Speaker

We finally had our Asia speaker come today! After rescheduling at least twice (if not three), Sophie visited our class. She was an excellent presenter and answered the students' questions very well. She didn't have a ton of slides to show us, but we came up with questions anyway. She attended a WELS high school in Michigan and now goes to MLC. She became a Christian because she saw a flyer for English camp in the grocery store one day when she and her mom were shopping. She thought it looked fun and signed up. It was run by a WELS affiliated English program (they send missionaries to China to be teachers and then do bible studies/church on the side). Eventually she and her mom became Christians and she was baptized her senior year of high school in Michigan! Awesome!

That leaves only one more continent for us to visit this year: Oceania (aka, Australia). There aren't any MLC students who have visited or are from that part of the world, so I'm going to reach out to the pastor from Peace in Mankato (he's from Australia). I will probably wait until after Easter though, since Lent is always busy for church workers. After that last continent, we'll be finished with Geography for the year... I'll have to find more things for the 7-8th graders to learn. Right now my plan is to pick up where we left off in American history two years ago (I think they were the class we didn't get much past the Civil War).

Newsies

A mini street sweeper came to brush the gravel off the parking lot. We all had to move our cars out of the way. It was was weird looking out my window and not seeing any cars there.

My class wasn't at school very long; we left for New Ulm High School at 10:20. Their school guidance counselor wanted to give the 7-8th graders a tour and we got to tag along. Two of my former students that attend NU gave us the walkabout the school. It was fun to see them again! We ate lunch in their school cafeteria, which is basically the big commons area. Totally different than Immanuel. After lunch, we got to see their spring musical Newsies.

It was amazing. I was blown away by the singing talent (the accents and acting were good too!). They had musicians playing the music and the set was build by their shop students. Definitely a whole-school production. My favorite part of the play was when the two main characters kissed. Most of the audience were 4th graders so when it happened there was a general outcry of "eww! gross!" and your basic disgusted murmuring followed by the laughter of the adults in the audience (myself included).

The play was a long one: 2h 15min. We had to rush to get back to school in time for the bus! Still, we made it. For sure worth the trip!

Word of the Day

Our read aloud book had a good word: copse. As in 'a copse of trees'. After learning this word, my students had the great idea to have a word of the day. The helper of the day gets to pick it. He or she writes the word on a little whiteboard display I hung up on one of our cabinet doors along with the definition. They explain what the word means after they do the DOL challenge on the board before English. Then I think we decided everyone has to use it in a story or a sentence or something to show that they get what the word means. Good idea! Tomorrow is the first day of using it when the student picks the word. (Today's word was copse).

VIP

Last week I got an email from a teacher site that said something along the lines of 'why virtual teaching should be your next side job'. So I clicked the link and found that it's the same company Mrs. L (1st and 2nd grade) works for over the summer. She teaches English to kids in China via her computer at home in the mornings and evenings, sometimes even during the school year. I had always thought I would check it out someday, so I created an account.

You have to teach a mock lesson and record yourself doing it, and your background has to look educational, so I wanted to do research and get everything situated first. Well, they called me this weekend and asked if I would do the express route for registering. All I had to do was make a three minute video introducing myself, showing how to teach a word, and reviewing an 'already learned' concept. So I did! My parents have a bunch of pull down maps in their basement, so I set up my ipod to show that in the background. I used my sister's cheapo whiteboard for writing on and some other things to 'show off' my stuff (aka, all the things they're looking for in a teacher).  

I just got an email saying I passed the video test! So they're going to hire me. I have to do a few more things on the checklist before it's official. They have a bunch of deadlines set for this week... it's a pretty busy one, so I don't know if I'll make them or not. There's an option to ask for an extension, so I might do that, just to give myself more time. Pretty neat! Another summer job! One I can do from home and continue during the school year if I want.

So Much Space

A few weeks ago, there was a pipe mishap involving the boys' bathroom and the basement... the pipe came out of its holding in the basement, spraying yuck everywhere. So. It got fixed, but the basement is yucky and musty. Therefore, it needs to be cleaned out. (Well, it needed cleaning before, but now it REALLY needs it). One of our usual retired ladies who helps out at school a lot took it upon herself to get a crew to do it today. It's a bit poor timing since it's the end of the quarter and kids have lots to do in our rooms. Still, we scrounged some time for the 5-8th graders to help bring stuff up from the basement for the crew to sort through.

The head honcho of the volunteers said if there's anything we want to save, we should mark it. If there's anything we want to toss, set it in the get-rid-of pile! And we should go through our classrooms too. The Orphan Grain Train is going to take some of our old desks. They may want our old curriculum too. I went through my bookshelves and closet and collected the past curriculum we don't use anymore. Some of it is still pretty new, but I never use it. It's taking up shelf space and collecting dust.

I had enough space on my front bookshelf to move the current math books out of my closet storage. Now I have space in my closet! And I got rid of a bunch of old teachers manuals so now my teacher bookshelf has space! Yay! I have a few ideas of what I want to do with it... the first is to put my Daily 5 whole group picture books there so my kids don't get tired of reading them before I teach the lesson. Right now they're crammed in a crate behind my mini-whiteboard easel. But, that's a task for another day. It's my grandma's birthday and I need to leave now so I'm not late for supper!

ICY

No, the weather wasn't icy today. ICY stands for Immanuel Church/Christian Youth, aka our church's youth group. We had an event after school today at the WowZone to go bowling, play laser tag, and eat pizza. It was one of our top attended events so far since Angie and I have been leaders... 11 kids! Both our cars were full and one parent dropped kids off. There were some at school who wanted to go, but they didn't tell their parents soon enough.

Since we left for the event at 3:30, all the kids stayed after school. I had a half an hour to get my teacher stuff done. You can guess how well that went down. To be fair, I did get some things accomplished, however, I still had a lot left undone by the time 3:30 rolled around.

Tomorrow is the end of the quarter. Most kids are getting their stuff done. Of course, some of the ones missing things went to the youth group event when they maybe should've been catching up on their work... Ahem. Anyway.

School went pretty good today. We ended up with a strange schedule because our Africa speaker could come in the morning, but not the afternoon. He's a missionary kid who grew up in Malawi, Africa. It was really interesting! He's a freshman at MLC on the pastor track and it turns out he is good friends with my cousin who is at MLC (they were actually roommates one year of high school!). Small world!

We were supposed to have another speaker tomorrow, the rescheduled student from Asia, but she forgot she has a choir concert to get ready for, so she cancelled last minute. I hadn't heard from her until later this afternoon just before we had to leave for ICY. I had been scrambling to find someone to give her a ride and finally found one last night at church. It's a tad annoying to cancel so last minute, but we're flexible, and I totally understand how crazy schedules get in the spring. I'm hoping she'll want to reschedule a third time... I still need to look at what we can work on tomorrow instead of hearing her presentation. I'm thinking we'll do science.

Staying After

Another Lenten service tonight. The ladies choir sings (I am an honorary member... I show up to the singing events and don't come to practice). A bunch of kids stayed after school to get caught up on their late work before the quarter ends this Friday. The 7-8th graders have most of their stuff handed in. The 5-6th graders are doing okay handing things in, still a few things missing.

I have two 5th graders going on vacation next week for an entire week. They stayed after to get a head start on next week's assignments. So far, so good!

I also have a gigantic pile of papers to correct. Even though I ran errands on Monday, I might need to make a trip to New Ulm after church... I had thought our science lesson would take longer to go through, but it only took one day. Now we need to do a lab but I don't have the supplies. I could just wait until next week, but then the boys have to make up a lab, which is always a little tricky. So, I'll go to town and get the supplies so we can do it tomorrow.

It seems like my to-do list has grown exponentially somehow. I got a bunch done today after school even with kids staying after. I would've gotten more done, but our janitor, a former student, stopped by to clean and we ended up chatting for about an hour or so. He's not happy with some of the classes in his major and is considering switching from business to education. He's always fun to talk to; hopefully I gave him some good advice.

Well, I best head over to church to run through the choir song!

Lost Has Been Found!

Months ago, I had checked out a book from the library, Max at Night.  I didn't even have time to book-talk it with my students; it disappeared. I had thought someone took it for reading buddies or had stuck it in their crate, but weeks later, no one had seen it. I kept renewing it, thinking it would turn up... it never did. We searched high and low, behind bookshelves, and in other classrooms. Nothing. Finally I couldn't renew it anymore, so I brought the class checkbook to the library yesterday to pay for it. The librarians convinced me to wait to pay because they can't refund the money if the book turns up. They said so many times people will pay and then the next day they find the book! So they renewed it until May.

Guess what happened today...

I was on the hunt for a different book (Stephanie's Ponytail) which wasn't in its usual place. I dug through all the picture book shelves and started in on the crates in the closet. Low and behold, 2/3rds through the second crate there it was! The funny thing is, I'm positive someone had already checked the crates. They must not have checked very well. At least we found it!

For some reason, I had a vague memory in my head of lending Stephanie's Ponytail to another teacher... Mrs. L had no recollection of it. Mrs. E said she had her own copy but she'd look just in case. Guess who had my book. Mrs. E must've thought my copy was hers and tucked it into her bookshelves! Now she has to find her copy...

Fine Arts Fair Recap

The Fine Arts Fair went well. All my kiddos showed up in time to practice the bell songs. We made a few mistakes during the performance, but overall they sounded good. All the 5-6th grade art projects got blue ribbons! The science fair projects all got white and red, for good reason. Even though I gave everyone a list of all the parts that had to be included in both board and written report, most kids were missing things. Hence, no blue ribbons. I saw a few erase marks on some of the judging forms showing that the judges fudged the numbers a bit so everyone at least got higher than a participation ribbon. I'm very thankful for that!

Today I had a lot of tired kids in my class. One boy was in tears multiple times during the day. He's one of my pokey puppies, so he had a lot to do and it is stressing him out. There are still a lot of names on the board for late work and the end of the quarter is Friday. Somehow I have another giant stack of papers to correct already...

I had a headache and sore throat over the course of the day. It's gotten a little better now after school, but I'm not feeling 100%. A bunch of kids complained of various ailments today, so maybe something is going around. I have to run errands tonight, and then my plan is to relax and go to bed early. Hopefully that'll knock whatever I have out of my system.

Superhero or Cowboy Day

Big shocker but I dressed up like a cowgirl today. Not a ton of people in my class dressed up. For that matter, not many have been dressing up all week. I don't know if they're burned out from planning/doing things or if the dress up days just don't appeal to them.

Our special activity of the day was to visit the residents of the Orchard Hills Nursing Home in NU. We sang a few songs, played bingo with them, and ate cookies. It went really well! It'd be fun to do it again sometime. We had to leave pretty early (1:00) to get there in time to do stuff so we could be back in time for buses. It was a rush to get everything finished and handed in that we needed to. I am pooped! Surprisingly, a few kids still had things to do to complete their science fair projects. This year has been particularly frustrating. The last board was dropped off today (they were due last week). Three kids had to add things to their boards or their written reports since they weren't complete. Even so, I don't know how well they are going to do. Sigh. All the instructions were written out in the packet I sent home in January.

Still, all the projects are loaded in my car. I have a bag full of their written reports and extra visual aids to set out in front. In a little bit I'll head down to MLHS to drop them off. I'll stay with my farmer's family tonight so I don't have so far to go in the morning. We meet for bell practice in the gym at 11am sharp. Aside from that, I don't really have to be there at a specific time. The group concert starts at noon. Afterwards, I plan to head the rest of the way to Fulda. The weather this weekend sounds a lot nicer than last weekend, so I should have good driving weather!

Backwards Day

I didn't feel like wearing my clothes backwards, so I wore my normal Friday outfit today (that's backwards right?). I don't think anyone figured it out, haha.

Our special activity for today was Winter Olympics: Minute to Win It. On Monday teams signed up for which kids would do which events. We're announcing the winners tomorrow after devotions. The top three winning teams get candy medals, basically a ribbon for the necklace part and a piece of candy taped to the bottom. Twix= gold, 3 Musketeers= silver, Reese= bronze. Some kids were purposely trying to lose to get bronze since that's the candy they like. Ha!

My class had to have a discussion about consequences and respect. I gave them the whole spiel about how being a student is a job... would I be giving them a raise or lowering their pay? We came up with a new consequence system: jobs or spelling words for when they misbehave. We'll see how it goes tomorrow. Lunchtime interrupted our discussion. I'm ready for this wet weather to be DONE; I think it's making everyone a little stir crazy.

Twin Day

Mr. E wore a purple tie today, so our 'twinning' wasn't as obvious as it could've been. Oh well! He got a kick out of pointing out to people how look-alike we were.

The whole day went really well. Well, it rained all day and the parking lot was super icy (we had some guys come put gravel and sand on the ice to help it be less slippery). I slipped this morning before school started and my whole left leg got soaked. Thankfully I wore black pants, so no one could tell. They dried eventually.

Our entertainment after lunch was a juggler from Mt. Lake. He combined his juggling talents with his life story and really connected it all back to God and following God's plan and purpose for your life. It was just what I needed to hear today. In a surprising turn of events, I was the first one picked to be his assistant! Totally random choice, but I guess I did so well with it that a bunch of people thought it was preplanned! Ha!

He wandered up and down the bleachers around people until he came to me on the end and then dragged me by the arm out to the center of the gym. I could feel my cheeks turning bright red, but decided that since I was up there, I may as well make the most of it and ham it up. He handed me juggling bats to hand to him. Then he sat in the audience and we all waited for me to juggle. I tried flipping one left handed... I didn't catch it. So he came back out and juggled them. Then he put a leather pirate bandanna on my head and gave me some rings to toss over his head. I got all four of them on him! He gave me a long balloon (for balloon animals) and no balloon pump and gestured for me to blow it up. Of course I couldn't. He did a whole bit with the "why can't you do it? oh here, let me try... eww, gross spit!" then pulling out the balloon pump and blowing it up. He ended up making me a hat and I was allowed to sit down.

Even though I was nervous, it was fun!

Well, I better get over to church before they close up the takeout supper line. My farmer is coming up for church, and I told Mr. E we'd be getting takeout from the 7-8th graders chili supper tonight!

Sports Day

I wore my Croatian soccer jersey to school today to be festive for Sports Day (did I mention we're celebrating Lutheran Schools Week this week?). It was also the Young Writers and Artists Conference at Bethany today.

It's always a bit of a rush to get there on time, so I had one family meet us there to stake out seats. I took the 8th grade boys who all ride the first bus to school so we could leave right away. We picked up our packets and helped stake out the spot on the bleachers. Unfortunately, we were missing about four folders. I am positive they registered; somehow their folders got misplaced. It was a major bummer for the girls because they had picked the popular artsy classes that have very strict number limits. The girls had to choose different sessions and there were no spaces left in the original ones they'd chosen. Sigh. It took forever to get them re-signed up too. Oh well. They still had fun I think!

The first session I tagged along with the 8th grade boys to origami. We made a cool foldable accordion thing. Second session I wandered around until I found some of my students doing a Picasso rooster oil/chalk pastel session. That was pretty neat. Our presenter was either Spanish or Italian and had an awesome accent. He liked my drawing and even took a picture of it at the end! After lunch, a parent and I didn't have any kids to follow, so we decided to go off by ourselves and sit in on a class we thought no one from school registered for: "Everything I know about writing, I learned from Professional Wrestling" by Ryan Jacobson. It was just as entertaining as it sounds! We had a great time. That ended the YWAC for us, so we collected our kids and drove back to school.

After we got back we had just enough time to set up the tables/chairs for tomorrow's family day lunch in the gym. The folding chairs are all kept in the shed behind the gym. Unfortunately, there's a huge drift of snow in the way. The 8th grade boys had to chisel the snow and ice away enough to make a path to open the doors. It took a half an hour, but they finally broke through! Over the summer there are plans to build an attached shed back there so we have access to it year-round. That will be so nice! I can't wait. I'm already planning the things I want to store out there.

The Immanuel-ites of our church made supper for us teachers as an appreciation gesture. It was delicious: beef stew (some of the best I've ever had) and tortilla soup. Plus desserts. And then we had a PTL meeting. The meeting only lasted an hour, but I stuck around talking to parents for a while. That and, tomorrow is Twins Day and Mr. E and I had to plan our outfit...

Crazy Hair Day

As you can guess, it was Crazy Hair Day at school today. Do you know what I was trying to mimic?


Some kids thought I was a sweet potato, a cone head, an Oompa Loompa, or a princess. Turns out, I'm a Hershey's Kiss. It was pretty easy to do: put hair in a super high ponytail, slide on half a toilet paper roll for stability, tear off a section of aluminum foil, and mold around head. Voila! It was actually pretty comfortable too. I sometimes forgot I was wearing it (until my ponytail flipped in my face). Then I'd look in the mirror and surprise myself. I have no idea how my kids learned anything today with that strange shiny thing on my head...

Zoo Purchases

We had an influx of zoo purchases today... someone bought a mystery animal which then prompted a ton more people to buy some. The coolest thing the mystery animal turned out to be was a dragon. The rest were garter snakes, sting rays, bats, a possum, a giraffe, a lemur, and a warthog. A few bought specific animals from the book, but the majority were willing to try their luck! The boys had been getting the boring animals when the first girl to pick a mystery animal got the dragon. Yeah, they claimed I was playing favorites after that so I had to explain how I get the random animal list.

Our Friday writing prompt was 'What does Miss H do after we leave school?" They had to write their predictions of what I do from after school until bedtime. Some took the realistic approach while others invented a much more exciting life for me... "Teacher By Day, Superhero By Night!" is the title of one. Another is titled "Teacher By Day, Rockstar By Night!". Only two kids handed their stories in today, the rest are going to finish next week. Of the ones handed in, one 5th grader thinks I do yoga after school. The 6th grader's was pretty accurate (the brief glance I gave it when she turned it in): phone calls, talk to the other teachers, email people, etc.

During art, one of the 6th graders who lives in Courtland asked me if I had water problems last night. It turns out, I did! Well, my toilet made a sound like it was going to explode when I flushed it, tons of really loud gurgling.  I was almost too afraid to take a shower... but that worked fine. When my kids heard that, one boy said, "Ooo! Miss H, you just gave me a great idea for my story about you." Hmm... I wonder what he's going to write... Side note- when I checked my email today, I found out there was trouble with a waterline in town and almost the whole town was effected, which was why my bathroom made such strange noises.

Well, my desk's surface has resurfaced from the pile of papers accumulated throughout the day. My stack of things to bring home has been stacked up. I have my after-school to-do list finished. The only thing left is to zip home and get Joe's food from my fridge... I forgot to take it out this morning and he is totally out! I don't want him to starve over the weekend, so I better bring it back over here.

Funeral

Someone related to members of our church passed away last week and had a memorial service at our church this morning. He'd left instructions of how he wanted everything to go, and one of the requests was that the school children sing at the service. The younger grades opted out, but Mr. E took the 5-6th graders over to church to sing "Jesus Loves Me". I was going to go too, but he said he'd take care of it. It was nice to have a quiet room to myself for a bit!

I used the time to plan next week's lessons and tidy up the room a bit. Yesterday, one of the 6th grade girls lamented that everyone in our class is breaking everything. This year we've had at least two exercise balls pop, the ball pump broke, all our glue sticks used up, paper on the floor, etc. She ended with, "This is why we can't have nice things!"

Yesterday afternoon I asked Mrs. L if she remembered when we last bought bell gloves because ours are getting holes in them (like un-reparable holes) and I wanted to order more. She couldn't remember, but knew it wasn't all that long ago. I searched through my email and discovered it was only two years ago, almost to the day! She texted back, "Lol, this is why we can't have nice things!" Huh, where have I heard that before???

Today during bell practice, I went over how to correctly take off the gloves and fold them together. I think part of the abnormal wear and tear is that they flip them halfway inside out when they take them off, so the fingers are stuck in a bunch. Then they have to pull on them to get them right side out. Plus having them all scrunched up keeps the sweat in so they stink faster. Hopefully they'll all remember to take off their gloves the way I showed them and the new gloves will last longer.

Our performance last night went decently well. The projector designer didn't put in a slide for the sermon, it just went straight to 'offering/bell choirs' after the pre-sermon song, so a bunch of us stood up to play and Pastor had to tell us to sit down for a bit. Oops. They played well, even the song they thought was going to be a train-wreck. We were going to practice our Fine Arts Fair songs at church today, so I left the bell cases over there after the service last night. Then at lunchtime I remembered the funeral. The meal would probably be going on at the time we wanted to practice... should we chance it? Or bring the bells back to school? Bring the bells back to school. So over noon recess I grabbed a few of the girls and we hauled them back over.

Practice went okay. There are a few measures they just can't get the timing right. Thankfully, we have a few more days to practice. Due to the potentially bad storm this weekend, they officially postponed the FAF until next Saturday. I guess this weekend will be an apartment-bound one! I have a gigantic stack of books from the library and a few things I want to make in the kitchen. I'm sure I'll be able to occupy myself...

Bells

I think we're ready to play tonight. We didn't work on any Fine Arts Fair songs, but we at least have a few days to work on those. One girl went home sick today, thankfully before bell practice so we could find a replacement.

Our second song is more challenging, "O Sacred Head Now Wounded", and all the players think it sounds like a disaster. I can hear the melody and it's turning out pretty good. Could we use more practice time? Yes. Will we sound terrible tonight? Most likely not.

The second day of lockers in the coatroom and desks in rows went decently well. One boy keeps turning around to talk to the row behind him, so I may shuffle him over a few desks. Aside from that (and the 7th graders talking nonstop in the rows), it seems to work pretty good.

Well, I'm keeping this short since I want some supper before we sing/ring at the Ash Wednesday service. Better get over there before all the spaghetti is gone!

The Remodel

BIG changes to our classroom today... the back pod talked up a storm again this morning, so right before lunch I had them change from a pod to a straight line. Once one pod did it, the rest of the class slowly followed in wanting to try it. So now we have three staggered rows instead of square pods. It gives more room around the tables and is actually easier to maneuver around the room. Although, that could be because of the next big idea the girls had at lunchtime.

First came the complaining about where they were going to put their crates now that we're in rows. Before, they'd set them to the sides of their desks for easy reaching, but now that the desks are next to each other, they have to put them behind their chairs... not nearly so handy. "Miss H, we should get lockers!" Mr. E and I had just talked about that the other day: too noisy. Of course the girls had a counterargument.

Then one of them lit up with an idea, "Gasp! We could put our crates out in the coatroom!" The third and fourth grade class has crates in their coatroom to keep their stuff organized (and crates in their room too, I believe), so it wasn't an earth-shattering idea, but they were excited nonetheless, especially when they realized their crates would fit perfectly on the shelf above the hooks.

So, the girls spent their recess reorganizing their crates so nothing would fall out when they're stacked on the shelf. The boys weren't too happy about it (because some of the girls took over the space above their hooks). At second recess, the girls convinced the boys to switch hooks with them so the girls could be right under their crates. None of the boys want to move their crates to the coatroom. One boy is being stubborn and refuses to trade spots with the girls (hence the open space). The girls have grand plans of changing out their books at their lockers during the day. Hopefully it lives up to their expectations. I know one thing for sure; I'm not going to just let them go out there anytime they want to grab stuff. If it's like a real locker system, they can only go out between classes. We'll see how it goes.

In other news, it sounds like bad weather ahead for the Fine Arts Festival. Already the planners are thinking about postponing it until next Saturday. I honestly wouldn't mind. We could use a few more days to practice our songs. Tomorrow night we play bells for the Ash Wednesday service. Those songs are decent-sounding. One needs a bit more work. We have practice again tomorrow and should have it polished up by the end of the day.

Viktor's Quest

Not a huge academic day for 5-6th. We had religion, read-aloud, met with spelling groups, then had math this morning up until lunchtime. The 7-8th graders took a science test on the body systems.

After lunch grades K-6 took a bus to Nicollet for an anti-bullying program put on by the Minnesota Vikings. It was AWESOME! One of the cheerleaders presented along with Viktor, the Viking's mascot. They had a screen with video clips of players/announcers/other cheerleaders 'calling in' to teach the kids what bullying is, the types of bullying they may face, the types of people involved in a bullying situation (bystander, bully, person being bullied, person who helps), and an acronym so they know what to do in a bullying situation. The people who designed it did a great job; I was impressed.

When we got back to school, there was just enough time for PE, and then we went home!

Memory Work

I got the funniest email from a parent today... She said,

• I have to tell you something funny about [student]. He was working so hard on his memory work last night. He usually does, but he was working especially hard last night.  He told me, "Learning this memory work is actually very good for my love relationships. The girls love it when I say my memory work on time because I am basically the only boy who does.  So I am definitely learning this memory work!"  So learning the catechism is helping [student] with his "love relationships."  I like it!

It almost made me laugh out loud at my computer when I read it! It was a nice pick-me-up this morning because my students were off. the. wall. It's been lightly snowing all day starting this morning, and I think the change in barometric pressure caused some kids to go a little nuts.

Sigh. Thankfully it's Friday. This weekend the North Mankato Library is having an Edible Book Festival and I am entering. I decided to do "Oh the Places You'll Go" by Dr. Seuss and build it with rice crispy bars, painting it with almond bark to get the crazy colors. That's my plan for tonight! Maybe I'll do a little reading too... :)