contact their parents too. That might have a better effect than the sentences. Gah, emailing parents about stuff like that is never fun. Thankfully, the parents have been receptive to it (so far). Hopefully it will make a difference.

Two Hours Late

The roads weren't as bad as I thought they'd be this weekend, and although it snowed steadily all afternoon Sunday, we only ended up with about an inch of snow on the ground. We had a half two-hour late start this morning; only New Ulm called it. Nicollet was on time, so I had to be to school by the normal hour (8am). Then we had to entertain ourselves until the New Ulm bus arrived with students at 10:20.

The Nicollet bus kids were actually really excited to be at school for two hours with 'nothing' to do. They worked on their pinatas, started spelling and handwriting for the week, ate snack, talked to each other... they had a good time.

The pinata glue is pretty smelly for some reason (it's just normal Elmer's glue with water mixed in), so they wanted me to turn the Sentsi on. I thought they should move it closer to the pinatas so the smell would be covered up more. The girl who moved it accidentally broke it in half; it fell while she tried to unplug it. I super-glued it back together. We'll see if it works still.

Our student teacher's first day was today! It was a bit of a boring start since the 7/8th graders had a work day. She didn't engage with them a whole lot, even though I invited her to talk to groups. Maybe she's just shy with them. The 5/6th graders didn't make a great first impression... they blurted and giggled and talked almost the whole time I tried teaching them social studies today. And they knew they were being bad! They just didn't practice self-control. We had a talk at the end of the day and a lot of them said they'd try to be better tomorrow.

Lots of kids were out sick today. I had two down in my class. Two others had been sick over the weekend. Both Mrs. E, Miss S, and Ms. F (and her family) had been sick this weekend. Plus a bunch of students in other classes. It's an epidemic! I was fine this weekend, but this afternoon I didn't feel so good... I'm feeling mostly better now. Hopefully that's all it is and I don't get any worse...

Sore Feet

I forgot my shoes at home today.

Some of you may be scratching your heads at this sentence since in Minnesota the high for today was 23 degrees and it was hyperwindy all day... Yeah, I wore my snow boots to school and left the pair I'd been planning to wear on the floor of my living room. Oops.

I didn't feel like wearing the clunkers all day, so I went in sock feet. Only a few people noticed actually! By the end of the day, my feet were sore.

The musical folders (with scripts and song lyrics) have been put together and passed out to the students with lines! My kids really wanted theirs ASAP, so we convinced Miss S to print everything today so we could staple them into folders this morning. She brought everything down during reading buddies and we stapled after that. She didn't have enough copies of the script, so I had to make more. Then some of the copies weren't all front-to-back, so we were missing pages. I had to make more copies. Then we ran out of a few of the songs. Back to the copier! Eventually we did get them all together, but man, lots of running back and forth!

Monday is PreK-Kindergarten round up and this year other classrooms will be open for viewing. Cleaning time! I wrote a few tidying to-dos on the board this morning, thinking my kiddos would be too busy working on their other assignments due today to do them, but actually, they got them all done! One girl even got out the vacuum! (They're all up in arms because they think the janitor skips vacuuming our room Wednesday nights... maybe he does, maybe he doesn't. I always forget to check the floor before I leave).

This afternoon we started our pinatas. They were messy, but they cleaned up after themselves very well. One group's balloon popped at the very end and their newspaper shell deflated too. They'll have to start over on Monday. :(

Sunday night we're supposed to get another 4-5 inches of snow... grr... Will this winter weather ever stop?!

Sermon on the Mound, Musical

My student teacher is lovely. Our meeting got started a little late since she made the wrong turn to get to the school. But she eventually found it and I took her on a tour of the school. She got to meet one of the students who had stayed after to get her math done. It turns out Miss T knows Miss M (our student teacher from the fall) very well since they're roommates (I think) and at the very least good friends. So she is already a little familiar with my classroom and students. Miss T is super enthusiastic about teaching and being in the classroom. She wants to teach basically any lesson I throw her way, so she starts teaching next week Wednesday and Thursday, and by her second week she's teaching both lessons (5/6 and 7/8) each day. It's going to be great! I know my kiddos will love her. The 7/8th graders might be more of a hard sell, but she'll win them over.

Miss S posted the cast list for the spring musical before the kids got here. It was hilarious to watch them realize the list was posted... Only one 5th grader noticed at first. She got in the room and off-handedly asked, "So, Miss H, what does it mean if I'm a soloist for the musical?"
Before I could answer, one of her classmates asked, "Wait, how do you know what you are?"
"I saw it." She then began to list off the parts of everyone else close to her.
Everyone was still confused. They kept asking me and I just kept wiggling my eyebrows at them.
Finally the girl said, "There's a list in the hallway! Didn't you see it?"
"WHAT?! THERE IS?!"
"Yeah, I'll show you."
Cue the mass exodus out of the room to go look at the list.

Most were satisfied with their parts. The ones who were hesitant at first, I talked up their parts and now they're excited, or at least can deal with it. The majority of the parts have only one or two lines. We had a lot of girls who wanted speaking parts and hardly any boys, so we had to switch some male parts to female. There were quite a few that could be flipped, no big deal.

Starting tomorrow we practice songs in the morning. We'll do that three times a week in the morning. The last day of April and the first week in May, we'll go over to church and run the whole thing. May 10th is the performance! The play is called Sermon on the Mound and it's a baseball theme, trusting God to help you, praying/relying on God, etc. It's going to be good. I can't wait for them to read through the script!

Under 30

We had a snow day yesterday. Yes, it's April. It was the first full snow day we've had all year! All the other storms have come on days we already had off. It was a bit unexpected, but at the same time welcome, except I just ended my garage lease at my apartment. My car had to sit outside in the yucky weather. I, on the other hand, stayed warm and dry in my apartment, reading books! Don't worry, I didn't laze around the entire day; I also mapped out the rest of the year for science and social studies... we have 27 days left after today. Yikes!!! That doesn't give us much time!!!

My student teacher for science/social is stopping by after school. She'll be here starting Monday for the rest of April. When she comes, we'll talk about how many lessons she wants to teach and what she wants to teach about, plus give her a tour of the school and introduce her to the other teachers... those that are still around anyway. 

Miss S and I are also having a meeting to firm up plans for the musical. Over break I plugged students into speaking parts, but I want to run it by her before making anything official. There are a few girls who have singing parts instead of speaking parts... I should probably run it by them to make sure they're comfortable doing that before I give them their parts.

Pinatas are almost ready to go. I just have to divvy up the glue into each group's container. We're doing the papier-mâché part Friday. I was hoping the weather would be nicer so we could build them outside, but we might have to go with the messy table option. I'm debating whether I should get more balloons or not. I probably have enough for this year, but there won't be much selection. 

My kids have been anxious about all they need to do this week. We're still having spelling, handwriting, and memory even though it's turning into a three day week! When they asked, I said, "It's either do it this week or do double another week!" Surprisingly, one or two said they'd rather do double another week. Weird. They all calmed down when I let them work on spelling during read-aloud and said they didn't need to color their border sheet in handwriting. I'm kind of nervous about memory work though... I gotta get some of my pokey puppies working on theirs sooner rather than later. They only have two more days to get it!