Woohoo!!!

School is officially over! Woohoo! All that's left is to have our potluck/awards/carnival night. My report cards are filled out and in student mailboxes to be picked up. Book orders arrived and are in mailboxes too.

A huge pile of new books is on my desk waiting to be processed. Woohoo! It's going to have to wait until I'm back from Scotland though! I work at the Fulda library Tuesday and Wednesday, get ready for my youngest brother's graduation Friday. His party is on Saturday and my friend and I leave for Scotland Sunday!

So this weekend will be full of packing!

Our last day was busy, but productive. Religion, NaNo book launch (they were excited), read aloud (we read some of their stories aloud to the class), spelling tests, Daily 5 rounds/meeting with me/BINGO prizes, cleaning the room and taking decorations down, lunch, recess, then National Treasure 2 and closing chapel!

Penultimate

Can you believe tomorrow is the last day of school? Neither can I. I'm super glad that it is though; my kids are so antsy I don't think we could make it any more days!

Our special balloon activity of the day was to read outside today. Since it was so nice out, we ended up doing our whole morning out there. We finished our read-aloud book, did Daily 5 rounds, and enjoyed the summer-ish temperatures. The 3rd and 4th graders were on a field trip today, so we got to eat lunch early.

The second day of dissecting for the 7-8th graders went well too. First, we corrected our last week of spelling. Yay! We're getting new spelling curriculum next year (hopefully) so it really is the last time we'll have to do that. I'm so glad; I don't like this spelling curriculum.

After correcting, we watched a few videos put together by the Pork Producers featuring a hog farming family that goes to our school (the grandma/matriarch of the family brought them in... she's been helping us with dissecting, so she thought it would go hand-in-hand with what we did).

The 5-6th graders spent the afternoon after math watching National Treasure 2. We'll finish it tomorrow.

They keep asking when our book orders will be to school. We ordered last Thursday and they finally shipped yesterday. Grr... But it says that they'll arrive by the end of the business day Friday. My kiddos want them to come sooner so we can read them in school. They say if they start reading them at school, they'll keep reading them at home over the summer. But they're worried if they don't start at school there will be no incentive for them to start them at home. Man I hope they come during the school day!!! If they don't come by the end of the school day, I'll still be able to give the books to them tomorrow night at the end of the year awards night. I have to give them their report cards too.

Dissecting

Today was D-day, dissecting day. Actually, we're dissecting tomorrow too, but not as hardcore as today. Not that our dissecting lab was hardcore... it was more a discovery learning kind of thing. The 7th and 8th graders did waaaay better with instructions and the whole project than I thought they would. Everyone paid attention and did what they were supposed to. It was really nice. And it wasn't as smelly as we all thought it would be!

We started out by watching at Youtube dissection where the guy walked through it step by step (I had watched it last night to see what to do), but once we got started cutting into the pigs it was easier to just keep going, so we only watched about two minutes worth of the video. Once they got in there, we looked at the different body parts and tried to identify them. Tomorrow they'll get to cut into more of the organs and we'll hopefully get to the brain.

Whew, you can tell it's the last three days of school! My 5-6th graders had a super hard time focusing today. I gave them the end of the year teacher survey I always do. Most kids said generic things and I wasn't too surprised about their favorite/least favorite projects. One girl did surprise me though... she thought all the projects were boring and seemed like they were for little kids and that she feels like kids her age in other schools know a lot more than she does. And she thinks class got really boring and I myself annoyed her and frustrated her. Huh. Well, I did say to be completely honest.

I'm giving the survey to the 7-8th graders tomorrow...

Clean Up

The musical was a blast! It went off without a hitch; the kids had so much energy, there was a HUGE crowd, the baseball players cracked a few smiles, the speakers were enthusiastic... even the girl who went home sick was there (feeling much better).

Root beer floats went well too. We made $224.75 for next year's Camp Omega trip. The lady who bought supplies for us got grape and orange pop too, so if people wanted fruity instead of root beer, they could. Next year we might add strawberry too.

This afternoon we cleaned up everything at church. It took some finagling since I didn't want everyone to be over there getting into mischief. I gave the 6-8th graders the option if they wanted to practice softball in the gym with Mr. E, they could. Anyone who didn't want to could come over to church with me. It was rainy outside so we had to find a time when no one was in the gym.

Everything is mostly put away. Monday we'll bring the cheerleading uniforms to Fairmont and leave them there with someone from their school. I'm headed to Faribault for the weekend to spend time with my friend Laura. We're Duluth bound tonight. It's supposed to be a high of 50 degrees there tonight, so I pulled my winter coat back out. Track and Field Day on Monday is supposed to be close to 80! What a difference! It sure makes packing more complicated, but that's Minnesota for you!

Sermon on the Mound

I just printed my last week of lesson plans for the year... It's hard to believe there are only six days of school left!

Track and Field Day got postponed to Monday, so we'll have a normal day tomorrow. Now we have time to pack up the musical stuff during the school day instead of having to pack it up tonight or tomorrow morning. Everything has fallen into place (hopefully) and the show will go off without a hitch (hopefully)!

One of the first speakers of the musical went home sick today... She plays the main character's mom and only has one line, but it's an important one. There really isn't anyone to substitute for her. We had added a little sister to the program to help the line fit better into the musical, so we asked the sister if she would say the line (waking up her brother so he wouldn't be late for the big game). She didn't want to do it. But, the sister's 'friend' in the play was willing to step up to the plate, so we're changing the program so the second girl is the sister (who says the mom's line) and the original sister gets to just be a kid/friend. The mom's line can be ad-libbed a bit, so it's not like anyone has to know it perfectly, and it was very easy to turn it into a sister waking up her brother. "Mom says you need to get up so you're not late for the game!"

Mr. and Mrs. E had us teachers over for supper tonight so we didn't have to worry about eating before the musical. I have a basic plan in place for tomorrow and I have a basic idea of how I want next week to go. Now all I need to do is find time to correct my papers!

Musical Eve

Wow, my head feels like it's going to explode!!! I'm getting pulled in so many different directions: Mother's Day projects, the musical, end of the year balloons, the musical, track and field, upcoming trips, the musical, other field trips, end of the year grades, root beer floats for the musical... Can you tell the musical is on my mind? It's still super fun, but I will be very glad when tomorrow night is over.

There's talk that Friday's Track and Field Day will be postponed to Monday due to rain. Part of me wants that to happen, the other part says we should keep it as is.

Today the PTL had a Minion theme breakfast/treat spread in the office for us to eat for Teacher Appreciation Week. Miss S bought me a "Chapter Books Are My Jam" tshirt and wrote me a sweet card. Two students gave me presents too: a set of potholders one girl made, and a pencil bag with a cute teacher saying written on it. Aww!

End O Line

It was a bit of a drippy day for a field trip, but we still had fun! It poured on our way down to EOL, but God was good and stopped the rain by the time we got there! We were the only ones at the park besides the director of the park. He gave us the tour (and I sprinkled in extra tidbits I remembered from my time as a tour guide there). They had a lot of fun! Plus they really enjoyed the gift shop and playing on the playground.

After eating lunch, we made the short-ish trek to the farm in Fulda. It sprinkled on us for most of the tour, then it turned into a full-on downpour right when we wanted to play bale tag. So we hung out in the machine shed until it passed. Thunder and lightning crashed in the distance, so I wasn't sure if it was safe to play, but they hounded me so much I made a deal. We could play until it thundered or lightninged.

Everyone took off running for the bales. It was muddy and slippery and a few had trouble getting on the bales... They had a fantastic time! ...for about five minutes until it rumbled off in the distance. Bummer. They played on the rope in the haymow for a while, while others cleaned off their shoes caked with mud. We ended up with plastic bag 'shoes' for most of the class heading home in clean cars.

The girls in my car convinced me to swing by Courtland Mart so they could get ice cream... They went in with their plastic bag shoes!

Canoeing

Well, we've had better times canoeing. The day was sunny and warm, but super windy, so it was hard to keep our canoes out of the reeds. It took a lot of work to keep everyone going the right direction! Lots of tired arms by the time we got back. We had to do some mid-water switching of partners because some weak paddlers were in canoes together. Then one duo started yelling at each other because they kept getting stuck... it was a good lesson in teamwork, but I'm not sure how well it stuck.

This morning, my kiddos had all convinced me that we should eat lunch out at the Swan Lake landing. Last year we'd eaten at school since rain had chased us off the lake. Today, it was so hot after we put our canoes away, they wanted to get in the car and turn the A/C on. So we ate lunch at school. One grandpa who drove was so sweet; he brought ice cream drumsticks for everyone in the class to share. It was the perfect treat after our sack lunches!

The 7-8th graders left on their class trip this morning, so no math today. I had promised my class that we could watch National Treasure later this year, and there's not much of the year left, so today was the day we watched it. Oh man were they into it! It was almost more fun to watch their expressions/reactions than it was to watch the movie! We still have about 45 minutes to go, but we can't finish until Thursday since we're on a field trip tomorrow. Wednesday we have a teacher from Fulda coming to watch how we do Daily 5 so she can do it with her class next year.

Miss S and I put up more decorations for the musical after school. We weren't going to spend much time there, but it ended up being an hour. We used white duct tape to make 'aisles' in the bleachers more noticeable, a batter box by home plate, and base lines out to first and third base. We ran out of duct tape, so when I run errands tonight I'll have to stop and buy another roll. I need to pick up succulents and a cactus for a few students. They gave me money to buy plants for them to put in their vases/containers to give to their moms/grandmas/aunts for Mother's Day. Let's hope there's a good selection!

Dance

I am going to a dance recital tonight. Two of my kiddos are in it and one of their mom's had an extra ticket even! It's going to be packed, so I should actually get going so I get a good seat (the dance teacher is retiring after this year; it's her last concert). My girls were excited about it all day! (Both the recital and that I was coming).

Musical practice went very well today. We had a few guests watching who couldn't come next Thursday. The 7-8th graders will be gone Monday and Tuesday on their class trip, so we only have two practices left with the full cast. Almost all our props are finished, costumes have been coming in (one baseball shirt came, but I'm not sure if it will fit the guy we bought it for... he thought it would but he looked at it for like two seconds), everyone is getting excited. After practice today we had to put church back to normal since there's church/communion Sunday. Then everyone had some well-deserved recess before we sent them home. Only 10 days of school left!

My computer was back to working correctly today. Still a little slow. I restarted it this morning and everything worked after that. I still haven't ordered all the NaNos, but I was able to tweak them enough to get the price down to $3ish each. My to-do list is a lot shorter too. I still have a bunch of BIG things on the list, but maybe I can knock some more off the list tonight after the dance recital.

Tomorrow morning is the big 5K event at school to raise money for tuition assistance. I get to man the registration table (my favorite job). Later in the afternoon I'm meeting up with the principal from Fairmont to borrow their red/white cheerleader uniforms. I'll probably hang out with my farmer since I'll be in the area and then head on to Fulda; my sister has a bridal shower Sunday afternoon. It will be a busy weekend with an even busier week to come! Busy, but good.

Grr...

Ugh, my computer at school gave me grief all day! I need to get my kiddos NaNos published and ordered either today or tomorrow so they come before the end of the school year. The crunch time is brought on by myself since I didn't get my act together and push my kids to edit their NaNos until April... I could've been working on it last week, but again, I didn't get my act together.

So I stayed up late last night and got up early this morning and I still didn't get them all done. My plan was to work on uploading them to the printing website at school during the day, but my internet wouldn't load any other page except my teacher email. Lovely.

All day. Couldn't go to any other sites.

We had a faculty meeting after school, afterwards I checked again and it STILL wasn't working. So I packed up and went home. Since then, I got them all uploaded to the website and they're waiting for the site to approve them for publishing. Unfortunately, I have to change them all.

Normally I have my students write circular stories which I type and add to the end of their NaNos to make them a little longer (if they're too short, the site won't publish them). We didn't write very many this year since we were busy with other things, so I didn't have anything to tack on the end. Then I got the bright idea to add pictures I'd taken throughout the year. Ooo! They'd love that!

Except then they need to be printed in color, which is more expensive. I didn't realize how much more expensive until I tried to order the one book that had been approved so far. Normally they're $2-3 to print each book. This one was about $7. Now, I love my students, but I don't want to pay $7 for each book. So I've been going over the pictures trying to condense them into a smaller amount of pages to see if the cost goes down.

Even worse, I'll have to send them through the whole proofing process all over again. I really hope more are approved tonight so I can fix them and maybe will be able to order the books tomorrow sometime. Ugg! Lesson learned: next year, do this much sooner!

A Day of Blood

Yikes! Two of my kids left school scraped up today. One fell on the way to chapel, skinned her knee, put a hole in her Capris, and gouged her hand. We doctored her up at church, but over the course of the day they kept falling off her hand. The other girl fell into a door and cut her chest a little and banged up her knee pretty good.

On a totally different note, Miss S and I made SUPER progress on the musical this afternoon. I had this idea to have all the chorus people walk in to baseball organ music, coming from different different doors, acting like they're actually going to a baseball game. After school today we mapped it all out and figured out who is going where, doing what. It's going to be epic!

Now the PTL meeting is over and I'm going home to have supper. Whew!

Props

Well, we blocked the rest of the musical today. We had ended over halfway through yesterday, so I thought it would go faster than it did. As it was, we only had time to finish blocking, not start over at the beginning. We did run through two songs twice. It's still coming together very nicely!

After school I had thought I'd be able to get many things done, but instead Miss S and I looked over our props and ordered costumes for the ball players. The Eagles baseball team wears raglan shirts (white with red sleeves) and white baseball caps. We might decorate them a little. The catcher and pitcher from the opposing team get to wear navy and gray. They get navy blue ball caps. It took us a while to find the best deal! Once we did, we had to figure out what size everyone wears. There weren't any large tshirts available in our colors on the site we used, so we had to buy one shirt from Walmart.com. It's supposed to arrive between May 7-10th. The 10th is the day of the musical. Hopefully it comes in time!

The 6-8th graders began making props today, mostly painting signs. No one is finished yet, but there's still time. Aside from painting, we've been slowly accumulating the little things we can't make by scrounging around school... play money, a money apron, bats, balls, bases (had to order some since all ours are chewed up and don't resemble squares any more), pillow and blanket... the list continues.