Teaching From Home

I'm teaching from Fulda today, the rest of this week actually. That is one of the perks of virtual learning; you can do it from anywhere. I have everything I need tucked in a crate, plus I have two laptops set up for live class. It helps to have one that I'm teaching from and the other to watch the comments and see if any students have their hands raised. 

The day was pretty typical, though everyone was moving a little slow after a long weekend. The 5-6th graders learned about infectious diseases: yellow fever, chicken pox, measles, and scarlet fever. The 7-8th graders learned about how DNA works. 

It's the last day of NaNo and three students are still a ways off from winning... this is the most kids I've had waiting to the last minute to finish. I'm doing the same... I still have two thousand words to write before midnight tonight. Just a little ways to go!

Virtual Lab

It was a much better day of school today! 

I taught from home since I had packed up all my school books yesterday. One of the kids asked where I was because he didn't recognize my surroundings (I had blurred out the background but they could still tell I wasn't at school). Another girl was visiting her grandma, so her background was different too. Her little cousins came in to see what was going on from time to time. 

We just did religion, read aloud, and our science lab today. A nice, short day before break. We're at the part of Exodus where God gives Moses the 10 commandments and all the other instructions for things the Israelites have to do. We skimmed over most of it, but I showed them pictures of the replica tabernacle I visited a few years ago. 

The science lab was interesting. It was a titration of vinegar/cabbage juice to ammonia. I wasn't sure how it would go because some of the cabbage juice had been sitting out a long time, plus I couldn't control which measuring utensils my class used to put vinegar in the cabbage juice. I gave each of them a pipette to control how much ammonia they added to the solution, but some of them couldn't find the pipette in their packet, so they used a teaspoon instead. That actually worked better because it put more liquid in at a time. The pipettes hold 5ml, but you have to work really hard to get the 5ml in the pipette each time. It usually holds a smaller amount. 

Some of the kids got frustrated with how long it took to turn, so I let them switch to a teaspoon. I figured it's only 5-6th grade science; it won't skew the results that much. One boy accidentally dumped the cabbage juice in the ammonia instead of vinegar, so he had to do his experiment 'backwards' and get it to turn from green to red. I could tell he was frustrated, but at the end of the lab he said he still had fun. 

No class with the 7-8th graders today! We did double class yesterday so we wouldn't have to meet. 

The Christmas program planning meeting last night went well. We decided to pare down most of the program. We'll keep the bible school parts the same, the congregation will sing all the hymns, and school families can sign up to read the bible verses about Jesus's birth. They'll have to come to church to be videotaped and our AV coordinator will tape/put the videos together. So, more work upfront for Mrs. L and me, but overall less work for both of us. If not enough families sign up, the congregation will do responsive readings with the speaking parts. There are only 11 speaking parts, so there's a good chance we will only be missing a few parts. I'm not super optimistic about families signing up to do speaking parts, but I could be wrong! 

The other topic of discussion was how many services to have. One person thought we might need three services to space the people out. I don't think there's going to be nearly as many people, especially if school children don't need to be there. I think we could probably have one service and be fine. But we're going to start with two and see how much of a response there is. People have to sign up ahead of time to reserve a spot; up to 150 people can be at each service. There will be one the Sunday afternoon before Christmas and one Christmas Eve. If there are so many people signing up, we'll have a third one Wednesday night. The plan is to videotape one of the services and put it out for people to watch at home, which makes me even more sure we won't need a third service. 

Frustrating

Today was a frustrating day, all around. :/ 

A friend stayed over at my house last night, but accidentally locked her keys in her car and realized this at 6am. Thankfully that was soon enough to get a tow truck to come rescue her before she had to leave for work. 

During class, school's internet quit working for five minutes, so I was kicked off the Teams call with my class and had to wait around for it to turn back on. 

At school, I found out that two kids don't have their cabbage juice because their parents didn't pick it up at packet pick-up day yesterday. This is extra frustrating because they need it for a lab tomorrow and because yesterday I sent a text reminder to all the parents (with a picture) saying they needed to grab a bottle of purple cabbage juice along with their packet. Sigh. Thankfully, both families made arrangements to pick up the juice today, so we'll be all set for tomorrow. 

Class with the 7-8th graders was fine, but some of them had a hard time following along on the worksheet or their internet made the screen glitchy so they couldn't read it. After class, I emptied the folders with their homework in it. There are quite a few who didn't turn in spelling or other late work. One of the 6th graders didn't finish the back page of her lab, so I'll have to return that to her to fix. Grr... frustrating.

Full Day

Whew, today was a packed one. There's no school tomorrow, so today was our Friday. Kids said memory, did spelling tests, worked on their nanos... the usual. With Thanksgiving next week, I wanted to do extra planning this week to be prepared. We're having parent pickup days on Sundays, and since I'll be out of town, I needed to get my packets ready today. 

First, I had to plan my lessons, then figure out what I wanted to print and send home. The 7-8th graders were pretty easy, so I did them first. I couldn't remember which worksheets I'd already sent home, and none of the students responded to my messages about it, so I just printed and sent all of them. Hopefully there aren't doubles. I knew I should've written down which ones I sent. I did a better job keeping track this time. 

The 5-6th graders have another lab they need to do; this one involves red cabbage juice (actually a purple color). I made the juice yesterday. Today I bottled it up for each kid in a plastic water bottle. Some students don't have ammonia at home, so I had to bottle that up too. I used empty bottles from the recycling bin (I washed them first). Thankfully I had just enough! They're on a tray at the drop zone labeled with each student's name. I forgot to leave plastic bags down there in case parents need a way to carry all the stuff.

I had planned to go walking with Mrs. B, but my packet-making took too long. I did get most of my lessons planned and looked over up to the week after Thanksgiving. After that, I went over to church for bible study and helped Pastor get his chapel message video uploaded to YouTube. I'm not very familiar with making videos on YouTube, but I think we got it set up so he just has to click a few buttons to film next time. Hopefully that will make it easier to do!

Lab

 Oh man our read aloud book is putting my kids through the wringer! It’s all about yellow fever, so you know someone close to the main character is going to get sick. Well, today the mom got sick. She had so many close calls with death, my kids kept typing their dismay in the chat. Things like: Nooooooo! Crying sad faces, She can’t die! Wait, what?!?!, etc. 

Then, to top things off, the grandpa gets sick! And that happens while they’re trying to leave town. My kids wanted to keep reading because they had to find out if the grandpa makes it. So we read one more chapter and he lived through that one, so we stopped there. Little do they know, the main character is going to collapse from the fever in the next chapter. Good thing I didn’t read another chapter! 

The 5-6th graders did their first at home lab today. It was all about finding the pH of liquids, or if something is an acid or a base. The lab actually went really well. It took a while for everyone to get everything ready, but once we were ready, the lab went fast. We used vinegar as our control acid, and we used bleach for our control base. That was not a great idea; the bleach bleached the litmus paper and turned it white. So the one girl who used ammonia instead had better results. Our next lab involves ammonia again, so I might have to send that liquid home in the drop packets. I already have to send cabbage juice along (it’s an acid-base indicator). 

Fake Powerpoint

 Waaay fewer tech issues today, thankfully. It was a pretty typical virtual learning day. A bunch of my kids wanted to know if we're coming back to school in person; I still don't have an answer for them. The 5-6th graders learned about the civil war and towards the end we had a discussion about the confederate flag... that was interesting. I have students on completely opposite sides of the issue. Thankfully, we were able to keep it neutral and explain both sides' points of view kindly. 

Read aloud was extra fun today! (When is it not?) There are a bunch of unfamiliar objects mentioned in the story since it's historical fiction, so I just pick a student (or one volunteers) to search for pictures of the things mentioned. We learned that savory is a kind of herb. Hoe cakes are basically smallish pancakes or johnnycakes. There were banks back in 1793, but there was a run on the bank that year (maybe cause by the fever??? we're still debating that) and people didn't always trust them. Pepperpot is a kind of soup, hot corn is a dish of seasoned corn you can eat, and a mangle is a thing to wring water out of clothes. There were so many pictures in the chat, my students said it was just like doing a powerpoint! I love it.

Tech Troubles

 Boy, I needed a lot of patience today... Lots of tech issues. One family has struggled with super slow internet this week. Their videos have been grainy and the kids say the reverse is true too. The 7th grader said the top half of a slide will load (when I'm screen sharing), but the bottom half will be pixelated for about 30 seconds or so before loading clearly. No one else had those troubles. 

The 5-6th graders are prepping for a lab they can do at home. It involves dunking litmus paper in various liquids. We read over the lab today as a class so they know what to do when we try it on Wednesday. One girl couldn't find her lab. We were doing Lab 4; she could only find Lab 5. 

"I don't have it Miss H!"
"Well, that's very strange because I sent it home in the same packet as the other one."
"But it's not here! I looked everywhere!"
"Hmm, I'm not sure what to tell you."
"Maybe you could send me a digital version of the lab?"
"Sure. I'll do that after class."

After class, she messaged me, "I found it; it was in my hands the whole time." 🤦 At least she used a semicolon properly! (That was our English minilesson for the day).

This week is parent teacher conferences. We're doing them virtually this year, so I opened up my schedule all week. I had two tonight, one tomorrow, one Wednesday, and two parents that haven't signed up yet. Since their kids know how to use Teams, Mr. E and I are doing conferences through Teams. That worked really slick. The kids can help their parents get set up, I can message them when I'm ready, they can message back, we can video chat securely, no problems. Both of them tonight were super short, less than five minutes a piece. It was great.

In between video conferences, I had a Habitat meeting (also virtual). Last month, I was selected to receive a Habitat for Humanity House! Each month we have a meeting about home ownership and the hour we spend is credited to our 'sweat equity' on the house. There were a bunch of safety videos we had to watch in preparation for working on a dig site. I finished two of them and have four more to go. 

While watching the videos, I saw I had an email from Pastor/the worship planning committee about some of the songs in the Christmas program. I'm not sure if we can even do the Christmas program the way we have it planned if we switch to virtual learning after Thanksgiving break. Both Mankato and Nicollet are going virtual from November 30th through mid-January. There have been a lot of covid cases in our area (which seems to be true all over the place). New Ulm however, has made no announcement about shutting down. That makes it a harder decision for our school since we'll only have half busing if we keep going in person. I thought it was a done deal that we'd be going virtual after break, but apparently no official decision has been made. The New Ulm superintendent hasn't contacted Mr. E back to let him know their thoughts, which makes it harder for us to decide what to do. Sigh. What a mess.

And then, a parent texted me that her daughter's computer (a new laptop she just picked up from school tonight to replace one with a very badly cracked screen she'd previously been using) showed an error screen when turned on. 

Okay. Let's call the IT guys.
No answer.
Okay, let's text the IT guys and come up with a backup plan.
Ten minutes later...
Praise the Lord, he actually texted back! And better yet he got it working again! 

Hopefully that's all the tech troubles we'll have for a while...

Readers

 My kids... man, they are adorable. Yesterday they'd asked if we could read all morning. I said something moderately noncommittal, thinking to myself that we probably could. Today I just kept reading. We only had 60 pages of our book left when we started so I was pretty sure we could finish it without taking up the whole morning. 

One girl noticed what time it was and wrote in the chat, "um, when are we going to be done. It's past time." And another girl wrote back, "Shhh!!!" Then I told them we'd read for 10 more minutes and start our writing time at 10:00. Well, 10:00 arrived and we only had two chapters of our book left... Because I like to make them squirm, I dramatically paused and put the bookmark in the book. Then we made a deal that they would all write their NaNos over the weekend. Ha! Aren't I sneaky? ;)

As you might have guessed, they unanimously voted to finish the book. It was an extremely satisfying ending. Then they wanted to pick our next book to read. So we voted. They unanimously chose a historical fiction book. We had two to pick from and the one that won is Fever, 1793. They convinced me to read the first chapter to them. 

On Fridays we've been doing a 'random topic day' for science/social studies. Today we learned about the Black Plague again. They decided we should do yellow fever as our next topic because that's the focus of our next read aloud book (it takes place during a yellow fever outbreak in Philadelphia in 1793). Nice. It's all coming together!

Day 2 Virtual

 Another day much like yesterday. The 7-8th graders were a little more with it today. The 5-6th graders had a little more troubleshooting to work through. 

Two 5-6th graders are making a powerpoint together and couldn't figure out how to let the other person access/edit it. So we spent 20 minutes figuring out how to give him access. We did figure it out eventually! We would've gotten it sooner, but the internet was super laggy. 

My class and I like to blame it on the weather. It snowed most of the morning, about an inch or so, nothing major. Mr. E thought there maybe was an accident on Hwy 14 since there were so many cars on our road outside school. Sometimes, the police use our road as a detour when they don't want people driving on 14. 

NaNos are going all right. It's going to be a lot harder to keep my kids going on their stories. I'm slowly getting caught up... I'm about 4,500 behind, but I haven't written any words yet today. Since school gets out earlier when we learn remotely, I've had more time to write (and read too!). I wonder how many words I'll write tonight...

Going Slow

Our first day of virtual learning in the 2020-2021 school year went very well today. There weren't too many technical troubles and my kids showed up when I needed them too. I didn't have a ton of downtime in between classes. When I made my schedule, I built it so there are little bits here and there for kids to work on things (to make sure they actually work on their stuff) bookended by minilessons. That also gives me a chance to meet one on one with students if needed. That's what I did during those breaks today. 

The 5-6th graders and I are done with class at noon. They still have math with Mr. E at 12:30, but their school day ends at 1:30. I still have class with the 7-8th graders from 12:30-1:30, so pretty much everyone's school day ends at 1:30. Nice. Then, even if I have things to wrap up or get ready for the next day after school, I can still get my tasks accomplished and leave school at a decent time! It's great! 

Class with the 7-8th graders was a little slow going today. Some of them couldn't figure out how to raise their hands via Teams, then no one muted themselves and they talked over everyone else. I joined the call with two computers so I could share my screen and see them at the same time (that was a brilliant idea!), but when I muted everyone, it muted both my computers too. So it took me a while to figure out which computer I wanted to unmute/get to that button on the screen. Meanwhile, all of this is being recorded because one of the 7th graders wanted to be able to rewatch it just in case he missed filling something out on the worksheet. Sigh. 

There were quite a few times I wanted to pull my hair out trying to get all the 7-8th graders on the same page with the worksheet. We're doing Punnett Squares, which at first seems complicated. Each question had a bunch of steps that I wanted to be done in order so they would get used to doing it, so it was important that everyone follow along. Eventually everyone was where they needed to be and we made it through all but two of the problems. I assigned one as homework and we'll do the last one together in class Friday. Whew! 

Now I'm off to help Pastor figure out how to share his chapel video...

Pivot Day

 We're having a "Pivot Day" today, which is where students get the day off while teachers prep to switch from in person to virtual learning. Yep. Immanuel is going virtual for two weeks. Right now we're scheduled to come back the Monday before Thanksgiving, but that's subject to change. It seems a bit silly to have in person school for two days before having a bunch of days off school. There are a few parents who want us to go virtual from now until January since so many people will be seeing family over Thanksgiving/Christmas. Time will tell.

Now I'm wondering how we're going to accomplish the Christmas program... but that hurdle can wait. For now, my focus is on getting things ready for distance learning. Half of my kids picked up their crates yesterday. I put the other half down at the north end of the building where we do pick up/drop off of materials. I printed things we'll probably need in the next two weeks and either put them in crates or made packets. 

We were supposed to have a virtual guest speaker today and since I didn't want to postpone/reschedule it, I made my kiddos tune in. That made my day a little crazy since I had to make sure I was online at the right times, but I'm glad we did it. 11-11:30 for the 5-6th graders and 12:30-1:30 for the 7-8th graders.

It was so nice to be able to sleep in a little bit! Since I knew a storm was coming later today, I ran my errands before coming out to school so that as soon as I'm done here I can go home. I'm glad I did! The snow is starting to come down hard. I'll bring all my stuff home so if I want I can teach from my apartment tomorrow. But, I'll probably come in to school. Pastor asked Mr. E if I could help him get set up for confirmation class, so it would be good for me to be here at school if he has questions.

Lost has been found!

 I found my library card two minutes ago! It was in my purse, tucked in the back of my checkbook where I 'wouldn't lose it.' I had flipped through my checkbook when I searched my purse, except I hadn't looked in the back since I never put any cards there. Ha!

I didn't get caught up on my NaNo yesterday... I didn't even write 1,000 words. I tried writing before bed and I had written about 700 when my eyes got droopy. I think I fell asleep while typing! My story didn't make sense at all! 

I was at the part in my story where Kate (13 year old girl) is getting tools to help her in her new job from Millie, an old lady. Here's the last two paragraphs of my story:

Millie had lost interest in me and my cloak shennanigans and had resumed floundering around in the armoire. 

"Aha!" came the disembodied voice from the trunk. Her bottom half dangled out the opening of the wide trunk I'd brought with me. Mom had no use for it and she thought it would brighten the place up. I didn't care about furniture. They could have used the land for the 

Kate didn't bring a trunk with her. Millie should be digging around in the armoire. The mom knows nothing about this new job. I'm not sure why Kate doesn't care about furniture; that doesn't have anything to do with the story... And the half finished sentence about the land? I remember from my half-sleeping brain thinking to finish the sentence with something about giving it to the church so they could build another building on it. That's when I realized I was making no sense anymore and I shut my computer down and went to bed! Yikes!

Lost

 I lost my library card... I can't find it anywhere!!! I remember I had it last Thursday for Bookmobile and set it and the movie I'd checked out on the window ledge in the gym. I think I brought it back into the classroom and put it on my desk? What I did after that is a mystery. I dug through my whole purse and my entire snack drawer in my desk to see if it fell. Not there. Sigh. I'll keep looking. Maybe I set it somewhere when I got home and didn't put it back where it belongs.

Better news, NaNo is going great for my students this year! Our word goal is 46,268 (30,000 is mine) and some kids are already pretty close to their goal! Most said when they get closer they're going to bump their goals up. So far we've written about 8,000 words. I am about 2,500 behind, but I haven't written my words for today yet. There were two days I didn't write, otherwise I've written every day since! I was hoping to catch up today after school, except I forgot it's Thursday and I have spelling to correct...

Forts

 My classroom is being taken over by a large fort. One of the girls remembered to bring her building poles/balls to add to the set we already had. Her pieces were a different color, so it's easy to tell the two apart. The other girl forgot to bring her parts, but she's bringing them tomorrow and they're going to attempt a three story building. Right now it's two. Another kid brought more blankets from home to put over the top to make it more like a cave. It's big enough for two people to social distance inside. It sure takes up a lot of space though!

At first they had it shoved up against the closet.
"You don't need to get anything out of there, do you Miss H?"
Uhh, try again kiddos.
Then it was shoved too close to Joe's tank. 
I told them I needed a walkway all the way around the fort. I'm skinny but I'm not that skinny! 

They took off one block of their wall so the fort is a little smaller. It still looks pretty cool!

I Voted

I wore my "I Voted" sticker to school today. I voted absentee and was thrilled they included a sticker for me to wear on election day. 

My kids spent read aloud time building a fort out of poles and connector balls. They've explored them since last week, and almost every day the design changes. Two other students have similar poles/balls at home and are bringing them tomorrow so they can make a really big fort. They asked if they could take down the white folding table so there's more room to build. I have a few blankets in my room they've been draping over the top to make it more like a building. Now they want me to bring more blankets and pillows to make an even bigger fort. Eh, probably not. 

We had a staff meeting after school today... shortest one of the year! It was only about 45 minutes long. Yesterday Mrs. L and I met to go over the Christmas program and sort out parts, so we went over the basic plan at our meeting. Everyone seemed to think the plan sounds good. Now we just need to find someone to film it and link the videos together... 

My nano is going better than it was yesterday. I didn't write any more words yesterday, but this morning I wrote 300! Still lots more to go, but I should have more time after I get home tonight. My friend K and I are going out for supper. Every year in November the New Ulm legion gives teachers/school workers a free burger basket one Tuesday night. She works in the office at a school, so we both eat free! Woohoo!

NaNo

Yesterday was the first day of November and also the first day of NaNoWriMo... I didn't start mine yesterday. I was too busy! Only one of my students started his yesterday; he was the only one. And he only got 21 words, so we all have a long ways to go. A few of the 7-8th graders have a good start! My 5-6th graders spent a good chunk of the morning writing theirs. My plan is to catch up tonight... we'll see if that actually happens.

Our day flip-flopped a bit since we were doing a science lab. There isn't enough time in the afternoon during our normal science time to do a full lab, so the kids came up with a plan to get enough time; do Daily 5 rounds in the afternoon and science lab in the morning. We tried that today and it worked great! We cleaned up just in time for lunch! 

It was a fun lab... mixing liquids to see if there is a chemical reaction. At the end, they got to explore a bit and dump combinations of things together to see if that effected anything. They had a good time. :)