Today was National Day of Prayer. I happened to remember that right around lunchtime, when we were all sitting around the lunch table (we were supposed to eat lunch outside as our balloon activity today, but it was a little damp and chilly, so we're pushing it off until tomorrow). When I said that everyone all over the country gathers to pray today (especially at noon), they said we should do it too. So we did! We did our popcorn prayers right in the middle of our lunch. Some of the boys 'covertly' licked at the food on their trays while keeping their hands folded, trying to eat and pray at the same time.
The afternoon was spent at the MLC play, "The Cat in the Hat", a play produced based entirely on the book. I was impressed. The script was exactly what was written in the book, the set looked just like the illustrations. There was a 'voiceover' narrator (supposed to be the boy all grown up, it was a guy wearing a tux) and the fish was a girl wearing an orange dress and shiny fabric fins living in a clear 'bowl' made of tubing and clear plastic. They figured out a whole bunch of cool effects to use including sound effects when the Cat bounced a ball and breaking stuff. They also had the Things flying kites around the stage (on wire), a car with a secret trap door that let the 'car cleaning people' slip onto the stage when the Cat cleans up from his playtime. There's a part where the Cat balances on a ball holding the fish, three books in his hands, a rake, a saucer, cake, and a bunch of other stuff. The brother and sister helped add things to the Cat while he balanced on the ball. Their props slid together and attached so they couldn't actually fall, but it looked really impressive from the audience!
It was neat how they added more things to the story that aren't written in the book. There are no words added, but they found a way to make the story come alive in 3D and added to the Cat in the Hat's games. Thing 1 and Thing 2 were pretty cool too. All in all, it was very well done. I LOVED it and was glad all my students (and I) could go.
My pokey puppies got all their late work turned in, and it was only minorly stressful for me/them. One girl forgot her spelling test fixes at home, so I made her redo them. She said she'd left them on her desk at home, but they were done! I asked why she didn't put them in her backpack if they were so important. She didn't have an answer. Hence, her having to redo them. She ended up writing her spelling words on the bus, finishing the last assignment. And she got it done before we arrived! So she was able to watch the play. The other ones who'd had late work handed their stuff in before we came in from recess.
I had two kids stay after today working on things that are due tomorrow so they can go on the canoe trip in the morning. It's going to be a bit of crunch time in the morning to get everything done before we leave at 8:45. Our priorities are memory work and spelling tests. The rest can wait until we get back (we arrive in time for lunch).
I have a pile of papers to correct. My intention was to correct them once I got home from my errands, but I got sucked into prepping NaNos for publishing and didn't get a single one corrected. NaNos are proving more problematic than usual because the site I normally publish them on changed ownership. Now Amazon controls it. It's actually pretty similar to what I used before, but I had to spend a lot of time figuring the ins and outs of the new website. Then the NaNo site suggested a company to publish books on. It's SUPER easy to use, but there's no cover creator, so I messed around with that for a while. Then I went to check out (just to see how much a book would be) and it was about $20 for one book! Holy buckets! I love my students, but that's a lot of money to spend on them. The other site is usually about $3-4 per book. I think I'll muddle through my old faithful website.
The next books will be a lot easier to publish, now that I know what I'm doing. I might even let my kids design their own covers if they want. It'd save me a bunch of time! We'll see if we have time tomorrow. I want to get them ordered over the weekend so there's plenty of time for the books to arrive before the end of the school year.
No comments:
Post a Comment