One and Done

*Sigh* boy am I glad today is over. It was pretty good, but still, I am fully ready for a two week break.

My classroom actually looks pretty good. It didn't take as long to tidy up as I thought it would. I can actually see the dark top of the lab table (the past two weeks it's been covered by art supplies). There are still a bunch of supplies waiting to be put back in the closet, but I think those can wait until Monday or Tuesday.

Our first program is Sunday afternoon and the second is Christmas Eve night. We are ready. The one bell song is a little shaky, but if two of my high bell players stay on rhythm we're okay. We practiced the tricky bit over and over after rehearsal was over. The two girls I kept the longest were not happy they had to wait to eat lunch.

I had another student who shut down because he didn't think he could get all his fixes done before presents/the all-school movie. He tends to rage and throw/kick/knock stuff over when he has a meltdown. Even though he had a few meltdowns, the damage was minimal in the classroom. He took off into the gym and threw frisbees and pinnies all over. It's a good thing most of my kiddos were motivated to stay on task today (the rest of them were actually pretty calm) so I felt okay leaving them to go talk to this kid. I tried 'resetting' him a few times, encouraging him to keep trying, he had time to turn it around and get his work done, but the poor guy had just given up on life/school/himself and wanted to go home. He called his mom who encouraged him to tough it out. The rest of the day was a struggle, but we both got through it and he did get all his work finished in time to join the rest of the school at the movie!

Presents were good, as usual. This class didn't get into the letter present idea as much as other classes did. My kids gave me lotion, cozy socks and chocolate, a new 8x8 pan, Maurices gift card, Chicken in a Biscuit crackers and banana chips (some of my favorite snacks), honey (the student said they'd harvested it from their hives just last night!), and a fancy woven beaded bracelet a student made (he took it to the fair and got a purple ribbon!).

Then, Mr. E gave me a present to make up for the mix-up yesterday. It turns out he'd had my name all along but he checked the wrong pocket... The first year we did name swaps, he forgot who he had and had to ask every teacher who they had so he could figure it out. The next year, he kept the name piece of paper in his suit pocket. This year, he did the same thing. But when he went to check whose name he had, he checked the wrong suit coat! He found the name from last year's person. When he checked his other suit coat he found my name on the piece of paper. So he went overboard and got me a ton of minty things... some chocolate, some mint mints. Looks like I'll be set in the snack department for a while!

One Day Left!

I am so glad we only have one day of school left... my kids got the wandering virus and couldn't stay in their seats all day. I'm really glad we have program practice in the afternoon. I have no clue how I would be able to teach them anything with their constant restlessness.

The other day I left a note in one of the 2nd grade students' desks complimenting him on his awesome smile during singing/practice. He wrote me a note back that said, "Thanks Miss H! This is how small my pencil is." and then he had a tiny box drawn next to it. So cute!

We exchanged teacher gifts after school today. I had Pastor, who's gift request initials were CD. I gave him some Christmas decorations and chocolate drinks (cocoa). There was a mixup with names. Two people thought they had Mr. D (initials CC), so one teacher was the odd man out who didn't have a gift... and it happened to be me. The piano teacher had made Christmas cookies as her gift for Mr. D, so she just gave them to me instead. She had also gotten him coca-cola, candy canes, and a Christmas cartoon tie. He got the tie and she gave me the other things. Kind of a bummer, but such is life. My initials were SM, something minty.

Better

My kiddos were better today. Still not fantastic, but much better than they have been the rest of this week.

The morning started out really cold, so we had chapel in Mr. E's room. Normally we'd have chapel in the gym, except the electronic keyboard that we bring out from my room for music is not working. Last time, we couldn't get it to turn on. I'm hoping just the cord is broken and not the internal mechanism. Until we get a new one ordered, we'll have to be in Mr. E's room where there's a piano and space for all the kids.

After school I worked with a student who owed me five pieces of memory work from the past three weeks. The rule in our class is that you have to have all your work done before you get to open your present on Friday, so that's lit a fire under a lot of my students to buckle down and turn in their late stuff. I was pleasantly surprised that this student willingly studied his memory. The girls had practice first, boys had study hall. He wanted to be in the study hall room for a bit, so I told him a time he should come down to our classroom. He showed up! It took him less than an hour to get caught up on his memory: his program part (still shaky), two verses of "Savior of the Nations Come" and the 9th and 10th commandments and their meanings. All he has to do is catch up on math!

Tonight was our sister church's Christmas program. A bunch of my students were in it. It was fun to hear their parts and see what another church does. Actually... I'm pretty sure the program they used was one I wrote with three other girls in college for a class, "The Trees of Christmas". This church has a new DCE who used to work with one of my college friends who'd written it with me. I'm guessing they used the program at that school, and now this lady thought since the Redeemer people hadn't heard it before, she'd use it again here. Fair enough.

After the service, two of my former students (now in high school) handed out the traditional treat bags to the kids as they left. One of them noticed me and said, "Oh look! It's Miss H! Let's give her a treat bag... She's a kid." So I left church with a treat bag. Oh the perks of being a teacher!

Movie

I had no idea I could get so exhausted from watching a movie with my class...

Last week for religion we read through the Nativity story in Luke and Matthew. Monday, we did a play about the resurrection written by one of the 6th graders. Today, we watched The Nativity Story, a wonderfully historical movie of Jesus's birth. It puts me in the Christmas mood every time I watch it. It's only an hour and 40 minutes, but it took us two and a half hours to watch it because we had to keep pausing it. Part of the pauses were to explain what was going on and why the movie people put the stuff in there (and if it was in the bible or if it just got added for dramatic effect), but a bunch of pauses were to get wiggles out or to get kids to stop talking.

The first half went great! After that they got restless. One boy had made popcorn for snack. He decided to share with a classmate by dumping some over the back of the couch on top of that classmate. The dumper said that the classmate had been holding his hands out. The classmate said he didn't actually want any. The end of the story is that popcorn ended up all over the floor and in the couch. I had them vacuum the mess up. The vacuum ended up staying in our classroom tipped over on the floor the rest of the day because none of them could bother to put it back where they got it. Yeah, that's the kind of day we had.

Sigh. Lots of meltdowns.

Program practice went super well today! The bell songs got added in and sounded pretty good. The costume people remembered to go where they were supposed to and when. The songs sound AMAZING! Walking out went pretty good too. We're going to practice walking in tomorrow.

Wordles

This weekend I put the wordles/word clouds together for each of my students. They turned out super cool! I secretively printed them off after school today. Most of them printed fine, but a few with really dark backgrounds have strange lines through them. The printer must be dirty, but I don't know where/how to clean it so streaks don't show up when I print from my computer. Eventually I gave up. The lines kind of look like they're supposed to be there. *shrug* Maybe they won't notice. I'm hoping to have time tonight to stick them in the frames and wrap them.

Program practice went well today. The songs sound AWESOME! I also came up with some acting our costume part kids can do during a few of the songs and the Nativity bible reading part. So far we've kept our program practice to the hour long and haven't gone over. Tomorrow I want to add the bell songs to the mix, which will make practice longer, but hopefully we won't need to repeat instructions/redo certain songs. We did that a bunch today.

It's coming together! It's hard to believe there's only four more days of school left this week and less than a week until our first program!

Gone

By the end of the day, I was down to eight students (normally 12).

We started with one kid home sick with a sore throat. The next one we lost at about 10:00 due to an ear infection. The last two went home at 1:30 because they're not participating in the Christmas program and their mom picked them up early so they wouldn't have to sit in the pews for an hour doing nothing. It was very strange to have so few kids!

Program practice went well, aside from one mic deciding to malfunction most of practice. We didn't have any risers set up, but the kids found their spots anyway and we ran through the whole thing in about 40min or so, not including bell songs, including a few stops and starts for notes along the way.

Prior to that, the 6-8th graders practiced bells again since our one song is so hard. It actually sounds really cool! Today we added the tone chimes for the first time and that in particular sounds really good. We only have two more practices to get everything down pat, but I'm hoping we'll have enough time to run through bell songs during practice every day.

Can you believe it's only 12 days until Christmas??? We only have five days of school left this month...

Adjectives

Yesterday I had my kids write at least five positive adjectives describing each person in our classroom. I'm going to turn it into a Word Cloud, stick each person's in a picture frame, and give it to them for Christmas. It's going to be awesome. The kids with older siblings have forgotten about it (or at least they haven't brought it up) and so far no one suspects a thing!

It's interesting to hear what words they think of when they picture their classmates. A lot of the adjectives are words I've heard those students say 'I'm not..." [smart, athletic, funny, etc.]. I can't wait to see their faces when they see them!

It's also interesting to see which kids know/get along with each other the best. Or worst as the case may be. One boy gave all the girls the same adjectives: nice smart unique friendly fun. At the bottom of the page he wrote, "I do not know the girls that much."

I told them it was optional to pick words describing me, but a few did anyway. I'm still waiting to get some of the papers back (they're due tomorrow), but it sure was a pick-me-up to read their words for me, especially with all the behavior issues I've had to deal with this year: neat, nice, bright, caring, creative, funny, good, loyal, kind, sharing, creative, generous, friendly, encouraging, smart, neat, adventurous, honest, helpful, selfless, warmhearted, educated, loving, polite, understanding.

Nativity

Today was a much better day than Monday and Tuesday. I actually had a (mostly) fun day being a teacher!

This morning I saw the 7-8th graders art project parent Christmas present and I suddenly remembered that I should do something with my class too. Oops. Better think about that. At lunchtime I asked my kids what they thought we should do for parent presents and one 6th grade boy said we should make nativity scenes. What a great idea!

It's a good thing I have a ton of art supplies in the closet... We had a bunch of non-movable clothespins and a few pinecones left to use as the people bodies (or stable building supplies as it turns out). I have a ton of beads and wooden things and buttons. The kids and I were so excited about it, I decided we should build on that excitement and just start art today. We skipped social studies. Such is life. They had a great time figuring out the best way to build a stable. Not many of them have worked on their nativity figures yet. The boys asked if they could work on their project during their basketball study hall after school. I cleaned out the closet while they did and we both made major progress on our tasks. They look so good! I'll have to take a picture.They surpassed all my expectations so far and I'm expecting them to get passed even more!

Jump Rope

Afternoon recess today was a blast! Two girls brought out the long jump rope and we jumped all recess. I taught them the 'teddy bear, teddy bear' rhyme. They were all impressed with my jumping skills (spinning, touching the ground, etc), but none of them were brave enough to try.

They were brave enough to run in when we were twirling. One girl who's normally so adventurous kept screaming any time she got close to the rope. She just couldn't commit to running through! We were having so much fun some of the basketball boys came over and jumped in. It was great to get some of the kids who aren't normally very active at recess getting lots of good exercise!

Christmas

Yesterday my youth group coleader and I took three kids to Christmas at Bethany. Of course the best is when you are actually in it and singing/playing, but it was good to be an audience member. My favorite parts are still the opening and closing songs. I was in band when Professor Lo first arranged those songs. Each day he'd come in with new music, telling us to get rid of the old one, it wasn't good anymore! It was so frustrating because it seemed like we'd never learn to play the new music with such short time before the concert, but it came together. And it's been played every year since!

After the concert we drove through the Kwanis Holiday Lights and went out to eat. It was a long day. Then I went home and did my lesson plans until bedtime.

Today's drive to school wasn't super fun. The road to school hadn't been plowed so I drove through little drifts most of the way. The wind has thankfully died down, and so has the temperature. The heating guys worked on my heater for a good chunk of the day. They had to melt off the frost that's been building up on the outside unit. It turns out a bunch of the information I'd been told about the heaters is not true... the remotes are not the thermostats; the thermostat is on top of each unit. Because it's on top of the unit, the electric heat that's above them messes with their thermometer so the new heat units think the room is warmer than it is. The guys shut off one side of the electric heat so that shouldn't be an issue any more. They're going to check back in a few days to see if frost is still building up on the outside fan. If it is, they'll build a windbreak or get a cover for it.

My kids were not great today. One kid basically ignored me most of the day. We only read aloud for five minutes because they were just too squirrely. I blame it on the weather and that it's a Monday. Praying tomorrow goes better.

Outside Recess

My boys fight me on outside recess. They complain that there's nothing to do outside; they want to practice basketball. My answer: guess what, there's a basketball hoop outside. They don't like that hoop because for a long time the net was tight and the balls would get stuck in it. Now it has stretched out and it doesn't happen so often but they're still leery of it. Their next complaint is that there's ice on the blacktop, so the balls get dirty. Well, such is life. We're in the gym most of the time for recess, when it's nice out, we should go outside.

I'm pretty proud of myself for getting the guys to have fun at recess, or at the very least be active. It started with them saying there was nothing to do.
Me: So play 4-square.
Them: No, who's going to play with us?
Me: I will.
Them: Eh... there's ice everywhere. (there wasn't ice everywhere)
Me: How about hopscotch?
Them: HOPSCOTCH! What even is hopscotch?

So I showed them how to play. Then I threw a chunk of ice on the squares to make it harder. Soon they were hopping through it faster and faster. I mixed it up with math facts: do only odd numbers, multiples of three, prime numbers, etc. They came up with some ideas of what to jump on too. They spent most of the rest of recess jumping hopscotch.

Busy

We had the shortest staff meeting of the year after school today. Basketball season is in full swing so Mr. E's schedule is quite packed. There were home games starting at 4:30, so we squeezed in a meeting from 3-4pm. A parent was supposed to watch all the kids who'd stayed after school (all the basketball players) in the gym, but at the last minute we found out he wasn't coming. So all the kids who'd been playing freely in the gym (it was like Lord of the Flies in there, but before they got to the death/violent part) had to go to Mr. E's room to be watched by a bossy 8th grader. Thankfully another parent volunteered to come watch and after a half an hour of being stuck in a classroom they were able to get back to the gym.

After our meeting I met up with a college friend followed by my community ed shop class. I finished early since I was the only one in my class; my planter looks pretty good if I say so myself! My teacher and I talked about future class offerings. The next level is to make a chair. I asked if we could try making one of those chairs that can flip over into a step stool. He said if I can send him the plan to look over, he'd be willing to try something new! So, I'll add that to my to-do list. It sounds like if I have ideas of something else I'd like to make we can probably work on them together... I'll have to scrounge my Pinterest board for other ideas I want to try...

It was supposed to be Mr. W's last day today, but he missed Tuesday and his afternoon class tomorrow was cancelled, so he's coming back to give the 7-8th graders their Ancient Asia test. They had a study day today and did okay. My class did a practice US citizenship test with Mr. W. They were surprised at what types of things you need to know! I was happy to see that most of the questions are on things we're going to learn about later on this year.

Africa

We had a special chapel today for a pastor we have connections with who is moving to Africa in January to teach at the seminary. It was cool to see pictures of the places he and his wife will be living and working.

The 7-8th graders did a penny oxidation lab where they tried to clean pennies in various liquids. We used pine sol, windex, vinegar, peach juice, toilet bowl cleaner, sierra mist, mineral oil, and maybe some others. The cleaners worked the best, especially pine sol. Orange juice made it turn black. Ketchup started getting stuff off but it wasn't too noticeable.

The 8th graders went down to Mrs. L's room for bells with the 5th graders, so the 7th graders helped with cleanup. Afterwards, we played a new game I got for Word Work, which is basically Scattergories, but it's called 60 Second Slam!. It's hard to get many words in 60 seconds!

My shop class last night was fun. I was the only person who'd signed up, so it went quicker than the class typically does. My planter is about halfway finished; I'll go back Thursday to put the final pieces together. Tonight I'm going to our sister church's Advent service. Immanuel doesn't have Advent services for some reason.

Sick

Nope, not me. Not my students. It was Mr. W.

I found out at 12:10 that he was too sick to come to school today. He was supposed to teach at 12:30. He called the school when he hadn't gotten a response to the email he'd sent me at 10am this morning. I hardly ever have time to check my email during the day, especially now that I don't have a projector remote to freeze the board when the projector is on. Still, it went okay.

Mr. W had sent me the 7-8th grade ancient history lesson Sunday afternoon and I'd looked over it on Monday. He hadn't made any of the changes I'd wanted him to, but I knew enough about his lesson that we could do the gist of it. It was pretty short, so I finished up our science powerpoint with the rest of class time and it worked out okay. I hope he's feeling better enough to send me his lesson plan for Thursday (a review game and test).

Sunday after I got back home I put up my Christmas tree and some other decorations. I bought a light timer planning to use it with my plants, but I really love seeing my tree lights through the window when I walk up after coming home, so I have my tree lights plugged into it now. I have the timer set so it turns on shortly after I wake up, shuts off right before I need to leave for school (to help me get out of the house on time), turns on between 5-5:30 (to encourage me to leave school on time), and turns off again right around bedtime. It will hopefully be a good visual cue!

I got a second timer to use at school with the greenhouse. This one is set to turn off close to 5pm (again, to remind me to go home!). The lack of light from that corner of the room is definitely noticeable!

We had more heater trouble today. It was cold and using electric heat when I got to school this morning. Our room eventually heated up, it even got a little too hot this afternoon and I turned it down, but now I should probably turn it back up to keep the temperature steady overnight. It's just going to get a little hot in here in the meantime. Another reason for me to go home!

First Day Back

Thanksgiving break was wonderful... tons of time with family, a bunch of reading time, no papers to correct... The drive home Sunday night wasn't fantastic, but I went slow and made it without any troubles. The hardest part was that a lot of the road was dry, but every so often there were slick spots, so you had to go slow so you wouldn't hit them too fast.

My new classroom heaters are not keeping up with the cold. I'm really glad they left in the electric heat, but that's only set at 66 degrees. I keep the new ones set at 70 degrees, but the highest the room ever got today was 69, so I have to set it higher. Another science experiment to fiddle with.

My kids were not at their best today. Too many squirrely bodies. A parent sent me the name of a classroom management book I should check out (she's a social worker, and I'd told her if she found anything useful to send it my way, so it's okay, but it still stings a little for a parent to tell me that I need a classroom management book... eh, I'll get over it). It's not in any public library system in Minnesota, the BLC library, or the MSU library. It's on Goodreads, but no one has read/reviewed it. I'm the first to 'want to read' it. I found it on Amazon and only three people have reviewed it. Their reviews are positive, but I don't know that I want to buy it until I've read it myself. I'm waiting to hear from the parent if she has access to the book or not.

Speaking of books... ALL my students completed their NaNo goals in November! Two boys finished their books on the last day. I kept checking the class NaNo page over break to see how far they were getting. In all total, my class of 12 students (plus me) wrote a collective 69,245 words in November (30,456 of them are mine). A few kids have met their goals but haven't finished their stories, so a handful of them are still racking up words. My highest writer is up to 10,000 words and still going strong!

Thanksgiving

We had a decent day today: solar system presentations went well, kids were crazy, lunch was okay, classroom is moderately cleaned up, and I am out of here for Thanksgiving break!

So far everything is peaceful outside. We'll see how much snow we get!

Christmas

I have our Christmas program songs stuck in my head... Our first day of all school practice was today. We got about halfway through the program. They've got a good handle on the songs already; Mrs. L didn't give them music for the first few times of practicing the songs so they had to memorize it. Now that they have music, they're already familiar with the words/melody.

After school I made cds of the songs for the bible school families, bible school teachers, and us teachers so we can practice in our classrooms. We finalized our seating chart for the program too. It's all coming together!

We're going to finish running through the program tomorrow afternoon. I will probably miss that part of the day. There's a big snowstorm rolling in tomorrow around 3pm with big winds, etc. so Mr. E wants me out of here and in Fulda before the storm hits. I shuffled my afternoon schedule around so I can leave at 1:30. Let's pray they don't bump up the storm's arrival even sooner!

Touching

My kids were super touchy-feely today, always in each others' faces flicking their fingers, touching their arms, pounding their fists on other classmates' hands. We had the 'no touching your classmates' speech at the end of the day (it was more at the end of the day than the beginning). Sigh. I am pooped.

Last night my brain couldn't shut off about behavior management, so I looked up the zones of regulation. One of my students has been learning this at home/other classes, and his mom thought I could use it with him at school. I think it might work for my whole class! I did a bunch of reading up on it and (of course) ordered another book from the library to try to learn more about how to teach the lessons. This philosophy is focused on self-regulation and identifying the triggers that cause each individual to lash out. The idea is that if each person knows their triggers and can identify them, they can use their tools to prevent the blow-up before it happens. There are four different colors: blue (sad, tired, sick), green (ready to learn), yellow (lots of energy/excitement/difficulty focusing), red (blow-up). I'm going to say that over half my class is typically in the yellow zone. Now I need to figure out what to teach them so they can move themselves into the green zone.

I counted and have five classroom management books checked out/borrowed from other teachers waiting for me to read at home. Thankfully, I have less than 10,000 words left to write on my NaNo. I'm hoping I can finish it early and spend some of Thanksgiving break reading up on different things I can try with my students. If only I had a time-pause button...

Friday

This week has seemed to drag on, but this morning during devotions it struck me that tomorrow is Friday! All of a sudden it felt like the week had gone so fast! It was quite strange.

My kids are doing well with their NaNos. More have been spending their writer's workshop time making their planet powerpoints since they'll be presenting them to the 1-4th graders next Monday and Tuesday.

We made Christmas program folders today (and by 'we' I mean two of my students stapled the script and song sheets together in a folder and passed them out to classes). We've been working on the Christmas bell songs for about a week or so and they're coming together nicely. Today's practice was actually pretty good!

There's one song of just 7-8th graders, "The First Noel", and they asked if we could repeat the song since it's kind of short. Sure. Then we had the idea to jazz it up by playing a fancy way. So we tried mallets, thumb damping, and table damping. The mallets sounded the prettiest, so we're going with that. One of the 8th graders thought we should end the song with a technique I can't remember the name of... it's where you ring the bell, then swing it down in an arch by your side and swing it back up and clunk it down on the foam table. So we're also going to try that. It was a great practice!

Good Stuff

I've been going a little overboard placing holds on books at the library. I've maxed out my holds amount twice and I'm getting close to a third time... (you can only put holds on 25 books at a time in this library system!). I've also learned that there's a limit to how many you can check out at a time... 50. I maxed that out once and came close a second time. Apparently if you're a 'good' patron (aka, the librarians like you because you return your things on time and don't have any fines) they just override that.

I put a ton more on hold today because I found a bunch of books that tie in with our figurative language unit in English. If only we had more time to read them...

Today we packed boxes for Operation Christmas Child. It went pretty well, but it cut into our morning routine. Overall we had a pretty good day today. It was our first day in pods and they did all right. We are working our way towards earning crates in the classroom (they're currently in the coatroom and the boys do NOT like it... it's too much of a hassle for them to get their stuff). Our class has to beat me five days for that to happen. They did beat me today. Five days takes us to Thanksgiving break. So if they win all five, they could move their crates in the room in December!

My shop class last night went well. I did get done early. Turns out it was just me; another girl had signed up, but she had to work late and didn't end up coming. Mostly the shop teacher and I went around to each of the machines we'll be using in our upcoming class and we went over how to use it and the safety features. I had to take a quiz at the end where I listed all the safety rules of each machine. It's a lot to remember! My teacher showed me a picture of the planter we'll be making and it looks really cool! Now I just have to decide which plant I'm going to put in it... I certainly have lots to choose from!

Family Write Night

Last night was another late one, but fun! The 4th annual Family Write Night was attended by 49 people, some of which were kids who didn't want to be in the basketball practice study hall room. Our youngest was pre-preschool and oldest were grandparents. I'd say it was a success! We played more writing games and ate a TON of candy and pizza.

My kids have been moderately decent the past two days. Tomorrow we're going to try moving our desks in pods. After that we'll see if they can earn their crates being brought into the room. I'm still very skeptical of that, but we'll give them a chance.

I'm going to keep this short because tonight I have a wood shop safety class in New Ulm. I have to pass the class before I can take any other wood shop classes. I signed up for a two day class in December, so I need to do well in this one!

Royal Treatment

My kids gave Joe's tank the royal treatment today... they fluffed up the coconut husk fiber, cleaned out his food bowl, added fresh food to the dish, and rearranged the dirt. Not only did they do all that, they did some engineering as well. Two of the boys took the 'pool' the girls had made a while ago, cut the opening wider, and flipped it upside down to be a cave for Joe to go in. They carefully patted dirt on top and the sides so if he wants to he can go up top. Once they put him back in his tank, he headed straight for the cave and has been in there ever since! I wonder when we'll see him again...

A few days ago, a different boy stuck a black and white picture of a tortoise on the side of the tank. "Joe needs a girlfriend," he said. Joe is pretty shy. I wonder if that's why he went into the cave so fast... I also think tortoises can't see super well, so maybe not.

My class behaved super well today! They beat me by six points! Our classroom was quiet during our Daily 5 rounds and everyone was productive. It was fantastic.

We watched the Wizard of Oz with the 7-8th graders in Mr. E's classroom (and my class behaved super well again!). After the first hour I ducked back into my room to correct the 7-8th grade 3D earth projects. Yesterday when Mr. E and I did some hunting to find the movie, we saw some clips from the first bit of it. I realize now that I've never seen the first 20 minutes of the movie! Growing up my family's copy was a recording of the movie, and the recording started right at the part where Dorothy is trying to get into the house... no scenes with the hired hands, the evil neighbor lady, or the traveling fortune teller! No wonder I thought the high schoolers added scenes to the play! So I stuck around long enough to see Dorothy meet the Tin Woodsman. Such a great movie. It is pretty scary though, especially the tornado at the beginning!

Parent Teacher Conferences

Another long night this week. All my parents showed up. Shortest one was five minutes, longest was twenty. I had a few gaps between parents which I put to good use lesson planning for next week. Boy I am pooped!

A lot of parents said their kids are frustrated with how noisy/annoying their classmates are and that the whole class gets consequences when it's just a few people misbehaving. I try not to do that too often, but I'm sure those are the times that stick in their heads the most. I don't want to penalize the good students when they haven't done anything wrong. So I need to do something different. A few parents who do social work or have worked in classrooms before had some suggestions I'm going to try. It's just a matter of which one I want to try first...

Sigh. So much research to do, so little time.

On the plus side, I've been keeping up with my NaNo words! My class is 58% done with our goal. We've written about 34,000 words so far.

We're Off to See the Wizard

Our schedule was pretty messed up today. Wednesdays are always a little different because we have chapel, but today we took a bus to New Ulm High School for their fall play, The Wizard of Oz. Everyone brought a sack lunch so we could leave at 11:30 to make it there in time. We crammed in three rounds of Daily 5. I had Miss S do a handwriting lesson with my handwriting boys. They were pretty rowdy, but they at least have their handwriting sheet for the week. 

The play was AWESOME! I am amazed at the talent of the actors (and the director!) for putting together such a great show. They sang beautifully, were well-cast, had special effects going on, neat costuming, and decent choreography. Some of the play differed from the movie (added scenes that I think added to the show), but there were still the old favorite songs and one-liners. 

One of my students has been reading the graphic novel version of the book. A few of mine have seen the movie, only one student in Mr. E's class. He had the great idea that the 7-8th graders should watch it on Friday... so we're going to switch math to the morning so we have enough time to watch the movie in the afternoon. I invited my class along, as long as they earn it! Hopefully that's a good enough incentive to get them to behave tomorrow.

Sick

Mr. W was sick today. He was supposed to teach the 7-8th grade social studies lesson today, but since he wasn't here I had to do it. He's going to be gone on Thursday, so thankfully I had a lesson prepped that I could do with them today. After emailing him, we decided that I'm going to teach about the Ottomans on Thursday (what he was supposed to do today) so we can stay on track.

He sent his lesson to me ahead of time and some of the notes he made caused me to think about what I'm teaching in social studies and why. He had made the comment that the lesson on Ottomans didn't meet any standards, not MN or the common core. Well, that's kind of a problem... Even though we don't have to follow standards at private schools, it's still good to try to do so; if the lesson isn't meeting any standards, what's the point of teaching it?

I took a look at the social studies standards and realized that the 7-8th grade books are so old they no longer align with them. In MN, 5th graders are supposed to do American History up to the 1800s (which is about all we can get through in a year), 6th grade does MN history, 7th is supposed to do American history from the 1800s-present, and 8th grade does geography. So, I do all that, except the 7th grade curriculum is ancient world history and the 1800s-present gets crammed in to MN history. It works, but it would be nice to stretch out American history to 7-8th grade.

But... when will they learn about ancient world history? That stuff is important too. And what about non-MN students? What do they learn in 6th grade? A lot of states don't have a year of state history. (I think the answer is ancient world history). I had a nice talk with my teacher friend L about standards and how to lesson plan with them, the benefits of background knowledge, etc. and now my brain is buzzing with thoughts.

So. What to do now? The answer (for the time being) is to keep doing what we're doing with the 7-8th graders, but this summer I'm going to look for a new history book for the 7-8th graders! I need time to do research before I change everything up.

Restart

Today was rough, particularly the morning. We all needed a restart on the day, even me.

It started with me not being able to wake my computer up. At first I thought the mouse batteries had died (I recently got a wireless mouse), which seemed odd since I've only been using it for a week. But sometimes batteries are faulty, so I figured I'd try new batteries. In the meantime, three students arrived around 7:50am.

After putting new batteries in, nothing changed. So I tried connecting the old mouse to the computer. I tried changing which USB port I plugged it into. Nothing worked. I could hear the computer recognizing the mouse being plugged in, but the screen wasn't showing any connection. By this time, the first bus had arrived and students were clamoring all the questions they had about our new student teacher, if there was anything for them to work on, etc. I got increasingly frustrated because I needed to print things for the week, prep an English lesson, and pull up their Daily 5 rounds chart so they could choose what they were going to do later in the morning. Sigh.

I called the IT guys next. Thankfully he answered. He had to talk me through the process of checking for a transmitter box under my computer, then pushing various buttons until something came up on my screen. In the meantime, my students were getting on each others nerves, talking, running around the room... I had to keep pausing to redirect them. Finally I pushed enough buttons my computer came back to life, right around 8:30 when we were supposed to start school. I had thought our student teacher was coming between 8-8:15am this morning, so the whole class was on edge (with excitement) waiting for her to come. But she didn't come until 10am, which made sense with what I'd seen of her schedule a long time ago (only Mr. E got sent her contact info/schedule for some reason, so I had to go on memory). 

Needless to say, I was frustrated and crabby starting the day. I tried not to snap at my kids, but my tone was not its usual chipper self. When we finally got our day started, it was a good teachable moment for me to tell them how I was feeling and that I needed to take a break to restart my mood. We all put our heads on our desks for 10 seconds, then had devotions. While the break helped me, it did not settle them. So halfway through religion we paused to run a lap around the gym. After only 20 minutes of school, I was winning the tally war with four tallies to zero. 

Things did turn around after lunch. By the end of the day we were tied. Still, they were crazy enough that Miss S commented on their behavior at lunchtime, "They sure have a lot of energy!" Yes, yes they do. Mondays are always rough, plus a cold front is moving in/through, so I'm sure the barometric pressure didn't help. Still, prayers for a better day tomorrow are appreciated!

New Teacher

We're getting another student teacher on Monday! She came to school today to take the tour and get our class schedule. She's going to be here the whole day MWF and a good chunk of the day TR. Miss S is her name. She seems very lovely and excited to learn and do lessons. She's a little nervous about classroom management; I told her this class will be a good one to practice on. Since she'll be here so much, my class brought in a desk for her from the shed and wiped it down and made it higher. Tomorrow they're going to write her name on it.

My class was really mean to each other today. It was bad enough that one boy said he's not coming to school tomorrow because he's sick of being bullied. Sigh.

At the end of the day I told the class about our next all school field trip coming up in January. We're going bowling! At least, the good classes are. One of the students asked if we could have a chart showing if we're going in the right direction or not. The rest of the class thought that was a good idea. I asked if we could make a checklist we could run through at the end of the day to see if we met our goal. Three girls volunteered to make the list and the boys agreed that it was a good idea. Awesome! It sounds like we have a good plan in place!

NaNo Update

We're six days into NaNo and the word counts are rising! Our class goal for the month is to write 75,001 words (30,000 words are my goal). One girl wrote her 3,000 word goal over the weekend! Now she's just seeing how many words she can get. Today she's up to 3,700.

So far, our class has written about 13,000 words. I am a little behind with only 3,300 of my supposed to be 6,000, but I haven't written any today. Hopefully I'll be able to catch up a little when I get home.

We had a bunch of meetings today. Yesterday's staff meeting got postponed to this afternoon. Then we had a PTL meeting that just got over. Whew! Long day. The Nicollet chamber of commerce gave us teachers a nice pizza supper in between meetings, so I didn't have to wait until I got home to eat. How nice!

Kahoot

My 5-6th graders did their first Kahoot today! They LOVED it. I loved it because they were so into it, and everyone was paying attention. We're totally doing more of them.

Kahoot is a website that lets teachers make multiple choice quizzes for their students (or anybody) to take at the same time. One question is shown on the board at a time, they pick their answer, and the right answer is shown once everyone has answered. They earn points for getting the right answer, getting a bunch right in a row, and for answering the fastest. The game keeps track of who answers the fastest/gets the most points so you can see which person/team is in first, second, third, etc. as you play. There are options to play each person has his/her own device or as a team, where you confer as a group and then answer the question.

The bell songs are coming along nicely, so we only went through each song twice. Afterwards, I had the 7-8th graders and 6th graders do a Thanksgiving Kahoot quiz. The 6th graders picked it up pretty quickly. They only made it halfway through the quiz, but we didn't have that much to do for 5-6th grade social studies, so we finished our powerpoint, then divided into teams and redid the Thanksgiving Kahoot. Each team had a 6th grader so their prior knowledge of the quiz wouldn't give anyone a super huge advantage. The teams worked really well together, so we might just keep them!

Now that I know how quick it is to do it in teams (we only have four easy to grab devices), we might be able to squeeze in a Kahoot before lunch every once in a while.

Fall Carnival

I did not drink enough water today... I only refilled my desk cup once, normally I do it at least twice, if not three times during the day. I was on a roll trying to get my kids to hand stuff in so they could do the carnival. They were all able to do it! Everyone got their names off the board for both Mr. E and me! I made deals with two kids (the out of control ones yesterday) that if they got their other work done, they could finish saying their memory work Tuesday (end of the quarter, no school Monday). So technically I have two kids who need to say their hymn verse memory work, but aside from that we're all caught up!

The carnival went well. The other classes had a good time. I dressed up as a chef because I wasn't feeling too inspired: I just put on my jalapeno apron and was good to go. Lots of kids liked it!

Mr. and Mrs. E's middle daughter is home from California for a while. She was my cousin's RA at Bethany, so I got to know her a bit in college. She came over to school to hang out with her parents and see all the students, which gave us a little time to catch up during the carnival.

Now I'm loading things up for the long weekend! I'm going to visit my sister down in Iowa, so my goal is to do my grades tomorrow morning before I leave. It's also the first day of November, aka NaNo kick off, so I need to write my words for today still. I quick wrote 50ish while the 7-8th graders took their spelling test! Only need 950 more to meet today's goal!

What a Day

Today was hands down the worst day of school on record for my class this year. Actually, it was just two of my 12 who were completely out of control. The rest were not that bad today.

One of the kids didn't have his medication. He was near tears and had a short fuse all day. It was hard to get him to do anything. Then, after school, I found his spelling for the week uncompleted and in the recycle bin. I thought he'd handed his in already, but it turns out he took another students' spelling out of the basket, put his name on it (she had forgotten to write her name), and handed it back in as if it were his work. Oh man. I'm thinking he may need to sit out the Fall Carnival tomorrow.

The other student never came near tears, but he threw things across the classroom, tipped chairs over, laughed constantly about nothing, got up in everyone else's business, called everything stupid, and slammed his desk around. And he couldn't find any of his papers, so I had to print new ones for him to start all over on. Sigh. His grandparents' dog had to be put down last night, so I know he was sad about that.

Deep breaths. Lots of deep breaths. We had to do a few 'heads on desks' minutes during the day to try to get everyone to calm down. During bells I had told Mr. W I wanted him to sit between those two boys during history to try to keep them on task. It helped, but not a whole lot. Afterwards, Mr. W said he had underestimated what I meant by those two being out of control today. Maybe I should've waited a bit before I told him I wanted him to teach at least one class for the 5-6th graders sometime before he's finished with this clinical!

Quiet

My class earned three extra marbles today for being quiet and focusing! This morning was probably the best morning we've had all year for productivity and focus. I think it helped that when I've conferred with students during Daily 5, we've been talking about whether the book is one that interests them/they actually want to read it, or if they're reading it just to have a book to read. Some hard-to-please students who want to spend the whole morning reading have connected with a bunch of books they're genuinely interested in reading, so they've been more on task!

They also got ready for lunch decently quickly again and packed up at the end of the day really fast. Hopefully this is a trend and not just a really good day.

I finally remembered to ask Pastor about whether he'd be willing to take a look at the bell that's been broken for a few weeks (the screw holding the handle to the clapper snapped and we couldn't get the broken half of the screw out). He just brought it back, and after a bit of finagling, we got the handle back on and the clapper facing the right direction! Yay! Now we don't have to send it off for repairs.

After school I spent a bunch of time in Mr. E's room searching for durable headphones for my class. The cheap $5 ones I bought at the end of last year are not lasting and I don't want to keep throwing money at the ones that are going to quit working after a few months. We also need a better system of storing them so it's not so easy to chuck them in a place/break them. My idea is to install a towel rack on one of the walls (if I can find the space), so we can hang the headphones on the rack. Maybe below the flags above the printer??? We'll see. We ordered some wireless mice for the laptops and a set of noise-cancelling ear protectors. I'm hoping it will help the students who complain it is just too loud to concentrate!

Fast

Today was actually a mostly decent day, behavior-wise. My kids were rockstars getting ready for lunch and packing up at the end of the day. It may be the fastest they've ever done it! We even got to lunch before the 7-8th graders, and we weren't the last class out to the buses. Maybe things are finally starting to sink in...

The new heaters that were installed this summer (also function as the air conditioners) are not working super great. I've had the backup (aka the old electric) heaters on their schedule which we're supposed to use for supplemental heat, but I've heard them click on an awful lot for being just supplemental. So last night I changed the schedule down to 66 degrees and had the new heaters on 68. During the day, it stayed about 68, but now it's only 66. I fiddled with one of the remotes (there are two... one for each of the devices). I can feel a little heat coming out of the vents, but not a lot. It's an experiment I'll have to continue to gather more data.

After school we had CPR and First Aid training from a lovely doctor in New Ulm. We're such a small group he did the short-sweet version. I feel very up to date on my medical know-how! Hopefully I'll never need to use it.

Tough Monday

I'm not ready for snow to come, but really, I could use a snow day. It'd be nice to hole up in my apartment, be all cozy, read books... try not to think about school...

My kids were too chatty today. They were all up in each others' business and couldn't mind their own. One of the 8th graders got kicked out of my class today for talking back. Four others couldn't keep their mouths shut. The 5-6th graders weren't much better. Mr. E and Mrs. L said their classrooms were about the same.

We tried shuffling some desks around today so now the desks are in three horizontal rows and there are four desks in each row. In some ways it's better and in others it's not changing much. They asked about switching into pods. I told them they have to earn it. But maybe they'd be less talkative in pods? Not sure if I want to give it a try since last year the pods were very talkative. New students, new year. Maybe they'd be better in pods...

Gifts

Yesterday, one of the 6th graders asked me, "Miss H, do you like farmers rings?" He lifted up a cooler bag and showed me the contents. It was three packages of ringed venison sausage. He said they had a ton at home and he thought I might like some. So I brought it home and had it for supper! Delicious! And so thoughtful.

This morning, one of the 5th grade girls asked, "Miss H, do you like pumpkin seeds? Do you like salt?" I do indeed! She handed me a small ziplock bag of pumpkin seeds just the right size for snack. She said she made them last night. They were pretty good! They tasted like popcorn.

It was another tough day in 5-6th grade. Lots of lippy kids and kids not listening to instructions. We had our first quarter all school activity today at the end of the day: pumpkin painting. It's the first all school event since we sent out the ineligibility policy to parents. Most are on board with the policy, some say they aren't even though in practice they actually are. Some haven't responded. But, regardless, it's still our policy and if kids aren't finished with their work, they don't get to do the fun stuff.

I had a bunch of last minute memory work students. One still didn't get it said, but she's going to study it over the weekend and I trust her to actually do it. I almost need to meet with her one on one during the week to practice her memory; it's so hard for her! Another kid hadn't finished his colonial life paragraph, something due Tuesday and also something that should only take maybe ten minutes to write. When he had to sit out from pumpkin painting he got it done really fast!

NaNo

Can you believe November starts next Friday? Neither can I.

We've been prepping up a storm for our NaNo stories. There are still a few boys who haven't figured out what to write. I met with a few of them to brainstorm ideas. I have a feeling this will be the most challenging year yet for having students meet word goals. I'm going to put a note in the bulletin asking if anyone wants to come type for my kids. Some are really slow and could use the help.

Tomorrow is our first all school activity: pumpkin decorating. This is the first time we've done such a project, so we'll see how it goes!

Plans

It's amazing how during the day I have a great thought on what to write in my daily post and then when it comes time to write, I completely blank! Oh well.

Two kids in my class were sick today. One never came to school and the other went home before lunch. I should've gotten my flu shot a long time ago, but I kept putting it off. So, I'm getting it tonight (already planned, not doing it just because kids are getting sick!).

I'm slowly getting things cleaned up in the classroom. The textbook shelf is getting emptier (taking my teacher planning books off, moving around the extra math books). The plant things on the lab table are getting condensed. My closet is still a mess! Electricity hasn't been wired to the shed yet, so we're not really able to put anything in there. All the stuff I want to move out is in the front part of the closet so it's quite difficult to get anything out of there. And my plant stuff will move out there too, once there's a designated space. Patience. Patience. It seems to be a theme around here...

We planned our NaNos more today. I tried to get my kiddos to come up with a conflict for their novels; some had an easier time of it than others. Some still haven't figured out who their characters are, so they had to back up and work on that. I'm coming up with good ideas for my story! I was a little worried since I haven't felt the most creative lately, but when I showed my students some picture prompts to get them started brainstorming, one jumped out at me. Then in creating protagonists and antagonists, more ideas are locking into place. There are still some things I don't know yet, but that's part of the fun of writing a story!

Everything

I am amazed how much we got done today! I had a huge list of things I wanted my 5-6th graders to do and we did all of them! Hooray!

They presented their constellation reports (just a 30 second spiel about the legend of a specific constellation), filled out a 'job application' to be a tavern keeper, created villains for their NaNo stories, discussed tush cush usage again, did our Daily 5 rounds, read about taverns during colonial times, worked in groups to create a menu for a tavern, did a review worksheet on what inns were like back then.

A few of them commented how much they enjoyed working together to read the information and do the worksheet/project. I think we will try to do that more often then! My two extra busy boys ended up in a group with Mr. W. They worked awesome together, on task the whole time.

Tush Cush

Once again the MLHS rummage sale was a success! My students had just been talking about how difficult it is to sit still in the reading corner when we do our mini-lesson because the floor is so hard. One of them thought we should get cushions for everyone to sit on. My first thought was "no way! that'd be so expensive!" But then, $$ Bag Day came and I found enough for everyone in my class at just the right price!

We spent a lot of time talking about how to appropriately use the cushions throughout the day. First rule is that you never throw them. Second rule is that they go back on the couch when not in use. Third is that you just grab one off the pile as you head into the reading corner, no arguing about which one you get. Fourth, if you change your mind about using it, just hang on to it until we change rounds.

As you can see, they did a great job stacking them up at the end of the day! I was extra impressed because today was one of those squirrely-can't-get-anyone-to-focus kinds of days.

I came up with a new procedure for our end of the day routine to make things go smoother/quieter. Instead of doing highs and lows at our desks, once students are finished with their end of the day job they are to go into the reading corner and have a seat (they can grab a cushion if they want). Everything should be packed up and waiting at their desks. Then, after highs/lows and praying, they can get up, put their cushions back, grab their things from their desks, and head out to the bus. No distractions in the reading corner because they're not supposed to bring anything with them. It worked great today! I'm excited to see how tomorrow goes.

The 7-8th graders are also fans of the pillows. One 8th grade girl came up with the 'classy' name: Tush Cush. Much better than their previous idea: butt cushions.

Short Week

Today was our last day of school this week, due to MEA, but it still felt like we put in the full five days. It'll be nice to have a few days off to take a mental break, even though one of those days is for the Lutheran all workers conference. This year we teachers are combined with other church workers like pastors, DCEs, and deacons/deaconesses for the conference. I'm a little disappointed there aren't sectionals to choose from, but I'm sure it will still be good. They moved it to Mayer, so it's a little further away than the typical Mankato location. Mrs. L and I are riding together, so it should be a fun ride up!

The forecast sounds pretty good for the rest of MEA weekend! Highs in the mid50s and 60s. Since I'm headed to Fulda directly from the conference, I don't have space in my car for my bright green kayak. However, I do have an inflatable one I haven't tried out yet... It fits in a smallish bag that definitely fits in my car with all my other stuff, so I'm bringing it along! I'm also bringing my watercolor paints so I can practice.

School today was pretty typical. The 5-6th graders had their first test of the year. Lots of them were very anxious about it. We had youth group after school. Angie volunteered to watch them for the first chunk of time so I could get things done in my classroom in the peace and quiet. It was really nice to have the time without kids! We played games, had a devotion, and ate supper. There were 15 kids there! A lot of them were volleyball girls since the end of the year party was right after youth group.

After that, Angie and I scurried off to Bible study, and now I'm working on packing for the long weekend!

Broken

An unexpected thing happened in bells today... the lowest bell broke. The kid was ringing it and all of a sudden the top part just fell off! Turns out, the screw holding the bell to the handle snapped. I think we'll be able to fix it once we get the snapped off part out of the clapper. So, now there are bell parts contained in a pile on my desk.

Mr. W had his first lesson today with the 7-8th graders. It was on Greek Mythology. And it wasn't just his first lesson with my students, it was his first lesson of all time in front of a group of actual students. It was a pretty good lesson. The 7-8th graders were excited to have him teach them. Mr. W and I figured out what else he's going to teach while he's in our classroom: mostly 7-8th grade social studies (he'll be here for two full units!) and then a bit of 5-6th grade lessons. Should be interesting!

VIPs

Today was our grandparents day, also known as VIP day so kids can have other important people besides grandparents show up and not feel weird that someone besides a grandparent came.

The day starts with VIPs hanging out in classrooms with their student(s). We did religion. I was a little nervous about the lesson because it was called 'why we have so many kinds of churches' and I know some relatives of students aren't Lutheran (and some have had issues with Pastor involving the Lutheran stance on acceptance of other denominations). I think it went okay though. We stayed away from the really controversial stuff.

At 9am we went to the gym for donuts. At 9:15, the BLC jazz band played a selection of songs, mostly Beatles songs in a tribute to an art professor who loves them and is retiring after this year. As per usual, the BLC band was great! Lots of kids bobbed their heads and tapped their feet in time to the music. And of course the adults enjoyed it too. It makes me want to play in a music ensemble again.

The rest of the day was thrown off a little... my class helped the 7-8th graders take down tables and decorations in the gym. People got back to my room at different times, so it was pretty disorderly for a while. Then I met with groups to show them how to play the Work on Writing games. Unfortunately, some of the boys were really loud and distracting in the reading corner while I worked with other groups. I told them to split up and stop playing the game, and they chose to ignore me, so now they don't get to do any games tomorrow.

We had a rock guy come show off his fossils for 7-8th grade class today. They loved it and had a TON of good questions for him. He gave everyone a piece of water lily fossil (there's a much more impressive sounding scientific name, but I don't remember it). He has over 25 five gallon pails of rocks in his collection. He didn't bring them all to school, but he did bring a wide variety. He also did a great job reviewing the three types of rocks and how they're formed. My kids remembered an impressive amount!

Overnight

Our two day trip to Camp Omega went very well, much better than I expected. It definitely helped having an extra chaperone along. Normally we only have three; this time PTL sprung for a fourth parent. We had two dads, one mom, and me. It was just right. Typically I am stressing out with where the kids are and what they're all getting into and need a break from them around 5:00. This year, even with all my busy students, I felt kind of relaxed and didn't need a break at all. It was great!

The one student who extra misbehaved on our last field trip wasn't able to come. His parents and I decided one of them needed to be along, and it didn't work in their schedules, so he suffered the consequences. His mom said they were able to reflect on the situation a lot yesterday and today, and talk about impulse control, so that's a positive. His classmates missed him. We did 'highs and lows' last night before bed and a few of them said that this kid not being along was their low of the day.

God listened to our prayers and gave us better weather than the forecast predicted! Yesterday was a strange fluctuation of kind of warm, but kind of cold, then humid, then misty, then a sprinkle. We were comfy in sweatshirts and light jackets. It lightly rained on and off most of the day, but we were able to do our outside activities: canoeing, fire building, archery, and an ABC nature hike. One of the parents heard that duct tape wrapped around pine will start a really good fire, so we did that right before supper. We had just gotten it going when it was time to switch to rocket building.

The rockets were awesome! One of the 6th grade girls got hers 50 feet into the woods! It's a new record for my class. (Mine also made it into the woods... about the same distance as hers, just on a different trajectory). She had a ton of fins on the side of hers, and they were shaped like rocket fins. I put four on mine, and mine were just triangular. It was so fun shooting them off! There were a lot of requests to do it again next year, even from the chaperones, so I will make a note to do it!

It was supposed to thunderstorm starting at 6pm, but the forecast pushed the rain off until 9ish. That gave us enough time to do our evening bonfire/devotions. The only thing is... after we sang a few songs and started devotions, it began to pour and we all made a mad dash up the hill to shelter in the Beta Center. One of the dads made the comment, "Man, I've built three really good fires today and every time I had to put them out after only 15 minutes! It makes me want to cry."

We ended our day with games (Connect Four and Uno were the two favorites), then read aloud time, and quiet whisper time in the cabins. I think everyone was on the way to sleep by 11pm. No one got up super early either! We all got up around seven, then packed, and went to breakfast at eight.

Today was much cooler and windy than yesterday. No rain though! It snowed for five minutes during breakfast, but nothing stuck to the ground. A lot of the kids didn't come prepared... thankfully I had stuck my winter emergency bag in the back of my car before we left, so I doled out gloves, mittens, headbands, and sweatshirts. It's amazing how much I can fit in that little bag!

Our activities this morning were a service project (hauling wood down to one of the closer buildings), animal tracking (we made casts of animal tracks we found in the woods, mostly deer), and tree identification (we used a classification system and did bark rubbings). One of the moms is a tree enthusiast, so she taught us a lot about the kinds of plants growing in the woods. She and some students collected some roots that the Native Americans used to make red dye for us to plant at school. One of the kids found Jack in the Pulpit and brought it back to school to plant. We'll see if it grows!

All in all, it was a very good two days. But man, it felt like we've been gone a week!

Tons of Books

Well, I made it through another pile of stuff on my desk. I had made a stack of books I planned to use in curriculum planning this summer, but August slipped away before I had a chance to dive in very deep. So the pile sat. Today I paged through it and brought most of it home, just in case I'm inspired sometime (hopefully this winter on one of our potentially many snow days). I have another pile of a similar nature, but I didn't have time to bring it with me today. Oh well, there will be plenty of other days!

I ran errands tonight, one of which was to pick up my books on hold at the library. I maxed out how many books I can place a hold on... it's 25. A lot of them were in, plus I have a stack of them from last week I didn't get through. It's not as bad as it sounds; almost all of them are picture books. The rest are graphic novels. So I just need a night or two at home to devote to reading. Unfortunately, I've had too much going on at night.

My watercolor class has been fun, but that takes away a reading night. Then with a New Ulm errand night and bible study once a week, that only leaves one or two nights to work with. This week is even shorter than usual since my class leaves for Camp Omega tomorrow morning. My classroom is ready to go. I made a to-do-before-we-go list to make sure we get everything done before we leave.

One of the tasks is to bring the fire posters down to the office. I found out our Fire Prevention Week posters are due Friday. Since we're gone tomorrow, everyone basically has to have them done today or do it tonight as homework. I wish they would give us the stuff sooner so they have more time to work on them... I should make a note to look up the theme back in September. It seems like this happens every year.

Another thing is to pack read-to-self books and bibles. I need to decide which book I'm bringing... chaperones are supposed to bring books too (to set a good example for the kids). One chaperone admitted he'd been planning to play cards on his phone while the kids were reading! Hmm... not the example I'm looking for.

The weather isn't supposed to be nice while we're there, so I have a note to bring our extra mittens/gloves along, just in case. I'm wondering how many pairs of winter things I myself should bring along so I don't get so cold. It's supposed to be wet both days and cold on Friday. Well, better bring extra socks too! I guess I should make sure my suitcase is all packed...

Better and Not

Update on the kid who fell off the slide: he has a mild concussion and a spinal compression fracture in four vertebrate. There's no damage to his actual spinal cord! And it's far enough up his spine that his rib cage acts as a brace. So. No recess/heavy lifting for the next 4-6 weeks. That's going to be hard on him because he's a farm boy, and I know how antsy they get when dads are harvesting! Continued prayers would be appreciated.

While that kid is doing better, my class is not. We tried rearranging the desks into three horizontal rows to see if that would help my kiddos who like to talk across the U shape. It helped some of them, but not the most vocal kid. We'll see how tomorrow goes. We only read two pages of our read aloud book because the class was so unsettled (plus it took a while to switch the desks around).

One kid decided to see how many sweatshirts he could wear at one time and borrowed as many as his classmates had to put on. He didn't do his work, just messed around, and wouldn't do what he was supposed to. After three chances, he got sent to work in Mr. E's room. I walked him down the first time. After he came back, he still couldn't settle in and do his work like he was supposed to! So I sent him back again! This time he actually went down there with no detours. I could've even sent him a third time this afternoon. A second kid got kicked out of class and ended up sitting in the gym while Mr. E ran PE for the little guys. Sigh. Yeah. It was a rough day.

Now that we're in rows, we're going to have to move our desks into a circle for religion class... We won't have religion again until Monday, what with chapel tomorrow and our Camp Omega trip Thursday and Friday. I didn't think much of it until I realized VIP day is Monday. We're going to have a bunch of visitors in our room with us from 8:30-9:00am, prime religion time. So if we don't practice getting into a circle sometime before then, Monday will be our first time. Hmm... with some classes I would chance it, but not this one. My current plan is to practice moving the desks for religion Thursday morning before we go to Camp Omega.

Interesting

Well, this has been an interesting day...

First, one of the 6th graders found a post-it note in his bible with a very vulgar drawing on it. Who knows how long it's been there or who put it there. No way to know.

Second, one of the 5th graders was misbehaving and distracting his classmates, so I sent him down to Mr. E's to work. Twenty minutes later, I called their room to have the student come back. The 8th grader who answered said my student had never arrived. Great. I figured he'd been too embarrassed/ashamed/scared to go to Mr. E's and had camped out in the office or on the bench outside like the other kid had last time. Nope. He wasn't in any of those places. Mr. E checked the bathroom. No student. I peeked in other classrooms. Nope. Not there.

As I tried to think of places he might be (and tried not to panic), a parent of a different student of mine asked me a question about the school nurse. Her 1st grade son had fallen off the slide at recess and might have injured his arm. Yes, you read that right. He fell off the slide. Mrs. L told the story after school. He'd been going down the slide normally and then somehow flipped over the side near the top and landed flat on his back on the ground. The doctor thinks he has a mild concussion and as of this afternoon they did a CT scan to see if he had a spinal injury. Haven't heard how that turned out yet.

My student ended up sitting in the top row of bleachers tucked into a corner where no one would notice him. Mr. E and I chewed him out. Sigh. Not sure if it made a difference. At least he seemed sorry when he apologized to us.

Then, at lunch, a bird pooped on my shoulder. Thankfully, I was wearing my coat, so it didn't get my first layer. Still, it was gross. (And a little funny.)

My kids were hard to focus all day and the 7-8th graders accused me of playing favorites (like they often do... I'm not). But as they say...


I'm sure tomorrow will be better!

Black Eye and No Time

Gah, the 7-8th graders moved so slowly today! Of course it's the days I want them to go fast that they move like tortoises... They needed to get their spelling tests done, then present their renewable energy resources powerpoints, then we needed to practice bells, all in one hour.

It took them 25 minutes to finish their spelling tests. They do them off a recording which is maximum seven minutes long. No reason to take almost a half an hour. Most of them took so long because they were waiting for someone else to join their group, and then when the person finally arrived, they couldn't figure out how to get to the test recording. Sigh.

We ended up having time for only one person to present. The rest didn't want to give up their class test study session on Monday, so they agreed to have me dock their grades for not presenting so we can just study longer.

The 5-6th graders actually did pretty good handing stuff in today. They didn't do so well physically though... One girl was home sick. Another hurt her hand on the seesaw at afternoon recess. A boy twisted his ankle that same recess. And another boy got a black eye! It puffed up really fast. I sent him on the bus with a makeshift ice pack to hopefully help with the pain and swelling.

Now I get to go to church and set up for the silent auction. Other parents are already over there getting the pork chop dinner things set up. Hopefully it won't take too long to do...

Interview

Three of my students were interviewed on KNUJ after school to promote the pork chop dinner and silent auction. They did a pretty good job for their first time on the air! It was a little hard to hear them sometimes, but the announcer guided them to lean closer to the mic. One of the boys hadn't wanted to go, but because his brother was signed up, he had to go too. I was really proud of him that he said stuff on the air!

Class went okay today. One kid got sent to work in Mr. E's room this morning because he couldn't settle. Three boys had to run laps for 10 minutes before lunch because they were sitting on/playing with the new trikes for the preK-K students. No big kids allowed. Not to mention they were supposed to be waiting in line for lunch, not playing in the gym. So they ran a lot. Then, after eating, the 7-8th graders were riding around on the trikes!!! Augh!

Ms. F took over watching noon recess so I could visit the Bookmobile, use the restroom, and scarf down the last bites of my lunch without worrying about my students. Public school teachers don't know how good they have it, getting a lunch break!

Our student teacher Mr. W's second day was today. He stuck around for afternoon recess and played basketball with them. At first he didn't know if he was allowed to. I remember my professors always telling us that we needed to play with our kids at recess. Normally I'm too busy eating my lunch or wrangling kids... but today I played volleyball with one of the 5th grade girls. We paused from time to time to watch Mr. W. He's so tall he doesn't even have to jump to get the rebound! Plus he just has to hold it over his head and no one can reach it. Still, we were both impressed that he didn't give his team too much of an advantage. He passed the ball to his teammates a lot of the time. I hope my students were watching! Some could take some lessons from him!

Meetings

Another typical day in 5-6th. My kids were somewhat decent today, still talkative and handsy with each other at times. Lot's of times where they weren't where they were supposed to be (ahem, at their desks). It sometimes makes me wonder if I'm just terrible at classroom management because I can't get them to be quiet and do what they're supposed to. (Don't worry, I know I'm not terrible. But I don't know what I could be doing to get them to behave better).

Mrs. L was back today after being out sick the previous two days. Her sub was GREAT at handling her tough class. One of the ladies at bible study who helps at school commented that the sub had those 1-2nd graders whipped into shape; the room was absolutely silent at lunch time. All the kids were eating and not talking. That didn't help my 'I don't know what to do to get my kids to behave' mindset.

We found the final driver for next week's Camp Omega trip. It's a dad of two of the kids in my class, so it will be extra helpful to have him along. It's hard to believe we leave in one week! Pray for good weather. It's been very rainy here the past few days...

There was a staff meeting after school. Surprisingly, my to do list wasn't too much longer than it had been before the meeting. Mrs. L, Mrs. E, and I set a date to look over this year's Christmas program. We need to pick songs and adjust the script so it's all set for our first days of practice in late November.

My class needs to plan the fall carnival sometime soon, maybe tomorrow during Writers Workshop. It would fit in perfectly; we just finished a few lessons on letter writing (we're starting a pen pal project between my class and some residents at a nursing home in New Ulm that sometimes sends residents out to our events). We need to start prepping for NaNo, but I think next week is soon enough to start that.

Our bell songs for Sunday are coming along nicely. I had been a little nervous before today's practice, but it went super well today and we have two more days to practice this week, so we'll be ready. This Sunday we're celebrating our church's 160th anniversary and having our PTL Pork Chop Dinner and Silent Auction. The president of the MN South District is giving the sermon. My class's parents are in charge of the dinner so I get to help coordinate all the set up. We're setting up for the Silent Auction after school on Friday (that's the area I help the most). Hopefully it will be a good fundraiser!

Water

I realized I forgot to post yesterday. I signed up for a watercolor class this fall through Mankato community ed and the first day was yesterday. It's from 6-8pm. By the time I got home, I was exhausted and just went to bed. The class was fun! I might be the youngest one there, but all the ladies are enthusiastic and our instructor is an energetic, laid back kind of guy.

Before going to class, I had a meeting with the Redeemer youth group leader and my ICY co-leader to talk about plans for our youth groups. She just started and wants to connect their church's youth with youth at other Lutheran churches.

Today was another busy, busy day. It was one of those that made me want to pull my hair out because nothing helped my kids settle. We did have quiet moments in the morning, but it was only after constant monitoring. I should re-read my Teaching with Love and Logic book. The last time I read it was for a college class. It's a lot harder to retain those tactics when you don't have particular students in mind...

It thunder-stormed this morning and rained all day. Normally it's not such a bad thing, however, today was Hearing and Vision Screening, and the nurse needed the gym all afternoon to prep and screen kids. So my kids had indoor recess both recesses. They tried to convince me we could go outside in the pouring rain, but for some reason I wouldn't budge... They found things to do, like play legos and draw with my special markers. Some played games and others rolled a ball around the floor in the center of the desks. Still, they were all antsy to get out and play in the gym. The screening ended up finishing in enough time to give us 8 minutes at recess, which the boys took full advantage of.

My student teacher's first day was today. The 7-8th graders were overly talkative, but my 5-6th graders were great! Mr. W is very tall. I'm not overly tall, but my low classroom ceiling always gives the illusion that I am, so it was a shock for my students to see me so short next to him! He's going to be a great fit for our classroom. He stuck around for an extra half hour to hang out with my class during indoor recess. The girls (and some of the boys) played a game together. It was sweet to see them bonding already.

Treats

Yesterday someone left a delicious muffin on my desk. I have a suspicion it was Mrs. B, but haven't confirmed that fact. I should, because it was so good I want the recipe. Today I found a chocolate truffle on my desk. Later, an 8th grader told me she left it for me, just because.

I really needed the chocolate today... it was a rough one. Lots of chitchatty people, none were super loud, but when there are a lot of not-too-loud talkers, it makes things pretty noisy. Two of the boys were hard to settle and had trouble with impulse control today. One tried taking his spelling test and crumpled it up TWICE. The third time he actually finished it.

The 7-8th graders were awful during their lab, goofing off and messing with the supplies in ways they shouldn't. We were doing a lab on the three kinds of rocks, sedimentary, metamorphic, and igneous, by shaving crayons and compressing them (sedimentary), heating them over a lit candle (igneous), then cooling them with ice cubes. The fire was too tempting for some of them. Then they threw pens at each other across the room, so I gave them sentences. Sigh. You'd think they'd know better.

However, most kids turned their stuff in. By the end of the day only one kid still had a chunk of memory work to say. All handwriting was turned in, as were the spelling tests. I was definitely ready to send them home!

Last night I took my car in for an oil change and tire rotations. Afterwards they always give you a 'this is what we found when we checked everything out' speech and a lot of times it's news you don't want to hear. But my car is doing just fine! No other maintenance required. Since my car was so good at her 'doctor's' visit, I said she could have a treat. I was thinking ice cream, but she wanted a lime green 8ft kayak we found at Walmart. Eight feet fits in my car! And it was on clearance! So, I splurged. :D Hopefully I'll have a chance to take it out this weekend!

Books!

Today has been a very good day as far as books go .. I got an email from my favorite college professor saying the Mankato library book sale is this weekend! Always a great time to stock up on books.

I recently got an email from an education site telling me about this new book called "Emotional Poverty" by Ruby Payne. It sounds like a book that would help me with figuring out my students, but it's not in the library system and I don't want to pay $30 for it. One of my teacher friends had marked on Goodreads that he read it but he borrowed it from one of the other teachers at his school, so I can't borrow it from him.

On a whim, I asked my old college professor about it. She hadn't heard of it, but after doing some research, decided it was one the college should buy. She put in an order request and will let me know when it comes in! She really is the best!

On another note, thank you for the prayers; they've been helping! My kids were pretty good today and yesterday. Keep 'em coming!

Coupons

My class talked about the new coupons 'for sale' starting Mondays and Tuesdays. Hopefully it will be a good incentive for them to earn tokens. The cheapest ones are 5 tokens (skip DOL, draw with whiteboard marker during read aloud) and the most expensive is 30 (use the couch for the whole day). That last one got them really excited. Other cool ones: use legos during read aloud, use special markers during read aloud, use a beanbag all day, eat lunch in another classroom. Those range from 10-20 tokens.

Overall we had a decent day. Not the absolute best day, but a far cry from our craziest. The 7-8th graders and I moved the couch and side bookshelves around a little bit. Now the couch isn't facing the desks, so people can't back into it. The whiteboard easel is tucked between the couch and the bookshelf; I'll pull it out when I want to use it. Now it won't fall over when people walk past it! This year it's fallen down more times than I care to count... bean bags knock into it, the couch got bumped and it fell over (domino effect), people were messing around by the legs of the easel...

Stormy

My kids had a good day. Unfortunately, I think that's because of the storm and not because they're making any internal improvements. Sigh.

There's supposed to be some severe weather tonight. Mrs. L and I talked after school and her class was really good too. Mr. D's class (normally good) had a loopy day. Can I turn my classroom into a big barometric pressure chamber and set it at just the right pressure to get these kids to focus??? Wouldn't that be a neat science experiment?

We finished presenting our Native American powerpoint presentations today, finished learning about plant adaptations, read a TON this morning (lots of people picked Read to Self), and practiced a new bell song.

Maybe tomorrow I'll have a chance to wade through all the stacks that have accumulated on my desk... I did get the majority of my papers corrected and handed back, although more have piled up today. I have a bunch of new books to catalog and book order flyers to manage, plus a few stacks of books for curriculum planning in English and Reading. 

Mondays...

Ugh, Mondays are always tough- kids haven't seen each other all weekend and want to chat. My class was particularly chatty and giggly today (and mean to each other with trash talk).

They were even that way during our end of the day prayer! So much so that I had to stop praying in the middle to chastise them. We ended up being five minutes late to the bus because they couldn't get their act together. Sigh. And then the New Ulm bus left without my class. Normally they wait until a teacher waves them off, but it must've been a substitute driver today because he just went. Mr. E called someone who called the bus driver and he turned around and came back to pick up my left behind kids.

On a positive note, the IT guys brought a temporary projector over the weekend. My ceiling tiles around it are a little off kilter still and there are a few short cords dangling, but the projector works! Hopefully they will be back soon with my regular projector.

Arboretum

What a day. The field trip was good, but it could've been better. I had a bunch of crazy kids who wouldn't listen, stay with the group, or keep their hands to themselves. They got everyone else wrapped up in their crazy tornado (except the girls, although some of them got fed up and yelled at the boys, at which point I had to tell them that I was the teacher and I would handle it). Sigh. I'm not sure how Camp Omega is going to go.

I remember my 5-6th grade teacher giving us 'the talk' before we went: if anyone is misbehaving/not listening, they will be calling their parents to come pick them up to go home. I think we're going to have that rule. 

Aside from behavior issues, we had a beautiful day! It was a little hot (mid-80s), bugs weren't too bad, sun shining. The gardens looked lovely. The kids had a pretty good time looking at all the stuff. We took an hour to look at gardens before our apple class, then went to the apple class at the research orchard five minutes away, then came back to the Arboretum to eat lunch and look at more stuff.

The orchard was neat. They plant apple seeds (around 10,000), let them grow for 8 years, and specifically pollinate certain flowers to try to create new varieties. Then they taste the apples, only one bite per tree. If it's a good impression, they keep the tree. If not, they cull it. If it's good, they keep it around for about 20 years to keep more data on production, apple quality, etc. And at that point, if it's still good, they start selling the apples and graft cuttings of those trees to sell. Pretty neat!

We got to taste two varieties of apples (Wealthy, the one first invented by the starter of the research orchard, named after his wife, and Sweet Tango, the newest variety that's supposedly even better than Honeycrisp) to test for sweet/tangy, juicy/dry, crisp/soft. After that we made cider in a cider press, basically each kid got to put an apple in the apple press while the teacher spun the wheel to grind it up/press it. 

After that, we went back to the Arb to eat lunch, then took a drive around the 3mi loop. We made one stop along the path to check out one of the many gardens before realizing that the boys were in no way able to handle being out of the car. They were shouting and running and being hoodlums, climbing on everything in sight. It took a while to get them rounded up and back in the cars. After that we stayed in the car and just looked at things as we drove past. We did stop at the hedge maze and stayed for a while to burn off energy. That went all right.

Now, I just got a call from a parent driver who learned that on the way back, one of the boys was pulling his pants down to show off his underwear in the backseat. And the other kids in the car were laughing, thereby egging him on. Lovely. Why can't they just make good choices?

Student Teacher

I met our student teacher today after school. He's very laid back and seems super nice. We'll work well together, I can tell. I think my boys will like him; Mr. W is pretty sporty. He's a junior hoping to be a high school social studies teacher. He hasn't had a ton of clinical experience, but he's student teaching next semester, so I'm the last chance to learn how to be a teacher before he actually has to go it 'alone'. He told me he was very thankful how quickly I responded and how nice I was in my emails. His other clinical teachers would take weeks to respond to his emails and when they did it was very short responses.

The 7-8th graders know; I told them today. I haven't told my 5-6th graders yet (unless I did and forgot I did, which is totally possible). When Mr. W got here, I showed him around the school and introduced him to the staff. There were a few kids in Mrs. L's room. After he left, Mrs. L said that one of her students who'd stayed after school asked who he was. One of the 7th grade girls who'd been in the room too said, "Oh, he's going to take Miss H's place when she leaves. He's going to be the new teacher." Uhhh, what?

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how rumors start. My class is going on a field trip tomorrow, so I won't be at school... will that add fuel to the fire? Probably not. Hopefully that is a rumor that won't take off the ground.

In other news, the IT guys did not come last night to give me a replacement projector. Sigh. I should've been prepared, but I like to give people the benefit of the doubt. Apparently the 'loaner' projector they thought they had access to was already being used by another client far enough away they couldn't just go get it. So. I had to cobble together a plan for today again.

One group of 5-6th graders presented their powerpoint on a laptop set on a shelf in front of the class. We all sat on the floor so we could see the screen. Not the smoothest plan ever, but it worked okay. The 7-8th graders brought laptops down to my room with them, I put the powerpoint on the website, and they followed along on their screens. Again, not the smoothest, but we made it work. Then for American history with my 5-6th graders, I had a laptop set up front, me on a stool, the rest of them on the floor with clipboards so they could follow along on their notes sheet. We survived. But I will be so glad when my tech issues are fixed.

Our field trip tomorrow is to the Arboretum up in Chaska. I can't wait! We have enough parent drivers I get to ride with a parent instead of drive. It's one of my favorite parents (I know we're not supposed to have favorites, but each teacher totally does). I had planned to have us back in time for buses, but there's so much to look at, I want us to get our money's worth. After school I messaged parents to see if anyone had an issue with us getting back a little later. So far, no one has!

Jello and Projectors

So my projector bulb finally died today. It was a dramatic death. We had just finished correcting DOL on the board (basically editing grammar mistakes in a sentence) and I was giving instructions on what to do next. Suddenly there was a large popping sound and the bulb went out, screen went dark. The fan on the projector hummed loudly for a long time and when I pressed the shut off button, it took a long time to shut down. So. I had to think on the fly how we would do school the rest of the day.

Thankfully we were doing a demonstration/lab thing for 5-6th grade science, the jello plant cell model, and didn't need a projector for that. The 7-8th grade lesson involved the projector though. Mr. E and I ended up switching classrooms for the hour so I could use his technology. He used my whiteboards to teach my kids math.

The IT guys are coming out tonight to give me a loaner projector until they can get a replacement bulb for the new one (a bulb they were supposed to have ordered and replaced last spring). One of my kids asked how we were going to do school without a projector... could we maybe cancel school? Ha. Nope. We're just going to have to pretend we are in the olden days before technology.

It actually wasn't too bad of a day for it to go out.

Lunch was late again today (the stove was out, hence cooking at church again, but we had substitute cooks instead of our normal cook). I took the time to go over the organelles in a cell and what fruit we'd be using in our plant cell model to represent them. The afternoon session of putting the cell together took way longer than usual, but that's the way of this class. We got it done and had a nice long recess. It was super hot today so they didn't actually want to have that long of a recess.

They thought we should go in early and then we could clean up and watch a Youtube video before going home (we've been trying to watch all the Lucas the Spider videos). Good idea! Too late, I remembered we had no way to show it to the whole class... Thankfully, the laptops were working, so I set one up in front of the class and we all huddled around to watch. Eh, could've been worse!

Soccer

There were two soccer games today after school. In the past, it hasn't been a huge deal. This year, all but two of my students stayed after to wait for the games to start. This means instead of getting work done, I get to supervise/entertain/keep busy all the kids who stick around. It also meant I got to corral students and herd them back to the classroom because they kept leaving. Whew.

Our school day was also a bit frantic. The kitchen stove quit working again, making our cook haul the food over to church to cook it, haul it back, then serve it to us. The helper told me lunch would be about 20-30 minutes late. It ended up being 50 minutes.

My kids were starving and didn't hesitate to tell me so. We did science class while we waited. We actually accomplished quite a bit during that time. I had thought some of the classes had been served already, so when we found out the cook was back, we wrapped up the lesson, got ready for lunch, then washed our hands. And that's when I found out no one had been served until now, so the 3-4th graders were just starting to be served. So we waited in line a long time, had a short recess, and pushed math class back until 1pm.

This has been the fifth or sixth time the stove hasn't worked in the morning, and it's been very frustrating to our new cook. Hopefully the stove works tomorrow, or we might not have a cook anymore...

Quietish

The morning was actually pretty quiet! They didn't distract each other too bad until they came back from Reading Buddies with the 1st and 2nd graders. Still, I didn't really have to keep track of blurts today. It was kind of nice.

I got free pens in the mail today, my favorite kind too: papermate marker pens and some papermate gel pens. I think I entered a teacher promotion giveaway thing a while ago. I got an email saying the company was sending me pens! Yay! I needed some more at home, so this is perfect.

A bunch of kids stayed after school today because it's our first ICY event of the year (church youth group). Probably about half the class stayed. I told them I had a few things to get done and we could go over to church sooner if they were quiet so I could get my work done. Of course they all had things they wanted to ask me (mostly about if they could use the computers). I called church and asked Pastor if he would keep an eye on them for a bit. He said yes and I sent them over. So now I'm wrapping up just a few things before going over there. We're doing games and a bonfire.

After that I'm heading to Theater Physics with some college friends. My summer sand volleyball league has our tournament tomorrow and Sunday the kids sing/play bells. Just another typical weekend!