Beef Article Update

I'm not sure if I'm going to keep posting this summer. Normally I don't, but with the world in a strange place from COVID-19, perhaps I will post every once in a while. Once a week maybe?

This morning I got an email from a parent (don't worry, it's good this time). I had forwarded the anti-beef Jr. Scholastic article to her. This parent sent me the link of an article the popular beef blogger, Amanda Radke, had written in response to Jr. Scholastic. I had emailed Amanda to let her know about the article and she'd said she'd be writing a post about it. She even used some of my facts in her post! You can read Amanda's article here.

Grades are coming along. Still waiting on three kids to wrap up their work. I'm still missing a bunch of text books. It's a strange feeling to have all of these things to do to wrap up the year, but I have to wait on other people to do them...

0!

Today was a mix of productivity and nonproductiveness. My first morning of summer vacation started off well; I crossed a bunch of things off my to-do list right away. A parent had asked to drop assignments off at school at 10:30, which I agreed to, and she was in a talkative mood when she arrived at 10:45. She stayed until 12:45. The things we discussed were good though. That pretty much killed the day's productivity.

I ate lunch, sent messages to parents/students what late work I was missing from them. This weekend I had sorted through all the papers dropped off on Friday. I was pleasantly surprised at how few things I was missing. My 7-8th graders who were behind turned everything in! Only one student needs to drop things off and she's getting them to me tomorrow. My class was not as great... about half the students still need to hand things in. Three of them have a bunch (one kid told me he threw all his papers away because his dad said he didn't need them any more). Two only have one or two assignments to turn in. I'm hoping they'll get them to me tomorrow.

At 3pm we had our last staff meeting of the year. Mrs. L forgot and was in town getting groceries, so she sat in her car and we kept her on speaker phone for the meeting. It's kind of good that she did forget, because while Mr. E tried to get a hold of her, I read the agenda and realized it was my turn for devotions! Oops. Thankfully, I have a few devotions saved on my computer and I had just enough time to find one. Whew! That was close.

After our staff meeting, Mr. D had a question about spelling books and we talked for a while. By then it was 5:15. I wrapped up my day by cleaning out the last two student desks in my room. Their crates will go home Friday. At home, I went for a walk; the weather was perfect, just a little cool with a slight breeze and crisp air. After supper I started filling out report cards for the kids who've turned everything in. I still have a lot on my list, but things are starting to get crossed off!

1!

My kids said this one was too easy. Oh well, it's the last day. We finished Where the Red Fern Grows without going over time today. I just teared up a little; I didn't full out cry! Yesterday I went through two tissues during read aloud.

This morning got off on a bit of a rough start. I got to school five minutes before class was supposed to start (not great, but doable to start class on time). But as I unpacked my bag, I realized I forgot my school laptop at home. My desktop doesn't have a camera or mic, so I wouldn't be able to have class. I was about to message my students saying class would start late when I remembered the broken laptop someone returned to school a month ago. The screen is cracked and parts are dark, but it has a camera and mic! So I quick started it and logged on. But Microsoft Teams wasn't installed. Okay, just sign on via the website. That worked just fine for most of the morning.

Even though we're ending the year virtually, I tried to make it a little special by doing a class Kahoot for science. Everyone had joined in the game, so I went to share my screen and discovered that you can't screenshare while using Teams on their website (at least when your browser is Microsoft Edge, I think Chrome would allow it). So. What to do. Try to use my desktop to run Kahoot and make everyone re-join a new game? Quick download Teams on the laptop while they wait? I decided to download Teams while we did highs and lows. One kid had the great idea to do highs and lows of the year. A lot of them said Camp Omega as a high, virtual learning as a low. My high is that we read a lot of good books this year and my low is we couldn't do the musical.

The 7-8th graders convinced Mr. E to have 5-8th grade trivia. I make a class that had all 20 of them, plus Mr. E and me. Then while they did their last day of math, I speedily made a Kahoot. I was just going to do random trivia, but then I had the brainstorm to do trivia of our school. I took pictures of places around school, teacher desks, kids' cubby areas, etc. and asked which room/teacher they belong to. Other questions involved our school theme, mascot, name of Christmas program, field trips we did earlier in the year, how long teachers have been here. Since I put it together, Mr. E could play! He started off okay because he'd helped me come up with some of the questions. But he didn't do so hot on the 'guess this teacher's desk' questions.

My favorite quote of the day was for the question about Mrs. L's desk. Before I took the picture she made me wait while she cleared everything off so it looked neater. The first thing the 7-8th graders said when they saw the picture was, "oh, look, she must've cleaned it." 🤣

It was really fun and made our last day a little more festive. It was the bit of levity we all needed. My kids have been working really hard to get all their work done. Some have been slacking on their daily work and now they're facing the consequences. I've heard from a few parents that their kids are having meltdowns and panic attacks at home. Sigh. That's not what I want to have happen. We've extended deadlines for those kids to hopefully ease some of the stress. I will be really glad when this year gets officially wrapped up. We are having one more pick-up day next Friday for families to get their report cards and everything else that might have been left at school.

2!

So close! A lot of my students have told me they are almost done with their to-do lists! A few said memory work today and are officially finished with memory for the year. Others have done calls with me to go over questions about assignments or have requested copies of certain assignments they've misplaced. I hate reprinting things for them, so it's nice to be able to send it and make them worry about reprinting it.

Two kids still haven't sent me their bible verse word pictures for the nursing home card. I'm being buggy about it because I want to finish it! They keep telling me, "Oh yeah, today, when our dad comes home we'll do it."

A few students want me to keep/return their graded papers. The majority said, "Eh, toss them." I was hoping everyone would say toss them so I don't have to sort them again. Oh well. It shouldn't take too long.

It's really nice out! I think it's finally safe to take the plastic off my porch. This is the latest I've ever kept it on and the plastic is getting dingy and ripped in places. But I wanted to baby my plants a little, so it stayed on. My lilacs are blooming and they make my whole porch smell lovely.

3!

It was the last day of class with the 7-8th graders. We played a Kahoot review game as a class, which was fun. A bit anticlimactic. They thought so too. They asked if we could have another Kahoot game just for fun on Friday, and maybe the 5-6th graders should join in too. And Mr. E. So, they're going to bring it up with him in class tomorrow.

I actually only have live class for one hour tomorrow. The 5-6th graders and I wrapped up the Civil War today, so they get the day off tomorrow to catch up on late work. I stayed late at school last night putting together the list of what each person owes me. There were five no-name papers, so I posted a picture on Teams and asked kids to claim them. One boy who is worried about how much he has to finish still tried to claim other students' work. I know his handwriting better than that though. Plus he claimed papers that had already been claimed by others (or a paper he had already turned in). Hmm... nice try buddy.

4!

Well, this has been a busy day. Last night after bible study, I drafted/sent emails to all the US beef organizations I could find and I drafted my email to Junior Scholastic. I wanted to sleep on that one before sending to make sure my wording was just right. This morning I already had responses from a number of people I'd contacted. Many said they were going to take action or would forward my email to the people who could do something. After school today I contacted a few more beef people/organizations I found on Facebook (Peterson Farm Bros or Farmer Derek anyone?) and I sent my email to Scholastic (after editing it about fifty times). I hope they get a lot of feedback!

Before school, I sorted the papers from Friday's drop day. They're all in piles by assignment. Now I need to go through and check off who has turned their papers in. Then I'll send my students a list of what they're missing for the rest of the year. Whew!

5!

It took a while to collect all the papers parents dropped off last Friday. Part of it was because some kids don't separate their papers for Mr. E and me, so I have to dig through his bins to find all my papers. The other part was I got distracted talking with Mrs. E who had been working in her classroom. It was fun to catch up and see another person 'face to face' even though we were far apart.

My kids are excited this is the last week of school and also stressed that they only have five days to do their work. During morning devotions, they asked me to pray that they don't get to stressed and that they get everything done by Friday. Yes Lord! Please! Over half the class has been slacking on filling out their check-in forms. Four kids didn't fill out a single check-in all last week. Four more forgot to do Thursday and Friday's form. Only four of them have faithfully filled it out every day (three of them have done it on time).

I got really angry with Junior Scholastic today. Their May issue arrived and the cover story is as follows:

Never before have they published an article with such obvious bias and agenda-pushing. The article talks about how eating beef is bad for the environment and by going vegetarian or vegan you can help save the environment from greenhouse gas emissions. I am for sure writing a letter to them. 

They're only telling one side of the story. The beef industry (especially in the US) is a very small part of greenhouse gas emissions (most studies say it's 9% of the US's emissions, worldwide agriculture averages 26%). Also, that 9% includes transportation/industry costs for the animal's entire life from birth to the customer's plate. 

If you are concerned about your impact on the environment, cutting down on personal driving would be a much better way to reduce your impact than leaving beef out of your diet. Another option is to buy local where your food hasn't had to travel large distances to get to you. Or cut processed food from your diet; that industry also uses fossil fuels to produce those products and processed food doesn't help the environment like cattle do. 

Farmers want to take care of the environment and help their animals be as productive as possible. Cattle benefit the environment they are in by helping fertilize the ground, "control invasive plant species, restore habitat for threatened and endangered species, control soil erosion from water runoff, reduce wildfire threats, and increase biodiversity." Don't forget, May is beef month. Let's celebrate what farmers are doing to help the environment instead of labeling the entire industry as irresponsible.

6!

I had class in Fulda on Friday. It was a change in routine, which made me forget to post my blog for the day. Better late than never! The Farm Field Trip video went well. Dad didn't have too much to add to my commentary, but I was glad he was there just in case. Most of the boys are John Deere lovers and didn't ask any questions about the Case machinery. One boy started to ask why there weren't any green machines, but his mom was also watching and she shushed him and said, "Be nice!"

Right now the videos don't have any commentary because I narrated live on my class's video chat, but one of my teacher cousins wants to show it to her class so I'm going to see about adding words to the video. If it works, I'll post a link!

Friday night we had round two of Family Trivia. Even more people showed up (my mom participated!) and we had a good time. People didn't have trouble logging in, so we were able to start right away. It lasted a half an hour, which was just the right amount of time.

7!

I did a bunch of tidying today in between/after classes. I scooped up everything in the coatroom that doesn't belong to school and put it in a tray to show to parents. "Is this your kid's stuff?" Then I took my entryway decorations down and put them in the "desert biome" theme box for future years. I'm going to take a few decorations down at a time so my room doesn't look so barren right away. I cleaned out three more kids' desks today and put their crates down at the end of the hallway to be picked up on Friday. And! I finally opened up my Thrivent Action Team box from back in March when my class was going to do our Lenten supper fundraiser. I put a shirt in each student's crate. The seed money is getting repurposed for summer learning fun kits to pass out to school/community families. I also cleaned off the white table (where I had previously been setting everything I didn't want to mess with). All the papers have been handed back too.

Now, it's on to Fulda tonight so I can host our virtual farm field trip tomorrow morning.

8!

My to-do list has exploded... We had a virtual PTL meeting tonight and this afternoon I had a virtual library summer reading program planning meeting. Both are meetings that generate a lot of tasks! But, I feel good about all that we accomplished.

A bunch of kids said memory work today. It was a pleasant surprise because they normally wait until Friday. Another bunch said they are working ahead on handwriting and spelling so they can be done for the year. I'm happy about that because I'll get their papers sooner (we have a drop day this Friday) and can correct them without such a time crunch.

My classroom is getting a bit messy. With no kids to clean up for, I find myself leaving things on tables to put away later. The piles are stacking up! Maybe tomorrow I will spend time putting things away. I also need to clean out each of their desks and sort out what things belong to them vs. the school (and collect all the flotsam in the coatroom for parents to sort through). I'll need to take down all the decorations too. Normally my kids help with all that stuff. It's going to be a lonely job when I get around to it.

9!

A few of the 5th graders took a while to find this one. One of the 7th graders thought it was 15. Nope! I think I confused them because I posted yesterday's picture really late, so the 7-8th graders saw it this morning and thought today was day 10. We got it sorted though.

Pretty typical day of school. We've made good progress with our read aloud book... pg110! We need to read about 18 pages a day to stay on track. Whew, that's tough to do some days when they are in a storytelling frame of mind.

I had trouble with kids leaving their computers during class today. They don't have their cameras on most of class, but I can only see four at a time and sometimes it streams better when the camera isn't going, so I don't fret about that. Except today, I tried taking church attendance and a bunch of kids wouldn't answer me for the longest time! Then at the end of our class, we did highs and lows and again, a bunch wouldn't talk! Grr... But, it's their education they're missing out on. All I can do is provide the learning possibilities. It's like that old saying, "You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink." True of learning as well.

5-6 social studies was all about the Oregon Trail. Tomorrow we're doing the gold rush. I found a cool game from the National Museum Australia (very easy to play) that lets you try your luck at striking rich in the gold fields. Try it out here! It's like a mini Oregon Trail game.

10!

You maybe noticed there was a big jump from Friday's countdown to today's number... Yep, I miscounted how many days we have left. Oops. So. Here are the countdown days in between.

#10

#11

#12

#13

#14

#15

16!

Boy this morning's class was a little different than usual... Yesterday afternoon, one of the 6th graders sent our class a message saying their family barn was burning down. He posted a video of the barn burning, but most of us didn't get the details until this morning.

Sparks from a bonfire (I think it was mostly put out...) blew into the barn and started burning some of the old hay. It was used for machinery, so no animals were kept in it, but a lot of tools and tractors were in it. He and his brother (both in my class) said they watched their dad go in the barn to rescue their dog. Then, before they knew if he was out or not, the oil barrels inside it blew up and blew a big hole in the roof. Both their dad and their dog are completely fine. They had four fire stations show up to battle the blaze. Only two of the firefighters were injured from oil splashing on them.

I think the boys were in shock. One kept saying all his childhood memories were gone. He's the kind of person who keeps things tucked inside and doesn't let them out. His brother likes to talk through things, so he and I talked for a while after he said his memory work. If you could keep their family in your prayers, that would be great. They said they lost three tractors in the fire, their air compressor, and a ton of tools. There was insurance on the barn, which will help, and their dad had a list of all the tools that were stored in it.

So, that was the start of our Morning Meeting. I figured it would help them to talk through what happened (plus their classmates were interested). It was hard to make the jump back to religion. We did a short religion lesson and then did read-aloud. No Friday Field Trip today. I'm headed to Fulda this weekend so I can practice for my Friday Field Trip next week. I'm going to see if it will work to do it live or if I'll need to record videos to share. Tonight I'm hosting a virtual family trivia night on Zoom. We're going to play a Kahoot of Bible Trivia. Should be interesting!