#14- Bale Tag

Well, the weather wasn't pretty for our field trip this year, but it was better than last year. Last year it thunderstormed once we got to the farm, so my kiddos couldn't play bale tag. They were super bummed. This year, it was in the low 40s and sprinkled basically all day, though it tapered off a bit while we toured the farm. That didn't stop my students from playing bale tag! They had a blast and had the mud on their hands/clothes to prove it!

Our day started with a stop at the Jeffers Petroglyphs. We did the usual video about the site, looking at the replica artifacts they have in the center, then we braved the cold and wet and looked at the glyphs. Two times ago they'd been working on a project to get rid of the lichens that grew on the stones, hoping to find more glyphs. They'd had black plastic garbage bags held down by rocks on top of the flat stone. This time we were able to see some of the glyphs they'd uncovered. There was a huge map underneath the lichens! It's all carved in the hard stone, but you can see little dots linking a person to a circle (a town) and bison and other things. The one good thing about the wet is that we were able to see the glyphs very well.

We went inside to warm up and did a Winter Count activity. Winter Count is basically a calendar/diary/timeline mapped out in pictures. Each year, the keeper of the count chooses one symbol to represent the year and draws it on a piece of hide. He is in charge of remembering what the symbols mean and teaching them to someone else when he gets too old, so their history isn't lost. Some events include peace treaties between warring tribes, significant people dying, a meteor shower, good hunting year, etc. The next year another symbol is added to the same hide. My kids each had to make their own symbol on a paper printed to look like a hide.

After that we went outside again to throw atlatls at a fake bison. Some of my kids got super close! It was cool to watch them throw the spears. A few of the boys want to make an atlatl at home. Our guide gave me instructions to pass out back at school. We ate lunch inside the center since it was so cold out, and then we headed to the farm.

As you might guess, there was a ton of mud EVERYWHERE. I'd warned my students, so most of them wore boots. Only a few had to borrow boots from the basement. One kid had a hole in his boot (he found that out the hard way, shin deep in mud on the other end of the farm). Dad went back and got him a bag to wear inside the boot.

They got a kick out of the rope swing in the hayloft. There's not a ton of hay up there. Normally the cats live up there, but we only saw one the whole time we were up there. I'm not surprised. My kids were super loud; they probably scared the cats into hiding. We pet a day old baby calf ("It's so soft Miss H!"), saw a freshly born calf wobble to its feet and start nursing (we missed the birthing part), played bale tag, got stuck in mud, got unstuck in mud, sat in tractors, watched the teenage chicks, checked out the pigs, played bale tag again, then got washed up and piled back into cars.

One not so good thing happened on the way to the farm... I hit a Canadian goose. There were two standing in the middle of the road. I thought they would move in time. One did, but the other veered into my car and popped the drivers' side mirror off the base. Thankfully it stayed tucked into my window and I was able to grab it when we got to the farm. Unfortunately, the glass is shattered, but Pastor was able to snap it back on for me once I got to church for youth group. I'm going to see if eBay has any parts I can buy to replace the broken one. If not, I have a friend who fixes cars who'll probably be able to help. Or I can take it to Ford for a replacement. But they'll probably be expensive.

After school we had another ICY event (aka- church youth group). It was supposed to start right after school at 3pm, but we didn't get back from the trip until about 4:30. Some of the girls went home to change first since they were so muddy. Still, we ended up with seven people! That's one of our higher attended events! Pastor did a devotion about fishing and the bible, we made microwave mug cake, at pizza, and played spoons. We were going to make cards for our shut-ins, but we ran out of time.

It was a full day! Now I'm curled up on my couch trying to figure out what to do with myself. I have an audiobook due in a few days I should listen to and a program for the Variety Night to type up, so I'll do that for sure. I might read a book after that. Or I might just go to bed!

Quick tongue update: the pain is getting less and less. It's still sore when I move it around in certain ways. My chiropractor found a myofunctional therapist in St. Peter, but they have to have a referral from an MD, so a dentist/oral surgeon doesn't qualify. I made an appointment with an ENT doctor (ear, nose, throat), but the earliest open appointment is June 11th. Yikes. So I emailed my GI doctor to see if she'd give me a referral. We'll see what happens! I'm still trying to find someone who does what's called 'body work', which is working with my upper body muscles to get them to stop compensating for the restriction I've been living with for 30 years.

#15- read aloud all morning

Last week I forgot to post on Friday because I was in such a rush to get out of school. I had money from our Lenten suppers to deposit at the bank, which has very limited hours, so I had to duck out quickly! They were having problems with their computer system and couldn't actually put the money in our class account until Monday, but that's fine. While I was there, I asked if my class could tour their vault sometime since we'd been learning about banks lately with our MN history Great Depression unit. They had to check and said they'd call today. We can!

Then I remembered by the time we get back from our field trip, the bank will be closed. But, we are going canoeing Friday, so we can swing by the bank on our way back from Swan Lake. Win, win!

After school today we had our staff meeting and a 'pizza party'. That's code for 'teachers film their Variety Night act'. We did eat pizza too though. It seemed like we filmed a bunch of things, but we still have a bunch to go. Mrs. L's husband is our video producer. He's had some great ideas! It's going to be hilarious... Next Monday we're going to finish up filming just in time for Thursday's Variety Night show! Lots of stuff to get ready before then. Yikes! I can't believe how fast the year is going.

Today was our first balloon countdown activity of the year. We finish our last Fun Jungle book and started another one: Journey to the River Sea by Eva Ibbotson. It's one of my favorites and I've read it aloud in the past. It doesn't sound super glamorous and exciting right off the bat; they have to get hooked first. So the classroom was not as quiet as I would've liked for read-aloud. I let them get caught up on their late work. Some of them have SO many things they haven't turned in. I told them they wouldn't be able to go to the MLC play on Thursday or canoeing on Friday if they still had their name on the board by then. I really hope they get all their work done so I don't have to be the bad guy!

Edible Book Festival

I'd say that event was a hit! We had one person drop out this morning and three more brought theirs without filling out a form ahead of time. The hardest part was making sure there was enough room for everything on the tables. I must've shuffled things around over twenty times! But, in the end the tables looked nice. There was a good variety of items: cakes, cookies, bread, baklava, fruit, veggies, and even some lemonade. Mrs. L made a better recipe of Freckle Juice! One family made a turkey out of a watermelon (body), fruit skewers (tail), and a half a pear (head). That one won best over all.

My punny ideas were well received: Olive R Twist and Game of Scones. A bunch of girls in my class made some cakes based on the covers of the books they've been reading. One family did veggie plates in the shape of Sesame Street characters' heads.

Instead of having guest judges, I let everyone vote for every category. It took a while to tally the votes, but everyone had fun voting for their favorites in each category! It sounds like people are interested in doing it again. I might change what time of year we do it in, possibly in the fall with Family Write Night. We'll see what other people think.

Now, I've been at school long enough. I'm headed home!

Edible Book Festival

Tomorrow is the rescheduled Edible Book Festival (from waaay back in February). We have about 10 entrants, unless there are some last minute additions tomorrow, which there probably will be. People at our school are terrible about sending forms back on the due date.

I figured since I'm hosting the festival, I should have an entry. I didn't come up with a unique idea; I found one online. Actually, I found two. One is the one I did for the Fulda Library festival last summer, "Game of Scones". The other one is "Olive-R Twist"- olives set in the shape of the letter R next to a twisted bread stick. So after bible study tonight I baked scones and bread sticks. The bread sticks are in the last stages of cooking. Whew!

My tongue did a little better today than yesterday. By the end of the day it still gets pretty sore. I actually caved this morning and took a Tylenol. It's long since wore off, but I'm holding off on taking more. If I take more than one, it makes my heart race the next day. Ibuprofen makes my stomach hurt if I have too much, so there's not much medicine I can take without unwanted side-effects. So far the mouth pain is preferable to the other symptoms. We'll see how I feel tomorrow.

We did jump roping again today, though not as much as yesterday since a lot of my kiddos had sore legs from all the skipping! They were able to really focus on their books... A group of about six of them were sitting on/around the couch totally absorbed in their books. It made my heart very happy!

Jumpin' Jumpin'

Jump roping was a hit today. They found me a rope too, so I jumped! We did a jumping session before we did devotions, then one after religion, and another before lunch, and finally one after math. It's amazing how much energy it takes to jump for a minute or two. My legs got a little shaky and I was out of breath by the third session. We'll all be so strong by the end of the year if we keep this routine up!

It was beautiful weather today, so we jumped outside on the pavement. A lot of people thought we were having a jump rope marathon day or something. I'm hoping we'll be able to keep the enthusiasm for jumping up throughout the rest of the year. I can see a bunch of my kids losing interest after a while. Some of the girls were challenging themselves to see how many jumps they could do in a minute or if they could crisscross their rope or jump backwards.

We also came up with a new end of the day routine and new morning routine adding in the jumping rope so we can hopefully get our day started/ended faster than we do now. The end of the day didn't go as quickly as everyone hoped today. No one wanted to come in from recess. We picked our flexible seats before we left, which should make our morning start faster tomorrow. Normally we choose them in the morning and it always takes a while. Now we should be super fast!

One of the 6th graders really wants to move on to the New Testament in religion class. We just got to Esther. She and I mapped it out and we can probably wrap up the Old Testament by Thursday next week. That's our goal anyway! After school today I mapped out science and social studies for the rest of the year... we're down to 18 days left. It's going to be a crunch. I definitely could use another week of school to cram in another unit, but we're not adding any days on to the end of the year. I'll just have to use the time that I have!

Back to School

We had school today as a make up day from our snow days. The kids were kind of 'meh' all day. I was kind of 'meh' all day. Some of them asked to see my tongue. It was pretty sore, so I avoided showing them if I could. I speak normally (I think most of them forgot I had tongue surgery over the weekend). I do know I have a lot of mouth therapy ahead of me to stretch the muscle out and to learn to swallow correctly.

Over Easter break, my cousins and I were talking and one of them said something about using jump ropes to get kids to focus more. I discussed it with my class this morning and we decided to try it. Over noon recess, the girls found jump ropes for everyone and passed them out. When they got back from math, we tried jumping for a minute in the gym. It was a bit chaotic, but they did okay. After they got back to the room we talked about my expectations with the jump ropes, so I think it will go better tomorrow when we try it again. I think I should have a jump rope too and jump with them! I love jump ropes and used to be the queen of jumping rope when I was in first grade. 

After school I had a chiropractor appointment to see how my body is after surgery. Nothing too exciting happening with my upper back muscles. My upper neck muscles were more tight than they usually are, so we'll have to work on those. I survived the day of school and all the talking that goes with. My tongue got kind of sore, but it was good to use my tongue so much with speaking. I will be so glad when it's totally healed up!

Tongue Tie

So a few months ago, in the throes of one of this winter's blizzards, I watched an episode of Royal Pains where a little baby had trouble gaining weight. They ran tests and could not figure it out. In the last minute of the episode the doctor figured out the baby had a tongue tie and made some offhanded comment that it's hard to believe a little thing like that could cause so many issues, and issues later in life too. I immediately perked up because, as it turns out, I am tongue tied.

I've known I'm tongue tied my entire life. Doctors would tell me to stick it out and I'd try but it wouldn't go anywhere. I don't like sandwiches because the bread gets stuck to the roof of my mouth and I can't get it off (because my tongue can't reach up there). And eating an ice cream cone presents an interesting challenge. Still, I never thought it was that big of a deal until seeing this episode.

So I started researching and the more articles I read, the more certain I was that I should have mine released. Tongue-ties in adults can cause upper back pain, headaches, and reflux issues (symptoms I have). It can cause snoring, sleep apnea, and speech problems (thankfully I'm not dealing with those).

Midwives used to keep one fingernail long for the purpose of cutting ties when they examined just born babies, but once women moved to having their babies in hospitals, the knowledge was lost. Many doctors nowadays don't know much about ankyloglossia (aka tongue ties) and don't learn about it in school, although it's becoming a more common thing to know. Babies that have trouble feeding and gaining weight are the ones that get checked out for it and have their ties released. Not much is known about the effects a tie has on an adult.

A friend of mine just had her one year old daughter's tie clipped, so I talked to her and got connected with some Facebook support groups. Every adult who comments has said to get the tie released. No one has said they regret the decision.

I did more research, found tongue exercises to do to stretch my tongue out, found an oral surgeon to do the surgery who is covered by my insurance, found a speech therapist who can teach me how to swallow correctly (since I've apparently been doing it wrong my entire life). Tomorrow is the day! I'm getting release at about 10am in Sioux Falls.

I hadn't planned to tell my kids, but it slipped out accidentally. We don't have school the rest of this week (Holy Week), so there was no spelling due. I don't know how the surgery is going to effect my speaking ability for the few days following it. From what I've read, I should be okay, but you never know. So my lesson plans for next week are light on the talking, heavy on the test taking/guest speakers. And just in case my mouth is too sore to talk, I went over their spelling on Monday. That's how it slipped out. They wanted to know why it was so important we do spelling this week if it's not due til next week. I said, 'because I might not be able to talk much next week'. Of course that led to 'why' which led to a discussion and an explanation. But I'm glad I told them.

I got nervous about the release Monday night. I prayed about it, but the nervous worry was lurking. After they found out, one of my kiddos asked me if I was nervous at all. I admitted that I had been. A different one said the best thing, "You gotta trust God. He'll take care of you. Just pray about it and it'll be good." If that doesn't warm your heart, I don't know what will! A few of them added me to their popcorn prayer at the end of the day today and yesterday. And one of them added me to the chapel prayer list this morning.

That was interesting. Some of the younger kids only heard 'surgery' and 'tongue'. The 3rd grader sitting next to me asked, "They're going to cut out your tongue?! Don't you need it?" Uh, yes, yes I do. A few other kids asked me what was wrong with it and if I had to have the whole thing taken out. The 7-8th graders and I had a good talk about it during science class. I'm doing my own science experiment on myself! It's been really interesting to realize the different ways my tongue can move (ways I hadn't known were possible before stretching it) and how it's supposed to be compared to how my tongue has been compensating. It's made my students more aware of their tongues too, comparing what they do to what I do.

So. I brought a bunch of soft foods with me to Fulda. I have popsicles in the freezer and tea in the cupboard. My friend gave me some essential oils to use for pain relief. I saw the chiropractor this afternoon to get my muscles loosened up. And the rest is in God's hands!

Stock Market

We spent a good part of our MN history time talking about banks and stock markets and investing and loans... can you guess we're in a unit on the Great Depression?

Day two with the couch went well again. Super quiet readers, even though they all sat pretty close together. A lot of them like to lean against the couch and read. Works for me! We took a group picture on the couch for a thank-you note... you can hardly see the couch underneath all of them!

Our giant box of book order books just arrived five minutes ago. One of my students who had ordered books stayed after school to play in the gym. Her mom wanted to go but she wanted to stay so she could be here when the books arrived. Nope. Her mom made her go home. And fifteen minutes later the books arrived. I have another student who stayed to catch up; she also ordered books. I asked if she wanted to stay a little longer so she could get her books, or if she wanted to go home right away. She decided we should stay and unpack the box. Yay!

Couch

My farmer's parents dropped off a couch for my classroom last night. It was a HUGE hit with my kiddos today. I didn't have enough time before school to move things around, but that was okay because my 6th grade girls wanted to do the rearranging. Everything fits together quite nicely! We only had to move a few things. A spinney book rack slid over, the white writing shelf moved to where the easel was, and the couch went where the white writing shelf had been. Ta-da! We have the couch facing the rest of the classroom instead of the Reading Corner to keep the couch sitters from chatting with the people in the corner. 

I'm sure it won't be a big deal once the newness wears off, but for now, we definitely need to keep kids from fighting over it. We spent at least fifteen minutes discussing the rules of the couch and how we'll decide who gets to sit on it. The rule is two people can sit on it at a time. First come, first serve. And you have to have everything with you when you go to sit down. None of this "I sat here so it's my spot. Now I'm going to get everything I need to do my round!" So far, so good! No fighting at all. 

The other rule is that if you've already sat on the couch for a Daily 5 round and someone else wants to have a turn, if they ask politely, you have to give up your spot, no arguing. This is only in between rounds of course. That policy worked really well today too. 

The 7-8th graders were both excited and skeptical at the same time. They're a little annoyed that I'm having all these good ideas after they're out of my class. But like I told the 6th graders (who were also a little peeved they don't get to enjoy the couch for most of the school year), I can't help when I have good ideas!

The couch is a yellow striped loveseat that's seen better days, but it's comfy enough for 5-6th graders. The back of it is low so I can see over the top of it, and it came with a gray sofa cover that makes it a little more modern-looking. The cover is a bit dirty/stained on the bottom, but 5-6th graders hardly notice those things. It will serve our purposes quite nicely! 

Now, if I could just figure out a way to add in a lamp...

Eggs

 We tested more egg cars today. I gave them the option to do art or work on egg cars. Most groups chose building and testing their cars. I still have two groups that need to finish building and testing. The rest finished today.

It's been an interesting process, seeing them use their budgets to build the cars. All but one or two groups had trouble incorporating wheels in the design. Most slid down the ramp as opposed to rolling. We had to create little bumpers on the side with meter sticks so the car didn't roll off the edge of the board.

The original challenge is to have the board start at 1.5m, but I thought that would be too high so everyone started off at the 1m height. If it didn't crack too bad, we bumped it up to 1.5m for an extra challenge (one that didn't effect their grades). I probably should've gone with the extra challenge to begin with because hardly anyone's egg cracked at the lower level. And it's not because their eggs were super well fortified. Oh well, things to change for next time.  One didn't crack at all, even at the 1.5m height. They used a blown up balloon to slow the car down and be a buffer at the end.

This would be a fun challenge to try again when they're in 7-8th grade. See what they remember. See if they can come up with a better design incorporating more physics. So many of them were just stuck on getting their car to roll down the ramp!

Cancelled

Well, that escalated quickly. Beautiful sunrise this morning, followed by clouds by the time I got to school. A few flakes fell as we walked over to chapel. A TON of flakes fell on our way back to school. Stuff was kind of melting, kind of sticking, not really blowing around, but coming down heavy.

Still, nothing got called off. Nicollet didn't want to miss another day of school. New Ulm would've called off, except there is a travel advisory out for Brown County until 2pm saying no one is allowed on the roads because there is zero visibility. They want the plows to have time to clear off the roads before anyone goes out.

After lunch, Nicollet said they'd get out at 1:15. Our Nicollet kids got picked up at 1pm and the New Ulm kids were just going to hang out (they were super happy about that...). But, most parents found rides for their kids, so thankfully the bus doesn't have to come all the way out here.

Church for tonight is cancelled; so is our egg bake. The mom who was going to bake them this afternoon is still going to bake them. She'll stick them in the freezer until we can have our meal sometime after church. It probably won't be until May though... next Sunday is confirmation and the kitchen is booked for someone's meal, the following Sunday is Easter, then there's the men/women's club Pork Chop Dinner. Then it's May! So we'll see. Someone mentioned Maundy Thursday, but I won't be around to run it.

Eagle

My class mixed up our egg bakes for tomorrow's Lenten supper after school. A few kids weren't able to stay and help since we had to move the mixing day from Monday to Tuesday. Oh well. There was enough help. This year's recipe didn't go as fast as last years. It took us about a half an hour last year and this year it was about 45min to mix everything up. We were all wrapped up by 4:10 and I drove two girls who didn't have rides back to Nicollet.

We had just driven into the city limits when I spotted an eagle flying low near our side of the road. There was a pickup and trailer right ahead of us and the eagle aimed straight for it. I thought it was going to attack the pickup! Suddenly, it did! It dove down in front of it and the driver swerved to the side to avoid it. The eagle lifted off with a red squirrel in its talons! Wow! You don't see that every day!

Tea

I think God's telling me I need to wash my kitchen floor. This morning I knocked my nearly full mug of tea all over my pile of papers to be corrected. Bleah. The handwriting sheet colored in markers dripped blue spots all over the floor. So, instead of correcting, I cleaned my floor this morning. My kiddos were surprised that their papers were tan/green and wrinkly!

I might actually get time to clean my kitchen if the weather that's coming actually lives up to the hype. They're saying anywhere from 12-16 inches of snow from Wednesday night into Thursday. Snowplow workers are saying school is going to be cancelled. Great.

But Wednesday is a ways from now. Who knows what will happen!

Talking To

Yesterday the 7-8th graders were horrible. Today Mr. E came down before class started to give them a major lecture. It worked! They were totally silent for the first half of class... it was weird.

He told them that whenever I give them sentences, they also have to do some for him: multiply the number I give them by 10. So if I give them 5, they have to do 50 for Mr. E. If I give 10, they do 100 more for him. Yikes. I hope that solves the problem.

We spent a lot of time on Mystery Class today. The due date is April 15th, so we have about a week to find our 10 mystery locations. The girls in my class did awesome and have narrowed down the search for a bunch of places. They know most of the countries now. The boys are having a little harder time, but they're doing okay. My rule is 5th graders have to find 5 locations, 6th graders 6, 7th 7, 8th 8. The rest they find are extra credit.

Don't tell them, but this year (due to budget cuts) is a repeat Mystery Class. Some of the clues are very familiar and I remember the countries they were located in. I don't remember how long ago it was, but I think some of the 7th and 8th graders maybe did this set when they were in my class. I wish they would've picked an older set. Oh well. Hopefully we'll have new ones next year!

Quiet and Loud

This day was a bit of a roller coaster. Our day started wonderfully: the Daily 5 rounds were basically totally silent. The boys (normally the hard to settle ones) read quietly the whole morning. The girls were on the chatty side though. Still, we had a very productive morning.

Then the 7-8th graders came to class. Sigh. They were in an obstinate mood spewing out unnecessary comments left and right. And then came bells. Sigh. I wish we had a room where the bell things could stay set up. I think they would behave better if we had a music room that was for the express purpose of making music. We're so cramped in my room and the ceiling is so low the sound gets all muddled. The unnecessary comments continued into bells and I got very frustrated trying to tamp down their behavior issues.

The 5-6th graders came back and they were not on their best behavior, so my frustration sloshed over onto them too. We started a lab today that involves designing and building a car to hold an egg. We've been studying force, work, energy, etc. and this lab is meant to get them to think about all those things. Their egg cars are going to roll down a 1m high incline plane and the goal is for the egg not to crack. So far the biggest issue is remembering the cars have to have wheels.

They are allowed a budget of 20 "dollars" to spend on supplies. If their materials are in good condition, they can return them to buy something else. So far almost every group has either bought more things or returned items. We'll do this for a few more science classes. Monday I'll give them a plastic egg to test out instead of a real one. Wednesday or Thursday will be our official test day! If the weather is good we can go outside. If not, I'll need to set up a tarp just in case their cars don't work as well as they think they will.

A lot of them think they can shove their egg inside a balloon, fill it full of air, and that will be protection enough. Hmm... it's good they have to do a few trials before they get their real egg.

Book Sharing

Yesterday I saw one of the kindergartners waiting for the bus reading a graphic novel I've been wanting to read. I was super excited because it's not in the library system. If I want to get it, I have to buy it from the book order, but I don't know if it's good or not.

So I asked him if it was good and said I'd been waiting to read it (and the library didn't have it) and maybe I could borrow it after he was done, if he wanted to share.

Today, he left it with Mrs. E to give to 'that one teacher down there' (he couldn't remember my name) so I could read it! How sweet! I flipped through a few pages and it already seems hilarious: Catwad by Jim Benton.

Changes

We made another change to the classroom today. Someone had the idea to slide the long, short bookshelf down a ways so it's further under the whiteboards, leaving room to move the short 'new/featured' books bookshelf next to it. That gives us extra space to hopefully add a comfy chair or even a little couch! I put a note in the bulletin asking if anyone wanted to donate one. We'll see what happens.

We had another thought about how to streamline lunch count (we meaning Mrs. L and me). It always takes forever to get everyone quiet, then have someone read what's for lunch, then have them raise their hands if they're having cold lunch, then chef salads, then seconds. Our idea is to have little magnetic cups stuck to the board with labels for hot, cold, and chef. Students can stick their name stick in the cup they want. The helper of the day can write it on the slip and bring it down, even before school starts! I'm going to the store to buy the cups today.

Another in-the-works thing is getting new shades for my classroom. The ones we have break all the time (they're the standard rolling up ones, no cords). I want the kind called cellular shades that don't have any cords, but you can raise and lower them by shoving or pulling the direction you want to go. Mr. E and I looked after school and found some that should work. The trustees will install them when they arrive! We ordered enough for two of my windows. The third window I hardly ever use the shade and the fourth window I never do, so it's not necessary to outfit them with new shades. Hopefully these live up to my expectations!

April Fool's Day

Thankfully, not too many pranks were pulled at school today. Mrs. E got me first... she came in with a foil covered baking tray and asked if I wanted a brownie to start off my day. Of course I said yes! Then she whipped out a brown E and handed it over beaming. YES! Puns are my favorite.

Mr. D tried to get me too. Before school he asked if I had sent in my registration for that teacher conference they were having in Mankato this spring, another one. I didn't get what he was talking about, thinking maybe it had to do with the feedback form for the Young Writers and Artists Conference. Then I remembered it was April Fools Day. 

None of my kiddos tried to pull anything, although the 7th and 8th graders got a little obnoxious with the jokes. They tried the 'Miss H, your shoe's untied!' (I was wearing flats... they tried to pull it on Mr. E two seconds before me, so I didn't fall for it.) and 'Miss H, you have ketchup on your shirt!' (I don't normally eat ketchup).

I got one of my kids pretty good though. We were learning about potential and kinetic energy in physics. One of the girls wanted to know how to spell 'mechanical', but she asked 'how do you spell that?' so I wrote 'THAT' on the board and waited. She looked at me for a while, waiting for me to write more. One of her classmates got it first and laughed. Then I actually wrote 'mechanical' on the board.