Party

Hooray! It's Christmas break! Although, technically I'm not off duty for another three days since we have one more Christmas program. Practice went well; we worked out a few kinks. Presents went well; my kids seemed to like their word clouds. 

I got some cool stuff too: a blanket with an outline of a stack of books/tea/plants/Miss H made by a student and her mom, some treats, a giftcard to Applebees (my kids told me I should go there on a date night and sing the Applebee's Date Night song while I'm on my date... The song is called "Fancy Like" and it was all the rage a few months ago), a tea travel mug perfect for loose leaf tea, tea, and a hot cocoa bomb. Some kids said they forgot their presents and they'll give them to me next year, haha. 

We watched Monsters Inc as our all school movie in the afternoon. Such a good movie. One of my favorites. I got almost all my papers corrected during it! 

After school we had our staff present exchange. My initials were LB for lunch box, and I got 'luxurious booties' aka fuzzy slippers, lemon bar mix, little baby ornament (Jesus in the manger), and a Love Bug toy car. Cute! I had Mrs. E who's initials were SC, and I gave her scarlet cord (red yarn), two santa claus ornaments, and a scented candle. 

Questions and Comments

Only two days of school this week, and the kids are definitely excited. So many jittery bodies and mouths! 

My class had a normal day for once. Well, they presented their planet powerpoints to the 1-4th graders, so that was abnormal. Some groups made worksheets for the kids to follow along. They were surprised how much the audience struggled to keep up. Great teachable moment! Two kids present tomorrow, and since we talked about what went well and what didn't, those kids are going to tweak their presentations to make it go even better! Overall, the lower grades had a good time learning about the planets. 

My kids really tested me in religion today. They had super thought-provoking questions, so I asked if they wanted me to email Issues Etc. to see what their answer was. They said YES! (Earlier this year we submitted a question about angels which they answered on air, so my class is hoping for another on air 'appearance'). The question was, "We know God talks to us through the bible, but why doesn't God talk to us the way he talked to people in the Old Testament? When and why did he stop?" Before the end of the day, I had an email saying they might answer that question in today's comment line!

Before the end of religion, they came up with another stumper (except now that school is over I think I came up with an answer). This time, we called and left a message. Maybe they'll play the clip on the comment line. This question was, "Jesus tells the thief on the cross 'today you'll be with me in paradise,' except he goes to hell for three days, so did the thief go to hell with him too? Or how does that work?" We'll see if they play that one too! 

My answer, now that I've thought about it more is: God and the Holy Spirit were/are in heaven, so while Jesus was in hell, the other parts of the Trinity were in heaven so the thief could be with them right away. I'm curious if they'll answer both! Stay tuned!

Last Practice

Well, our last program practice went super! The bell songs weren't too fast, the singing songs sounded pretty, and the kids either remembered when to go or they were watching me for their cues. There's one song Mrs. L forgets where to come in, but she's going to count measures and make a note when she gets home.

My kids watched The Nativity Story all morning today. If you haven't seen it, you need to. It's the one thing that puts me in the Christmas spirit when I'm stressed with all the program prep. Since it has so much historical detail, we ended up pausing it a bunch so I could explain what was happening and why. My kids were really into it and asked if we could watch it again next year. Probably! 

This afternoon the kindergarteners invited my class to make gingerbread houses with them. Then we did a bit of bell practice at church, followed by our regular 1pm program practice. And that was the day. 

Only two days of school next week before Christmas break!

Extra

Practice went well today. It seemed like we didn't do too much else at school, but really we had a typical morning. After lunch, Mr. E asked if I'd run an errand in Mankato quick while he took the 5-8th graders for PE. He found a new mic stand that's easier to adjust (not so loud). So I popped over and was in and out of the store in 30 seconds. They had it waiting and will bill school, so that sped things up. 

After school, I got a call from the bible school teacher asking if I could come to their rescheduled practice tonight. So I stayed at school until 6, then ran through the program with them, and did all my errands afterwards and prepped for this weekend. Man, I am ready for a break. This week has been non stop! 

Slow Going

Wow, my brain is ready for a rest. It's been racing all day figuring out our regular day schedule to make room for Christmas program practice. The schedule got messed up more than usual because both bells and piano had to have practice over at church... right during math time. 

So... we had the 5th graders take math in the morning while I had study hall with the 7-8th graders. Then after lunch, we did 6th grade math and science with the 7-8th graders. It worked okay, but boy, my brain had to work hard to figure out all those moving parts. 

Practice today went all right. Even though we had a full hour, we still didn't make it all the way through the program. So tomorrow we're starting at 1pm. Wow. We've never had to start that early. I blame our snow day. And the new sound system. 

On the plus side, the stable is set up, the risers got moved, and we have just enough room for a little acting. The costume people now know their marks. Tomorrow is going to be the true test if everyone remembers their cues. Me too! 

Since we're starting so early, Mr. E and I are skipping each other's classes. The kids will be happy there's no math! I will probably do social studies in the 'spare' time since we've missed class because of practice. We've been doing parent art projects in the morning, so our reading/English time has been cut short this week too. Tis the season!

With the stress of planning the Christmas program, getting my students ready, prepping presents/cards for them to make for their parents, it's often hard to find joy in the Christmas season. Thankfully, there are Advent services. For once, I don't have to plan! I can just show up and rejoice in my Savior. Praise the Lord!

Good News and Bad News

Friday was a snow day! Good news at first, but the bad news is, it cut out one day of Christmas program practice and now we're really feeling crunched. We went over to church earlier than planned, but we still didn't make it through the program. Part of the problem was the IT guys installed a new sound system at church, but didn't teach anyone at school how to use it. Thankfully, they answered Mr. E's call and walked Mr. D through the basics. 

While they did that, I organized the kids in their spots and had them figure out which mic to use. We only made it halfway through the program doing that. Only four more practices. Yikes! I sure hope it all comes together. 

Unfortunately, the crabby-s are creeping up on me... My patience is very thin these days. 

I had to make a new cd for the program and iTunes wasn't working. Thankfully I figured out what I was doing wrong. Props have been found for the few speakers who need them. Costumes were tried on today for the nativity students. After school my basketball kids set up bells at church. We still don't have the bulletins to color. I should probably look into that. Maybe we can get them tomorrow.

Another sad thing today: I thought my class was getting along great, but one of the boys left his computer open with Teams up, and I noticed some not nice words in a chat between him and his classmate. Ugh. It started because they were talking about crushes and denying things, calling each other liars, etc. Sigh. So disheartening. Now I need to have some private conversations with them both. 

And the one 8th grade girl keeps using inappropriate language for school, I always hear her and call her out on it. She complains that the boys do it all the time and they never get in trouble. Not true. If I hear them, I get on their case. But the trouble is, I don't always hear it. Ugh. Is it Christmas break yet?

To end with good news, a grandma taught my class how to make gigantic snowflakes today. It was great. The kids had a good time problem solving how to build it, I had a little time to finish midterm grades, Grandma had a good time teaching the kids. A win all around.

Present

One of the 8th graders gave me something this morning. It was a printout of this:

On a different note, the snow is pretty much melted (only to have more coming tomorrow...possibly a foot). It's in the 40s today though. My kids wanted outside recess today, but surprisingly, almost all of them forgot snow gear. They were still able to have a good time. Most swung on the swings. Two girls and I squished a snow pattern monster with our boots. 

They all brought their laptops home tonight so they could have a lunch chat if school is cancelled. The snow day predictor says there's an 87% chance tomorrow. Who knows! I am kind of hoping for one... Better make sure I'm stocked up on library books then!

IT updates

Can you believe it, I actually got ahold of the IT guys today? I called to ask when the new sound system is going in at church (this week, perhaps tomorrow) so we could be ready for setting the sound for our Christmas program. While I had him on the line, I asked about a broken audio cord in the gym (would make practice so much easier) and downloading iTunes on my computer finally. And he did it! He installed iTunes right away and made a note to check out the aux cord when he comes to church this week. Wow, I feel accomplished.

I also got the Christmas bulletin approved and sent to our church secretary and projector designer, plus recorded next week's memory work hymns with Mrs. L. Oh, and recorded a stack of new books for the class library and made a study Kahoot for the 7-8th graders tomorrow. Whew!

Now it's off for a quick walk, then Advent services with my sister.

Spending Money

A generous donor pledged $15,000 to our school before the end of the year. Mr. E asked us teachers to give him ideas. Mine were for an outdoor learning space and hooks to hang the folding chairs in the shed. Another teacher thought of the Ecology Bus doing an assembly for us. Someone else thought of a fort building area on the playground. So after our meeting while I waited for bible study, I did research on all of the above. 

I found some giant lego blocks that would be perfect for fort building, along with some other outside compatible building things. The outdoor learning space I liked the best is out of the UK, but we could probably replicate it with an awning, wood benches, and a fence. We'll see what happens with our ideas! Mr. E had some ideas of his own... replacing the hallway floor, getting a new janitor's closet sink, adding a bathroom to the preschool room. 

I thought about going home after our staff meeting, but it snowed today, and I don't want to drive on the roads more than I have to. The snow was a surprise. When I woke up, I immediately thought, "Maybe we'll have a snow day!" Ha! Not a chance. Nothing on the school closings page. Still, we got more than they said we would. The forecast said a light dusting, but we got at least two inches. There's more to come this Friday... 

Found!

I searched for my lens for over a half an hour on Saturday. Cobwebs coated my hat from brushing against the underside of the bleachers while I poked around with a flashlight. I found $0.51, a new hair ponytail holder, two lego guys, a chip bag clip, a cuff earring and chain, a few pencils, and lots of trash. No lens. I swept the gym... nothing. I used a flashlight and pencil to get in all the cracks on the topside of the bleachers. Nothing. I gave up in disgust. I had to be under there somewhere!!!

My kids did a quick search this morning. Nothing. I asked the kids at program practice to check by their feet. Nothing. 

Later in the morning, a 3rd grader knocked on my door. "I found your lens Miss H!" He and his friend held flashlights; they spent their recess time looking under the bleachers (not too much of a hardship... they love any excuse to go under the bleachers). Hooray! I feel like the woman in the parable of the lost coin. Having complete glasses again is definitely my high for today. 

More basketball games after school. Half my class stayed, so I put them to work. We put the legos into bins and moved all the STEM stuff to the games bookshelf. They'll be much more accessible now. But where to put all the games that had been in that spot... The games we never play moved to the office and I put a few in our classroom closet. We use the STEM stuff more than we do the games.

In the midst of that, the kids made a 'pizza' to deliver to Mr. D, who called to ask me a few questions. (They now answer the phone, "Hello, Papa Murphy's!" so Mr. D took advantage and ordered some breadsticks and a pepperoni pizza.)

Our basketball numbers are quite small, so a few kids from the public school come play on our team. One is a 5th grade girl, and since she knows the girls in my class, she hung out in my room before the game. My girls gave her a tour of the room... "Books are like family in here," one girl said. Aww. 😊 The girl was impressed with our library, the couch, our class garden, and the flexible seating (the ball chairs especially). "It's so cozy in here!" she said.

Lost

One of the lenses in my blue light blocking glasses is lost in the bleachers. I forgot they were on my head when we went to recess, then I took them off and set them down when I taught my kids how to play Lightning and Snake. That game was a blast; it was super fun playing with them. 

But right at the end of recess, someone put a ball away by tossing it and it popped both lenses out. We found one lens, but the other is nowhere to be found. Sigh. I miss them already. I might even buy another pair, just to have them. You might think they don't make much of a difference, but when I use them I've had way fewer headaches and backaches from the computer.

Gender Reveal

A conversation overheard before school as two 7-8th grade boys studied their morning memory work:

"Matthew 1:21... the first gender reveal!"

"...but wasn't Jesus mentioned in the bible before Matthew?"

"No, no, they just said a savior would be born. Not that he'd be a boy."

At afternoon recess, my kids played with bubbles. It was cold enough that the bubbles didn't pop right away, so the bubbles floated all over the kickball field and they chased after them, running and jumping to pop them. It was so fun to watch them play. 

Science with the 5-6th graders was epic. Today's topic was an intro to the planets. We watched a video that compares Earth to the universe. Their minds were blown. We watched the video twice and they would've watched it a third time, just to get everything to sink in. Of course they had a million questions (seriously, it was a lot), and the questions are all things we're going to learn very soon, but not today. I tried to give them quick, short answers, but their thirst for immediate knowledge is insatiable. Whew! They probably won't be happy when I tell them we're doing history tomorrow instead of science...

PS- we did finish our read aloud book today. We voted on the next one to start tomorrow, Notorious by Gordon Korman.

Earthquakes

The 7-8th graders learned about earthquakes today. They were super into it; it was great. A lot of them asked questions about things we were going to learn, like, five minutes from now. It happened at least three times during our half an hour class. During study hall, we read more of our read-aloud book. It took a while to get into it since it's been so long since we've read. The story is right at the climax, but things are happening slowly. They like it, but they're not riveted.

The 5-6th graders, on the other hand, are on the edge of their seats with our latest book! Me too, since I haven't read it before. Gah, I want to read ahead so bad! My eyes keep flicking to the next page, or I read things I shouldn't when I'm checking where the chapter ends. It's funny because if I pause too long, my kids are like, "Miss H... are you reading ahead? Stop right now!" 

The good news is, we might finish the book tomorrow. Only 40 pages left! It's been a quick read so far, so 40 pages is probably doable. And if not, they're willing to barter rounds away for more read-aloud. And since I'm sucked in, I go along with it, the stinkers. This is the only book I've ever been tempted to read ahead on (that I've read aloud without having read before). In case you're wondering, the book is Running Out of Time by Margaret Peterson Haddix.

Sticky Candles

Holy cow, I just looked in the mirror and my hair is sticking up all over the place in my clipped up bun! Normally, eh, such is life, but tonight is the first home basketball game. Oh well. There are worse things to be known for besides crazy hair. 

My hand are sticky too, and so is the lab table. We made candles this afternoon. It was a bit impromptu... I got out the Christmas decorations this morning and saw the leftover wax from the Christmas program candles, plus some other candles I'm tired of storing. It was going to be just a Miss H project, but then I found the Christmas crayon molds and a few other small candles and thought, oh why not make it into an art/present project?

So the wax melted all day. I have a portable burner and a coffee can I've used in the past to melt wax. There's a heating plate that worked to melt the smaller candles down. Once they were all liquid, I added the lighter colored wax to the main coffee can. After math, we skipped history and did art/stem with wax for the rest of the day (minus 15 minutes for recess at the way end).

They actually did pretty good with minimal drips. The lab table still has a bunch of spots that need scraping. And the burner is wax spotted now too. A student volunteered to scrape them off tomorrow morning. They had a great time making colored layers in their containers with other melted candles , scraping crayons in their molds to make it even more colorful. 

I still can't smell much; everything is faint. So it was kind of a bad time to be working with lots of scents. I couldn't tell if it smelled good or not! My kids assured me, yes, the candles mixed together smell good. Now every time I walk in my room I catch a whiff of... something fragrant. 

Things are moving along with the Christmas program too! Mrs. L and I made the seating chart and I typed up the bulletin outline and thank you list. Lots of moving parts to pulling off a Christmas program!

Bubbles

Spelling with the 7th and 8th graders today was something else. The orange group met with me first where it was discovered that one of the boys has been adding speech bubbles to the characters in the book. Things like, "my clothes are weird and I don't know why," or "get ready to write your words five times, cuz this is a hard week." 

"It's nothing bad Miss H; just a little something to make spelling more fun for years to come." How can you argue with that? I had trouble keeping a straight face. Then I told him he could keep doing it if he finds a way to incorporate a spelling word into the quote. That took the wind out of his sails a bit, but I have every confidence he'll bounce back. 

We did a high/low from all of Thanksgiving break first thing in the morning... the better to curb my 5-6th graders' sharing during the day. Mine were: high- walking around the lights at Bentleyville in Duluth (free popcorn and marshmallows for roasting over a bonfire!) and low- not getting to see my family. None of them said anything about it until the end of the day when it was my turn for highs/lows again. 

A sixth grader asked, "Miss H, if you didn't get to see your family over Thanksgiving, who did you go to Duluth with?"

Cue the blushing. "My boyfriend and his family." 

One girl said, "I knew it! We pick up my friend sometimes and she said she's seen you walking around town holding hands with a boy!" Another girl said, "My mom knew about it a long time ago, and I found out too. I just kept it a secret." A few of them had more questions, but I moved us along to the last highs/lows person and we prayed and went home. Whew! End of story. For now... I'm sure it will come up when I least expect it...

Christmas Practice

Bell practice again today. The songs are still rough, but my kiddos are improving quickly. Again, having songs they like makes all the difference. Christmas program practice went well this afternoon too. The songs are peppy and catchy. It took us a while to get started since the gym's sound cord is broken and the cd player takes a bit to get set up. Still, we made it all the way through the program, minus one song we didn't have time for. 

The other big news of the day was written in a donut box in the office.
Outside: Take one! 
Inside: Mrs. L can't be the only one around here with a belly! 

The secret is finally out! She's having a baby due in May! Her class figured it out today as well. She gives them a class prize when they earn enough letters to fill in the blanks. This time the blanks said, "baby due in May". The 5th graders go down there for bells, and there were enough letters up that they could try to guess. They figured it out but were sworn to secrecy. They couldn't even tell the 5th graders. And Mrs. L wouldn't confirm that they figured out the prize. But they did! 

One of them cornered me at recess today to double check that they were right. I wouldn't give them an answer. "But you're smiling Miss H, so that must mean I'm right." For the record, I was not smiling any more than I normally would when they ask me a question! It was a fun day of surprising people. Mrs. L told me one of her kids spread the news to two third graders who didn't believe her. One actually fact checked and asked her. When she said yes, he tore off after his classmate yelling, "It was actually true! She is! She is!" 

And so we end this short week before Thanksgiving. I'm headed up to Duluth for the break. There will be lots of food and games and family time, and I'm looking forward to it, but it's a little bittersweet that I'm missing my own family's celebration. Such is life! My goal is to get my teacher stuff finished before I leave, that way I don't have to work on it when I'm gone. I'll still have my NaNo to write, but it'd be much nicer to have the teaching stuff out of the way. Maybe I'll have time to read a book! I'm bringing some along, just in case... 😉

Two Days

Everyone in my class was antsy today. Only two days of school this week! We're going to pack a lot of learning into our little time though; it'll help the time go faster. 

Today's schedule was all messed around. We were supposed to have program practice at 2pm, but that cut PE down to 15min, so Mr. E wanted to skip. I tried to come up with ways to make it longer, but then we realized his class didn't have their placemats decorated for the nursing home, and they're due tomorrow. So when would he do that? Answer: the Christmas program is going to be short, so we can probably run through it all in one day. We skipped practice today. Now I really hope we will read it all in one sitting! We have a half an hour. It's quite short, especially without the bells and congregation hymns, so we should be able to make it. 

After school, I asked a 5th grader to be Mary for one service. The 3-4th graders do costume parts, but Mary will only be at one service, hence the understudy. There is just one girl in 3-4th, and there are a ton of 1-2nd grade girls, but those first and second girls are very terratorial, and it's going to bad drama if one of them gets picked over the others. When I asked my student, she said yes right away, I was surprised. A sixth grader lingered nearby, and she volunteered right away too. That is, until she realized her brother was playing Joseph! My 5th grader will do it though. 

In other news, our tricky bell song is much improved after another day of practice! They like the song (Patapan), so they're willing to put in the work. It's fun to direct when they have that attitude. More bell practice tomorrow!

Parent Teacher Conferences

Well, the week is over and I am between parents right now. Only five more left before I'm off to Iowa! 

As productive as yesterday was, today was not. I had a bunch of things I was hoping to do during the school day, and none of them were accomplished. Oh well. Things got done after school and my stuff is packed up so after my last conference I can grab my stuff and dash out the door. 

In prep for conferences, I had kids tidy the coat room. Pumpkins from the book reports lingered, and one rotted on someone's sweatshirt (the other ones were fine still). It left guts and mold on the shirt. Disgusting. After dumping off most of the junk, I set it outside since some stuff was stuck on it. Both mom and daughter said to just toss it. 

After school I tidied our plants to make our classroom more presentable. We've been having a fly problem. It's the potato plant; the person who's growing it overwaters it and it rotted and it's growing fruit flies (same person as the pumpkin sweatshirt). I stuck it outside to see if the cold will kill the flies and not the potato. I'm a bit skeptical, but we'll give it a shot. Maybe it will dry out.

Crossing Off My List

Man today has been productive! Christmas program folders were made, then made a second time because I miscounted and was short 10. That actually turned out okay though because I forgot the 1-2nd grade folders were going to have coloring pages in the back. So, my kids passed folders out to all the other classrooms. 

We made our Operation Christmas Child boxes in our classroom, including the girl who's learning from home all week. I angled the laptop camera so she could see the options on the table and packed the box at her direction. 

All my kids handed in their spelling on time before lunch without me asking them to. We almost finished our read aloud book (10 pages!). The 7-8th graders preeetttty much all handed their spelling in on time. I talked to a parent at lunch about bumping up her conference time tomorrow so I can leave for Iowa a little sooner. She was good with that, so I bought myself fifteen minutes of time!

While my kids were at PE, I finished copying the stuff for round two of folders, then made videos of the Christmas program songs to put in a youtube playlist for classrooms to use to practice. And then I uploaded them to youtube! Wow! I thought that would take me forever but it wasn't too bad. 

After school I finished the playlist, passed it out to the people who needed it, finished up the Christmas folders, collected all my papers to correct, worked on lessons for next week, responded to lots of texts and emails. Whew! It's great to have a day of school where I feel so accomplished, haha.

Good Hearing

My kiddos' 3-4th grade teacher is hard of hearing. They're not used to having a teacher who hears their muttered and whispered comments. We started science class by watching a video. We were going to work on a worksheet after the video, so I passed one to a 5th grader on the end of her pod then went to shut off the lights before passing the rest out. The girl next in line to get a worksheet whispered to her friend, "How come you got one and I didn't?" 

I whispered back, "Because you're getting one after I shut the lights off." And by that time I had shut off the lights and handed her a paper. She startled and said, "Wow, you could hear me? Your hearing is really good!" 

We had a great science class today. It was our second day learning about space and they had a ton of questions. Our main topic/tangent was on the seasons and how the amount of daylight fluctuates according to times of the year. We looked up sunrise and sunset times and recorded how many hours of sun there are on the first day of spring, summer, fall, and winter. They were shocked at the difference! For those curious, in 2021 Spring- 12h13min, Summer- 15h34min, Fall- 12h12m, Winter- 8h54m.

I always forget how much they learn about space in my class. Right now they don't know about galaxies, that the sun is a star, how big the universe really is (does anyone comprehend that besides God?). Their questions remind me of past students who literally "can't even" because their minds are blown by the vast space of space! I can't wait. 😄

House Color

I went with red siding and black shingles (and white trim and hopefully a blue door). My top two colors were navy or dark red. After polling my class and some coworkers, the scale was on the blue side. 7-8th graders were pretty unanimous for blue, the 5-6th graders were mostly red. But there was no dark blue option and I liked the red, so that made it easy! My next task is to decide on flooring. Do I want plain floors or carpeting? Then I can decide on the trim inside the house. Stained? Painted? What kind of cupboards? 

School was good. Pretty typical day. Nearly everyone was back from being gone last week. It was nice to see other people in the halls! 

Friday

A bit snowy and blowy this morning, but by lunchtime it was all melted. Still blustery out now. Another quiet day at school without too many bodies in the building. Monday should be back in full force though.

I had virtual class with the 7-8th graders while my kids did a few Daily 5 rounds. It worked super well. My kids were quiet and mostly focused... although I know they were eavesdropping, so maybe they weren't as focused as I thought. 

The 7-8th graders picked Christmas program parts and then we did a little bit of science. We started a new unit today about the layers of the earth. They will do a project where they make a 3D model of the earth, so I introduced that today. They wanted partners, but the trouble is there are some unpopular kids that no one wants to partner with. So how do you split up the class? We spent waaaay too long talking about how to match people up. I might just tell them they have to do it individually. I said I'd sleep on it over the weekend. We'll see if Mr. E has an opinion. 

Back

Our classroom plants were happy to see us. A few of my kiddos garden sections were getting a little crispy with the long break between waterings. Other sections (typically overwatered) were happy for a break and actually took off! A student has been growing an avocado and it grew five inches over the weekend!

My class was glad to be back in person. We're one of three classes in the building; the others are quarantining until Monday. Mr. E's class is virtual, so we didn't have math today. I used the extra time to do both science and social studies. Plus the 1-2nd graders and my class recorded our songs for Sunday. We're not going to sing/ring in person, but we can have a video of them singing. It actually sounded pretty good. No bell video though. I'll film them playing when they're all back in person learning. 

Health-wise, I'm doing pretty good. I got a little tired from talking so much in the morning, but after read-aloud I had some breaks where the kids did more talking or I could rest at my computer for a bit. So I made it through the day. I've been breathing fine, but I can tell there's still some junk in my chest. Good thing tomorrow is Friday. My plan for today is to wrap up things at school, run a few errands, then hunker down at home with a mug of tea and an early bedtime!

Pickle Party

Our latest read-aloud book mentioned the word "kosher" (there are some Jewish culture references in the book), so I explained what the word meant. Of course my kiddos immediately thought of pickles, and since it was snack time, a bunch of them got out their jars of pickles and had them for snack. That sounded tasty to me too, so I got my pickles out! All in all, about 50% of our class had pickles today. A good number of them also had warm beverages of a sort, probably hot chocolate. 

The 7-8th graders had another study kahoot today. We finished early, so they asked for a tour of my apartment. One asked to see all my plants. I happily acquiesced. Another kid wanted to see my TV. Nothing spectacular there. They thought my place looked very nice. And clean. 

They're having virtual class tomorrow too. Mr. E is waiting for covid test results. He has had a stuffy nose, but otherwise is feeling fine. Another teacher tested positive, and there have been a few students out with covid too, so he's operating under the 'better safe than sorry' mindset. We cancelled Family Write Night (supposed to be Thursday) and are doing our singing/ringing Sunday via recorded video. That is, if we have enough kids at school to tape it. It sounds like only the 1-2nd and preschoolers will be at school tomorrow. 

I'm not sure what we'll do about bells. As of right now, we'll be back Thursday. But two families are keeping their kids home all week because they don't want them to get sick, which means I'm short two bell people. We'll see how the song sounds. If their parts aren't critical, we'll still record. 

After school today, G-man came over to help me put the plastic on my porch. It took us a little over an hour. It must be humid outside because while the rest of us stayed a good temperature, our fingers were freezing! I'm glad that job is done for another year. Hard to believe I've lived in this apartment for 10 years! Hopefully this will be the last year. Speaking of which, house update: I get to pick siding and shingle colors this week! :D

Positive

I had virtual class with my kiddos today because yesterday I tested positive for covid. Sigh. What poor timing! It's both the end of the quarter and my goddaughter's baptism Sunday. But my class has rallied and so far has been good about virtual school. 

All but one figured out how to log into Teams without much trouble. The one took 45 minutes this morning before we gave up and I called her on speaker phone for our "how to do virtual learning" meeting. Today was a low profile day of catching up on memory, spelling tests, and doing a bit of NaNo/read to self, so the meeting itself wasn't long. But my kids are chatty, so they spent about twenty minutes asking me how I was feeling and if I'd get to go to the baptism. When I said no, some of them sent me bawling emojis. It's nice to know they care. My sister is going to try to video chat the baptism, so those of us who are sick can at least witness it from afar. 

My kids also wanted to eat lunch together, so we had another call at noon. Actually, they called at 10:40, then 11:00, then 11:30, just to practice. Lunch was kind of fun. A handful made mac and cheese. One had a salad. A lot had Halloween candy for dessert. They would periodically hold up a piece of candy to their camera to show the class. Pretty entertaining. 

I had to duck out at 12:15 to do a Kahoot study session with the 7-8th graders. That actually went better than I expected. Mr. E tuned me in on Teams and was the noise bouncer; the kids logged in to the Kahoot website to submit their answers for the quiz questions. We had a great study session! And right afterwards my 5-6th graders called me to see how it went. Haha, those guys are certainly chatty! 

I'm ready to rest now. I have a bunch of books, plenty of tea in my cupboards, and a few movies I could watch. And my NaNo to write. We'll see how much energy I have. So far my symptoms are fairly mild, mostly cold symptoms. My upper back is achy and my sinuses are clogged. I might be losing my sense of taste and smell, hard to tell. Things taste muted, but I can still taste them. I figure I should focus on eating things with texture. Prayers for a quick recovery are appreciated!

Alfalfa

My hair is finally long enough to wrap around and clip in a bun. Except sometimes little bits don't stay in and poke out all spikey-like. Sometimes it looks fine when I first clip it up, but my hair is so slippery, it slides out and rebels.

The end of my hair slipped out of the clip while we did our highs and lows, and one kind 6th grader said, "Uh, Miss H, your hair?" So I fixed it. It felt secure, so I thought nothing of it as we finished our end of the day routine. Time to go out to the bus. Hmm, how cold do I want to be? As I put my jacket on, I thought out loud, "Should I wear my hat to go out to the bus?"

One of the 5th graders said, "No." Then she added, "Because we want everyone to appreciate your spikey hair. And if you wear a hat they can't." My hands flew up on top of my head and sure enough, one little spike sticking straight up like Alfalfa from Little Rascals. I tried to tug it to the side and then gave up and decided to embrace the spikey craziness. 

Christmas Time

Mrs. L and I pounded out the Christmas program after school. It's a short one this year. The speaking parts are quite short, only bible parts. We split some up to spread them around for more kids. There was space for a children's message (the program even provided the message). So we added those words to the program as speaking parts. We made the responsive readings into responsive speaking between class groups, just to give them more parts. And we added a few more songs. There will be lots of music in this program. Picking out the music took the longest. We wanted some 'pizzazy' songs, and those are a bit hard to find. But I think we found ones to make a solid program.

Day 2 NaNo

Bleh, today was a no energy day for me. No fever, no stuffy nose, just no energy. Still, I prevailed. My kids wrote a bunch of their NaNos (I did too!). We practiced our Christmas bell songs. They... are okay. Good thing we have time to work on them. 

Our staff meeting after school was too long. It was an hour and a half but could've been just an hour. We got bogged down by how to get more participation in PTL (there's a meeting tomorrow). After that, I went to Nicollet to vote, except when I got there they said I wasn't registered and because of where I live, I am in the New Ulm school district. So I'd have to go there to vote. Huh. I'd gotten a pamphlet in the mail from Nicollet, and when I looked up the ballot online my address showed Nicollet school district. But that's not accurate, so they wouldn't let me vote. 

We had bible study tonight. It was different than usual because Pastor came in at the beginning and told us some ladies were struggling with the hefty academicness of the book and wanted to switch to something else. In the end, we read the last chapter and decided to go back to reading just the bible. 

And that's all I got for today. Early bedtime for Emily!

First day of NaNo

Friday was such a whirlwind we didn't have much time to put our Fall Carnival things away. So one of the kids left out the counting calories guessing jar and the guess sheet. The janitor (a former student) wrote a guess down and he was within 20 of the number! So he wins. My class decided he should get the jar even though he's not a student. 

We finished our latest read aloud book today. They wanted to pick out a new book, but I said our mood might change by tomorrow so we should wait. Maybe the book I ordered for read-aloud will be in at the library...

Today was the first day of NaNo! We only wrote a collective 399 words today (although I haven't written mine yet). Our class of seven has a goal of 79,653 words! Yikes! 30,000 are mine, but two students want to write 17,000 and 20,000. I have a feeling they might change that. Although, they are both good writers and are creative, so if they're dedicated, they can do it. We'll see what happens.

House update: rafters are going up on the garage! The construction manager thinks they'll have the roof done sometime this week. Woohoo! Then they just need to put windows in and my house will be enclosed. 

Fall Carnival

Today was such a fun day at school. My kiddos hosted the Fall Carnival and I think this year is the best year we've ever done it. The kids were laid back and confident, they had their booths set up and ran them well. They had not only candy as prizes, but stickers and some slinkys/fans/fake glasses/fingers to pass out. And, they made guessing jars. This one is "guess the calories." Answer: about 900. 

We had our book pumpkins on display:

(this 6th grader sewed her mouse herself)

The two 5th grade girls teamed up to make this book. In the gym they had them arranged so they looked like the book cover. 

(my new favorite book of the year)

Here's an update on my class jungle--I mean, plant experiments... We're hoping the succulents will be big enough for Christmas or Mother's Day presents.

My hydroponics boy ate his first pea pod this week! He could've let them grow longer, but he said they still tasted good. He also brought in the growlight in the bottom picture. He shares it with his classmates, switching it from shelf to shelf during and after school. There is so much teamwork and kindness in my classroom this year. I love it!

CPR

Got a refresher on CPR tonight after school. Planned, of course. We also got a refresher on how to use the AED and do first aid. Hopefully I'll never have to use it.

Afterwards, I worked on prepping lessons for next week. Normally on Thursdays I just make an outline of the next week. Then over the weekend I prep the lessons and make sure everything is up to date and ready. Buuuut, this weekend I'm going on an impromptu trip to Wisconsin to help a friend wedding dress shop, so no time to plan. (I get to be the maid of honor!) Everything is ready for next week except one science Kahoot for the 7-8th graders to review for their Friday test. I should be able to get that done next Monday or Tuesday though. All I need to do now is pack!

Pumpkins

Pastor and Mrs. B have a ton of pumpkins and gourds. After chapel each of my students picked out one to turn into a pumpkin "book report". It's an optional family project that I'm making mandatory. They fussed at first, but stopped when they realized I wasn't going to make them write an actual report. We're doing it for art. They get to decorate their pumpkin with stuff so it resembles a character from a book. So far, they're looking good!

We've been doing collages as our other art project, and one 5th grader made a frog out of her pumpkin using green paper as a collage. She partnered up with the other 5th grade girl to do the book Dog on a Frog? by Kes Gray. The other one is doing a dog. I'll share pictures when they're finished.

Swingin'

My class loves to swing. Every time we have recess outside, they play a game they made up. One person is the judge who gives the swingers a word and the first letter of the second secret word. The swingers have to jump off the swing in a way that the words describe their jumps. The judge then ranks them based on how well they matched the known word and the secret word. They come up with some crazy words. Sassy (teacher). Long (lion). Fancy (bird). 

We delved deeper into DNA and cell replication today. Man, science is just clicking with these guys! It's awesome! We talked about how cells know when to divide, how cells die, how DNA gets fixed if the bases get messed up, why sugar seems to give you energy, and vacuoles (the one thing from my lesson I actually planned to teach them about haha). But as always, I'd rather have them learn this stuff when they're interested in it. Plus, they'll be ahead of the game in science class in two years. We'll see how much of this they remember... 😁

Christmas Crazies

Ugh, the Christmas program is driving me nuts... but right now it's all speculation, so I should quit worrying about it prematurely. 

Results from Sunday's meetings: The church constitution doesn't specifically say who picks the church services/times, but the elders traditionally do it with the congregation's input. The elders really, really want the kids to perform on Christmas Eve. And it has to be the school kids, not just the Sunday school kids. They were willing to let us go down to one service, but it had to be on Christmas Eve. Except only 40% of families want to do it Christmas Eve. So after making our case for having just one service the Sunday before Christmas (as 60% of families want), the elders decided that school should still have two Christmas services, but families and teachers don't have to participate in both.

Sigh. So that means potentially more work for us planners... If families can only come to one service, we have to find substitutes for speaking parts, make sure their bell parts are covered (or record the bell song ahead of time), assign seating with more/fewer bodies in mind... 

As far as teachers only attending one, Mr. D runs the sound system, so he can't skip. Mr. E as principal feels like he has to be at both (and Mrs. E too). Mrs. L directs music and can't just skip. I'm directing bells and the rest of the program, so it could work for me to be gone, if I did a lot of prep work/filmed the bells (which we might need to do anyway if kids aren't going to be at both services), but I would feel so guilty being the only regular teacher gone from a service. (The preschool teachers are taking turns being at the services.)

But again, I'm borrowing trouble. We're sending a program signup home tomorrow, due back November 1st, and then we'll know more of what we're working with.

So nothing different was announced at the church meeting. Just that school will have two services in conjunction with the bible school kids, just like usual. The cast of players might be different, but it will be the same service and it will be amazing. 

The rest of the church meeting went surprisingly well. The vocal parishioner didn't say anything when school rolled around (he was going to suggest we cut a teacher because of low student numbers). He raised his hand, but others raised their hands first and were called on, and their questions/the answers calmed the vocal guy down. We got our lp locked in before the prices went up. Mr. E ran through the numbers of students in each grade, talked about how the free kindergarten has helped retain students. There were ten kindergarteners last year and there are ten 1st graders this year. Pastor went through how many baptisms there have been in church the past few years, and the numbers line up with how many kids are in grades at school. So all those things (plus the fact our church is doing okay moneywise) let us squeak by without any negative talk about the school. 

Downpour

I thought we might escape the rain, but no. This morning was clear and sunny, but as we walked to chapel a bank of dark clouds hovered in the distance. An hour before lunch the skies broke and a torrent of rain whooshed around us. This is the first big rain my students have experienced in my room; it's loud! Especially in the entryway to my room (tin, not much insulation). So they enjoyed that. They loved seeing the parking lot flood and a river of water rushing down into the kickball field too. 

We ended our half day of school with reading buddies. My kiddos LOVE reading buddies. As per usual, they squirreled away books earlier in the week to share today. Sometimes I think 15min isn't long enough!

During reading buddies, I got my continuing education paperwork ready to turn in at our teacher's conference tomorrow. I usually see the committee lady there and then I don't have to mail my gigantic packet of papers. Last year I never turned any in, so I have 14 things to turn in for hours. Some of them are for one hour webinars, but a few are for 10-25 hour workshops. My license needs to be renewed this summer, so it's a good thing I have so many hours!

Rapping Christmas

Bells today actually went really well! We practiced our two November songs (both sound decent just sight reading) and one Christmas song. That one could use a little work. While I focused on one half of them, the other half (ahem, the boy half) came up with a rap version of the song we were playing: Away in a Manger/Still, Still, Still. 

The end of bells was chaotic since no one wanted to pack up. The 6th graders and I brainstormed a solution and came up with the idea that everyone has one job they do. At the end of the day the 7-8th graders joined us and we picked sticks for who is doing what. One job for everyone! Now I'm going to type it and have it posted on the back of the door/on my music stand so everyone remembers what they have to do. 

Now I'm off to church for a Christmas program meeting with Pastor, our bible school superintendent, and Mrs. L. We're going to share survey results with them and hopefully come up with a decision about the service...

Silent Auction Success

Well, this weekend's fundraiser was a great success! I don't know how the pork chop side of things went, but the silent auction brought in over $2300! To compare, the last two times we did it brought in $1800 and $1300. The most sought after item was a stained glass cross piece made from glass leftover from refurbishing the church's stained glass window years ago. It went for $130! The man who made the piece has more leftovers, so he and another church lady cooked up a deal: anyone who didn't get the piece and is willing to pay the final bid will get one. He'll make more and donate the proceeds to ILS minus the cost of labor. After tallying up his stained glass, he has enough to make four more. Three are already spoken for. So we'll add that to the grand total of silent auction income. Awesome!

My kids sang, chimed, and rang well too. There were a few minor mess-ups, and people maybe wouldn't have noticed except my kids show everything on their faces... oops. Sunday was a busy day because there was a baptism during the service AND communion. We got everything on Sunday. The only lowlight was they played a Luke Bryan music video during the church service during communion. It's called "Harvest Time" and I suppose they picked it because it's harvest time, but it has nothing to do with God and church. One of my students and I bonded over our dislike of that video used during church, so there's that at least.

My favorite part of today was actually English class. We've been prepping for NaNo and today's topic was on Plot. I've used the same outline to plot student stories for years and years, but this time the NaNo workbook gives other options if you don't want to use the basic plot rollercoaster method. Of course, after mentioning it to the 5-6th graders, they immediately wanted to hear the other ways. The first one we clicked on is the Jot, Bin, Pants method, which is surprisingly how I like to plot my novels. Huh. Who knew? 

Basically, after figuring out characters and their conflict, you jot down all the ideas you have about what could happen to them, or scene ideas, or pictures or whatever. Then you sort them into beginning, middle, and end bins. When NaNo comes, you write by the seat of your pants, picking out what you want to use when. See where your characters take you. 

Silent Auction

It's go time. My car is loaded up with silent auction items. I'm bringing them over to church after I wrap things up at school. Two parents are helping with set up tomorrow evening and I have nothing going on then, so I'll probably save most of the set up for Saturday. 

The bell song is sounding good. Two kids were missing, so of course it could've sounded better today, but both of them plan to be here Sunday. The song we're singing sounds good too. Classes sing different verses, and we had a 'contest' to see which groups could be the loudest. The 3-5th graders won. 

This afternoon we had STEM time (more fort building), the 7-8th graders too. I love watching them work together to problem solve and design their forts. A 7th grader wanted a blanket to go over the top, but I only have two and the other group wasn't sharing, so he asked to use the fabric that covers the foam during bell practice. Great idea! The only sad time was putting it away.

My kiddos were on the radio after school promoting the pork chop dinner.  I listened from school. Three volunteered to talk; even so, they were a bit shy. They did good though.

Forts

We explored with our STEM gadgets today and my 5-6th graders had a blast. They built forts with sticks and balls. The kit came with suggestions on what to build. It was so fun to watch them be creative and work together.

We had a two and a half hour staff meeting after school. The main talking points were Blood Borne Pathogen training by our school nurse and the Christmas program. We're trying to get it down to just one service. A point was made, who is in charge of deciding when the programs are done? If the school is doing the work, shouldn't the school make the decisions about when/how often to have it? We're taking a survey of parents to find out what they think about when/how often we should do it. So far 19/35 have responded. 79% want just one service. They have until Tuesday to fill it out. That gives me a few days to talk to Pastor and the Bible School leader about it before the church meeting on the 24th. We'll see what happens!

Wind

Holy buckets it was windy today! It was so windy, it knocked the little outdoor kitchen against my classroom sounding like someone was knocking until it finally tipped over. It was so windy, the wind pressed the doorbell button on the school's main door! Someone taped a cup over the button so the wind couldn't press it anymore. I really hope my plants at home survived... they are all resting in the rocks to soak up the rain, and some of them are in small pots. 

Yesterday I spent an hour after school trying to find a picture book I remembered reading about a girl who spies her teacher "loose" and tries to "rescue" her. Man, it drove me nuts! Today I called the library to see if they could look in my circulation history. Oh, they don't keep track of that in this system. Thankfully, the librarian knew which book I was talking about. Unfortunately, she couldn't remember the name of it off the top of her head. So she said she'd call back. And she did: Rescuing Mrs. Birdley by Aaron Reynolds.

NaNos and Noses

Today we sparked ideas for our NaNos. It was so fun; my kids got really into it. A few already have ideas they fleshed out, some had nothing. I pulled up the pinterest board of writing prompts I've curated over the years. That really got them going! Some are dialogue ideas, some are strange pictures, some are questions or situations they can use to start stories. We each created a word document to gather pictures and ideas for our stories. I rediscovered my brainstorming from last year and chose my NaNo idea! It was one I almost wrote last year, but my kids wanted me to write the other idea. Funny, I completely forgot about it until now. I had just as much fun as my students gathering ideas for my story.

One not fun thing my class is sharing this week is a cold. At least half the class (and myself) were a bit drippy today. Bleh. Hopefully it's a short-lived one. 

Picture Day

I almost forgot about picture day... thankfully the outfit I put on this morning is picture day acceptable. It's not as critical for teachers to look good on picture day as it is for students. ;) We were the first class to go, probably because I happened to be passing through the gym when the photographer was ready. Mr. E's class went next, sneaking in before they had Pastor's class. 

The rest of our school day was pretty typical. Nothing too out of the ordinary. The 7-8th graders worked on a powerpoint on renewable energy sources and some of them almost finished. The 5-6th graders learned about parts of a plant cell. Until we got sidetracked into talking about human body systems. No surprise there! So many things are connected in the world of science!

After school, I'm running errands in Mankato before the soccer game (away, in Mankato). Then I have a Habitat meeting (I'll meet the new Habitat lady) followed by supper with G and correcting papers. Not too bad a night! (Except for the paper correcting, haha).

Camp Day 2

Such perfect weather today! Great for canoeing and archery, our two main tasks for the day. 

Update from yesterday: Pop bottle rockets was fantastic. Our leader didn't give too many instructions, but my kids came up with interesting ideas to make their rockets fly differently. We broke two records shooting them off... one girl got hers the highest I've ever seen (it didn't go that far) and we broke the distance record too! It was the first one we shot off. The rocket took off like a missile. It went so far we couldn't find it in the woods! The builder kept saying, "It musta gone in the lake!" over and over. I was a bit skeptical. Mine shot a similar distance (furthest distance mine has ever gone!) and we found mine close to the path down at the bottom of the hill past the trees. Very far. This morning while paddling back to the canoe landing, we spotted something gray and green and plastic-y bobbing up and down along the shore. It was the lost rocket!!! That definitely broke the record for distance and the 6th grader couldn't keep the smile off his face.

Last night the kids slept pretty well in the cabins. We sang a bit extra at the campfire, made smores, played a bit of gaga ball, then got ready for bed and did a half an hour of read-aloud time on the boys' side of the cabin. The girls didn't want the boys on our side, and I'm kind of glad it worked out that way because there were a lot of stinky feet polluting the air! They boys were so kind and set up a mattress on the floor for me to sit on so everyone could hear me and I could still be comfortable. 

After read-aloud we had a bit of free time in the cabins, then lights out and talking for a while. Man, the two chatty girls kept whispering and whispering. At 10:15 I finally shut them down. 6:00am one of the chatty's alarms went off and she couldn't find her device to shut it off. Sigh. They laid in bed for a half an hour whispering on and off. They tried to get our male chaperone to go outside and supervise gaga ball, but he wasn't budging until 7am anyway. The girls were kind of annoyed they got up so early for nothing. But they did get to play from 7:15-7:50.

After a delicious spaghetti lunch, we read to self for 20min and did read-aloud for 20min. Ugh, we are two chapters from the end! Not enough time to finish at Camp. I could tell they were restless and ready to head home. On the way back, we swung by my house-in-progress since it's on the way. People were working on it! We got to see guys pouring the basement concrete and we got to climb up onto the main level. It was so cool to see the progress they've made and hear what's going to happen next. They'll need volunteers to build soon, so I need to find out what the process is for getting volunteers signed up to work...

Camp Omega Day 1

So far camp is off to a grand start. We've done a nature hike, fire and shelter building, team building, and had a fantastic lunch. And had nap/quiet time (at my students' request). After snack we'll build our pop bottle rockets!

My packing list said to leave electronics at home. A mom told me her sons were discussing this last night while packing. The 5th grader thought about sneaking it along, but decided not to even though his brother suggested ways to sneak screen time. "Put it in your toiletry bag and then you can play on it in the bathroom." But my 5th grader said, "No, I don't want to disappoint Miss H."

 I'm so glad our science unit has been on plants. We've spotted a ton of thigmatropism, noticed geotropism and veins in leaves, identified vascular and nonvascular plants... Collected pretty leaves for pressing in books. 

Team building was fun. We had a few different challenges to do. I needed to remind myself not to talk too much and let the kids figure things out. Our guide said my class worked so well together, we were operating on the same level as some high school groups he's worked with. Now, if only they'll be quiet and go to sleep at bedtime...I have a feeling I'll have a lot of chatty Cathy's on my hands...

Fire Prevention Week

The fire drill today didn't scare us as much as the one yesterday did. I had more trouble getting a few of the kids out of the classroom though... one girl wanted to finish drawing some lines before leaving. She's also the one who yesterday wanted to know if there were a real fire, could she go in the coatroom and grab her backpack? 

By 5th and 6th grade, all the fire stuff is review, so we mostly asked questions about how fires around here typically start (kitchen, smoking, and electrical) or what kind of training do fire fighters need to do. Then we toured the trucks in the parking lot, tried on some of the gear, honked the horns, sprayed the hose, and took a group photo. Then back to class! They were bummed they didn't get as much read-aloud today, so we cut out one round so we could read before lunch. I think we'll finish our book at Camp Omega. 

That was everyone's high for the day (pretty much), that we're going to Camp Omega tomorrow. The low is that a lot of them need to pack and it's going to take FOREVER. My low was that everyone suddenly said they're not bringing duct tape because their parents won't let them take any from home. We kind of need that to make our pop bottle rockets. Sigh. Good news: I dug through my desk after school and found a few rolls, so that should help the tape shortage. And this class is really good at sharing supplies, so I think we'll actually be okay. 

Another high for today was that the firefighters gave us root beer float supplies! A great end of the day treat. 

The 7-8th graders had a good class too. We mimicked the rock cycle with starbursts... cut up bits of starburst to make sedimentary rocks, warmed them with our hands (or armpits as one group of boys tried), melted them on tin foil over a burner (I have a few portable burners/heating things). I think they actually grasp the concept! Next week we're going to do the lab again, but use crayons just to make sure it really sunk in. 

One more high: I had pretty flowers to look at on my desk today. When I got home last night, there was a bouquet resting on a porch chair along with two little bottles of prosecco and a homemade card saying, "Congrats on being aunts!" A certain someone made a special trip from Mankato to leave the surprise for my other sister and me so we could celebrate before/after bible study. Since I'm going to be at camp the next two days, I figured I'd bring the flowers to school so I could admire them at least one day!

Science Stuff + Human Baby= Fantastic Day

All sorts of cool science stuff arrived today, stuff I requested about a month ago. The 7-8th graders helped deliver the packages to my room and their jaws hit the floor at the cool stuff they carried: legos, magnetic tiles, wooden blocks, fort building kits, science models, potting soil, grow lights, and circuit kits. I went through my original wish list and checked almost everything off! There are probably a few more things coming. Once everything has been delivered, we're going to order more stuff with leftover money (or new money from this year). The lady who placed the orders didn't order all the stuff on the list, particularly the items I marked "low priority." So I already have a list going for round two. 

The other exciting news is that my sister had her baby! She went into labor late last night and had the baby (a girl!) at about 9am this morning. I specifically wore my Auntourage shirt to school for the occasion. My class was just about as excited as I was... I left my phone unsilenced so I could listen for the official announcement. Every time it went off, my class perked up. "Are you going to check Miss H?" We had a few false alarms (my other sister), but finally what we'd all been waiting for arrived! And I screamed. And my class screamed. And they wanted to see a picture, so I showed them. At the end of the day, three kids said Baby P was their high of the day. (Actually, one misspoke and said "Little Ill" was her high... I made a joke we'll only call her that if she gets sick...). 

Great day overall. 😁

Not Good

Disclaimer, brace yourself Grandma, you're not going to like this story...

I had a strange experience at school today. It beats out the time I almost fainted (my first year teaching) for scariest school memory. The short version: my throat closed up and I couldn't breath for a minute or two. Disclaimer: I'm fine now!

The long version: During read-aloud, the back of my throat irritated all of a sudden. Maybe a bug flew in while I read? (All the plants means we have some annoying tiny flies buzzing around). I took a drink of water, felt better, and continued reading, thinking nothing of it. I taught English and turned my students loose to work. A few minutes into worktime, my throat got awful scratchy and when I tried to breathe, my airway instantly shrunk. Thinking a drink of water might help, I walked to my desk, the struggle to breathe getting worse and worse those few steps. Now I was gasping for air and couldn't talk. It felt like my throat was completely closed. "I can't breathe," I wheezed to my class. They stared at me not sure what to do.

The whole time this was going on, my brain cruised 100mph: Okay, stay calm, you've been through things like this before. Not this bad, but still. It'll get better. Sit down. Take a sip of water. Okay that didn't help. Try holding your breath. Okay, that didn't help. Stay calm, stay calm, freaking out is going to make it worse. Okay, what else can I do? Hey! One of the kids has an inhaler in the first aid drawer, that would open my airways probably. I only got the drawer open when the 6th grade boy asked, "Want me to get Mr. E?" Since I couldn't talk, I nodded. 

Back to full throttle brain: I hope I don't pass out... What are they going to do then? Call an ambulance? Oh geez, what a disaster. Who's going to watch my kids? It's going to wreck the whole day! Suddenly another thought popped in my head: You could try breathing through your nose, just like that book you read this summer. Take a deep nose breath all the way to the bottom of your lungs so you go past whatever junk is going on in your throat. And guess what. By the grace of God it worked. I could breathe totally fine, a full lungful of air no problem. A bunch more deep inhales through the nose and the swelling in my throat went down. By the time Mr. E arrived, I could talk and my throat was a bit scratchy, but otherwise back to normal. The whole incident lasted maybe five minutes.

Best guess is, I had an allergic reaction to the bug 30min later. My throat stayed fine the rest of the day, no other flareups. It's a little tender now, but I'm drinking some soothing tea and resting my voice. 

My kids handled it fine and I think most of them forgot about the incident until I mentioned it as my low of the day. Mr. E didn't forget. He stopped by to check on me at least twice more during the day. I was fine every time! Eesh, that is not an experience I want to have again.

To end on a positive note, spelling with the 7-8th graders was again, almost fun today! The orange group had a list of words using the prefix "semi" and they had to make sentences of their list words. One boy had so much fun, he came up with more semi words. "Hey Noah, want to play basketball on a semibasketball court of the gym?" Later, I caught him flexing his abs and pounding on them. He noticed me observing and explained, "I have semi-abs. They're pretty good, but they're going to get better." 

On another positive note, God blessed us again at our Sunday bake sale! We made exactly what we needed to cover the cost for everyone. We needed to make $120 this time, and people donated $133. Thank you Lord!

Good News Bad News

The good news is I corrected all my papers last night! The bad news is my kids gave me more to correct today... but at least there aren't too many to correct this weekend. 

Other bad news: our main janitor resigned. She drives here from Gibbon and it's too far to justify coming all this way. We have a part-time janitor, so we're not in completely dire straits. 

Other good news is that even though it's been rainy, they've still been working on my house! From the picture I saw today, fames are up on the main floor and it looks like the space around the basement has been filled in.

Bad news: My car has been running funny lately. Just little things here and there acting up. The place I get my maintenance done doesn't have loaner vehicles, so they came out to school and picked it up. Around lunch they called with an update that it needs a lot of fixing plus new tires. The strange thing is, the one thing I wanted them to fix, they forgot to look at! At my last oil change they said one of the wheels is sitting crooked and the tire is rubbing against the side of the car wearing out. They thought the metal itself was bent, so I made this appointment to get it checked out. I guess they forgot they were going to check that. After a reminder at lunch, they did check and, good news, the 'bent metal' is the design of the car. So they adjusted the angle of the wheel as best they can until I get new tires (or replace the tie rods...I can't remember what's going to fix it further). Overall, it's time to replace a lot of parts on my vehicle, which is going to be expensive.

Too Many Papers

Bleh, I have a huge pile to correct tonight and so many other things I'd rather be doing. Maybe I will compromise and intermix the homework subjects with the other things. 

The good news is I got everything done after school that I wanted/needed to do, and that was even with the volleyball girls hanging out in my room. 

My voice is tired from class with the 7-8th graders. They were so distracted today. And then we had bell practice, which is always loud. The 5-6th graders had art/Joe toy work time and convinced me to read-aloud while they worked. (It didn't take much convincing). Our book is getting tense! We're about halfway through and I can tell the author is slowly amping up the excitement...we'll be able to make lots of predictions in the next few days. 

Next week we go to Camp Omega. I can't believe that's already here. One more bake sale to go this Sunday!

Clay

We used up the last of the clay today. Very messy desks, but very happy creative minds. Man, they had fun building with that stuff! I couldn't let them have all the fun, so I made something too: a tree paintbrush holder. 

Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons has taken the 5-8th graders by storm this past week. I overheard the 7-8th grade boys read (and sing) this book during study hall Monday. This morning a bunch of my kids read to someone and picked this book, including one boy who struggles with reading. I heard him reading with inflection, changing his reading speed/tone to fit the words, and then his partner joined in singing the song chorus that happens whenever Pete loses a button. Oh it made my teacher heart happy!

I forgot to post yesterday since I left school early for a walk/bible study. The big thing was the 5-6th graders presented their powerpoints on the big Native American tribes in the US. Overall they did really well! A few groups had uneven teamwork. One group had great teamwork making the powerpoint, but didn't share the presenting part as well. I forgot that I said I'd present the last tribe that didn't get covered. Oops! Guess I have to make a powerpoint after school!

Monday Monday

I must say, today was one of the best Mondays of the school year to date, and that's not just because I arrived at school with a box full of candy/snacks courtesy of my sister/brother-in-law (I helped them clean out their pantry before the baby comes and they gifted me with their castoffs). 

My kids know the story of the P family's baby gender reveal... "It's a... human baby!" They thought that was hilarious and a few of them took the joke further, "What?! I thought it would be a giraffe!" So now everyone either calls my niece/nephew human baby or giraffe baby. To play a trick on my class, I took a picture of my sister holding a baby giraffe stuffed animal in a baby outfit and I pretended she had the baby while I was there over the weekend. It was great! They totally believed she had the baby. Also, I had them show if they thought it'd be a boy or girl. Four think boy, three think girl. None thought giraffe. 

Other fun things today: surprisingly, 7-8th spelling! Most of the class advanced to the vocabulary books, which are more work, so we came up with a compromise that we do part of their assignment together orally. They LOVE it. They kind of get into it, especially today, which makes spelling fun. Strange I would ever say that. Best spelling lesson of the school year.

While I did spelling with the 5-6th graders, Joe wandered the classroom. He tried to eat the piece of metal on the sideways bulletin board again for about five minutes. It dawned on me he might be playing. That thought inspired the class to look up toys/brain stimulation for tortoises and now we're on a mission to enhance Joe's life with fun things. One kid is making a pool, another is making a Halloween costume for him (Joe-y Shark do-do-do-do, Joe-y Shark do-do-do-do), a few are looking up flowers/plants to grow in his tank that he can eat. This class likes to work on things they're excited about at home, so who knows what they'll come up with tonight!

Fantastic Friday

Mrs. L gave me a secret note today... and it was really good. She showed me the back of her fist that said, "Tap". So I tapped. She flipped her hand up to show me her knuckles, which said "open". And inside her fist was the note, written in a code. Before she left the classroom I figured it out and I will admit I screamed. And screamed again because it was such good news. One of my 6th graders was in the room when I got the note and she thought she figured it out. It drove her nuts that I wouldn't tell her. 

My neck is still not 100%, but it feels the best it's felt all week. My mood is by far improved. I've had much more pep in my step today and feel somewhat normal. This has definitely given me a lot more sympathy/empathy for people with chronic pain.

My class was on fire with predictions and inferences today. So many times they guessed and guessed right! Four of the seven aced their memory work, all handed in handwriting before lunch. The 7-8th graders had a good day too, very productive. 

I'm antsy to leave school today because I'm going to visit my sister/brother-in-law/human baby (as my students like to call him/her...or giraffe baby... don't ask). That's been my high of the day for quite a few days this week. Today it was even one of the 6th grader's highs! And a few kids' lows were that I won't be here to watch the after school soccer game. 

Boats

My kiddos started building their penny boats this afternoon. Their latest STEM project is to build a boat that can hold 25 pennies for 10s without sinking. While they did that, I got the testing tank ready. It's just an old fish tank I have in the closet. The big undertaking was finding space for it! We made room on the lab table, and miraculously, it fit close to the sink so we could swing the faucet around and fill it directly from the sink with minor modifications. We taped a funnel to the tank to direct the water in. It worked great! 

Second Wind

My chiropractor appointment popped me back into place, but it's taking a while for the muscles to catch up (the chiro said that would be the case). So most of the day was tough for me to get through physically. But after school I finally caved and took some pain meds and surprise, surprise, I am feeling better. Not 100%, but enough to actually accomplish the things I need to do after school. I even watched a webinar that's been on my radar since August... going gradeless in the classroom. Hmm, correct fewer papers? I'm all for that! 

One of the 8th graders thinks the alternator is going out in my car, or it just needs an oil change. Good thing I have an oil change tomorrow. He heard me drive away yesterday and said my car sounds weird. I've noticed that sound too, kind of a mild whine, but when I've asked my car fixit people about it, they didn't seem concerned. I'll mention the alternator to them tomorrow. 

One of the 5th graders is positive his plants grew while he was at school. I suggested sticking a ruler next to the plant in the dirt so he can actually tell. He is gungho about plants and started up the mini-hydroponics thing we have. He plucked a germinated pea from his garden and transplanted it to the hydroponic planter. 

Some of the other kids like to pluck their seeds out to see how big the root is. A 6th grader took one out and wrapped it in a wet paper towel, then got excited because the paper towel was sucked close to the root showing that the root was absorbing water. Nice. They're learning so much!

Joe

Joe hasn't had much of an appetite this week, but today we noticed him doing something odd when he was on his walkabout... He tried to eat the metal holder on the bulletin board leaned against the wall. Humongous bite and everything. It didn't work. Just in case he tried to eat anything else, we put him back in his tank and gave him a big pile of lettuce.

A pretty typical day otherwise. In bells, we highlighted parts for the bell songs we'll play from October though January. That's eight songs! Some kids are much faster at highlighting than others and are finished already. I was worried my 6th graders would be overwhelmed, so I had them start this morning during read-aloud time (ps- only 25 pages to go! We'll probably finish tomorrow!). They did really well keeping everything organized.

Neck update: not much better. It hurts to even turn my eyes to the right, so I caved and took some medicine, then made a chiropractor appointment for this afternoon. God was good; there was an opening for 5pm tonight. Perfect timing!

Bake Sale

Singing and ringing went all right on Sunday. One kid lost his place and didn't play for most of the song and two had their bells in the wrong hands, so it sounded a little weird, but most people couldn't tell. You could at least hear the melody. 

The bake sale and snacks went much better. We raised over $200 for our class trip to Camp Omega! That's over halfway to our goal and we still have some snacks leftover. I put them in the freezer for us to either serve at a home soccer/volleyball game, or save for the next bake sale in a few weeks.

School was fine today. My neck is out of whack and I've had to spend a lot of time on the computer, so I've fought off a headache all day. Blech. On a positive note, one of my students brought me a white orchid. So sweet. I put it close to my desk so I can see it often. 

House update: floor joists are going in! I swung by on Friday after school and they had the basement walls up and half the floor joists in. Today rained on and off, so I'm guessing they didn't make any progress. 

Cirque Italia Friday night was fun. It was geared towards families with kids, so sometimes the in-between acts were cheesy, but I enjoyed the artists. The coolest act by far was the contortionist who shot a balloon via bow and arrow with her toes over her back! 

Cake

A church lady dropped off a leftover cake from the Ice Cream Social for the teachers. It was a whole cake, and I knew we wouldn't eat all of it, so I shared it with my class at the end of the day. Why the end of the day? Well, mostly because I kept forgetting about it earlier in the day. My class very much enjoyed it. 

I wore my Th In K tshirt (the letters are the elements from the periodic table), and as the class did their highs and lows, one 6th grader stared in my direction, concentrating very hard. I could see her doing some mental math with her finger in the air. Finally she said, "Miss H, if you add up the atomic numbers of those elements, you get... 158!" 

Today was a day of wrapping up a lot of things. Spelling tests and handwriting. The Bouncy Ball STEM lab from earlier in the week. We tidied our plant area and now there's a little space on the lab table. We cleaned the rest of the classroom too. Pastor had asked my class to put an object in a mini-suitcase for him to base chapel next week. After much voting, my class decided on a flag. We also wrote a question we were curious about: when did the Jewish people stop offering sacrifices (lambs, cows, etc)?

Now my classroom is wrapped up for another week, the first full week of school. I'm off to see the progress on my house, followed by an evening at the water circus. From what I can tell, it's a bit like cirque du soleil, but with water... lots of acrobatics and trapezes. 

Doesn't Match

Today was so nice out we had extra recess at the end of the day, so we overlapped with the preschoolers a little. One little girl chatted with me for a while. She's a little hard to understand, but we talked about clothes and shoes and the colors we were wearing. After commenting on the bright colors of my shoes and shirt, she pointed to my black pants, shook her head and said, "doesn't match." 

The rest of the day was pretty normal. Forgot to finish our standardized tests we started yesterday... we'll do them tomorrow, no big deal. Had a great read-aloud session with minimal cliff-hangers. Talked about plagiarism and looked at examples. Read a TON of our read-to-self books. Checked on the plants, watered them (probably too much, man they love spraying them), let Joe walk around, set up a mini-greenhouse for more plants to go once the dirt we ordered arrives. 

We had one last bell practice at church before we play Sunday. Part of that was practicing setting up when it's our turn to play in the service. So I had them all sit out in the pews, then come up when I stood up by the music stand. They loved practicing that... they came from all over the church, stood in their spots, set up their music, put on their gloves and put their hands on their bells. But don't pick them up! They are supposed to look at me and wait for me to give the signal so we raise them all at the same time. 

That ends up taking time because just when you have alllllmost everyone, that one last person looks, but two more look away. Or the person who's been ready from the beginning zones out and forgets to raise her bells. So we put them down and try again. I mentioned smiles would be nice, so some did the cheesy grin, others were obnoxiously ridiculous, still others tried glaring (but you could see them struggling not to smile). Really, they're a good looking group when it comes down to it. Let's hope they play just as well as they look! ;)

House update: the basement is poured and some wooden studs are going up!

Redoing Fine Arts Fair

Staff meeting after school today with some hot ticket agenda items... lunch schedule (poor 7-8th graders are missing all their noon recess, plus three of us teachers are getting gipped on class time because lunch is always ready sooner than expected), the Lutheran Educators Conference in October, and a report from Mr. E from his principal's meeting about a potential revamping of the Fine Arts Fair in March. 

The LEC is set up different than usual this year (thanks again, covid): no breakout sessions since it's hard to find speakers to commit, so we're having one speaker doing two sessions with a possible breakout at the end. The thing is, the speaker did a zoom session for us in the Minnesota South District last spring about taking time to rest, and it appears the conference will be the same presentation. So. Is it the same spiel? If so, do we need to go again if we've already heard it? TBD. If we don't have to go, man, I could take a vacation or something... we have a half day of school Wednesday and no school Thursday or Friday... hmm.... I better slow down my brain until we get more details.

The Fine Arts Fair drama started because MLHS has a new choir director (who teamed up with the insanely talented music director at Fairmont) to rev up the FAF. The only thing is, he wants the event to be like a high school solos and ensembles day or an "all state" type of gathering. His proposal is to start at 8:30 in the morning with individual events, a two hour break over noon followed by two hours of mass choir rehearsal, a supper break for the choir, art exhibit open to the public at 6pm, then the traditional hand bell/choir concert at 7pm. Except the only people involved in that concert are 5-8th graders. So, we probably would have to leave for the day at 7am and get home around 9pm or so. What a day. 

They also want to make the event happen on a Friday during the school day. Well that's a better option, you might be thinking, however, if we'd take a bus down to Northrop, parents wouldn't take off work and we teachers would be supervising all our kiddos... while we're supposed to be helping judge/run papers/accompany our solos and ensemble groups. Plus, what do kids do in all that downtime? There isn't a good place for people to hang out in between things. 

Anyway, long story just a little longer, the plan didn't go over well at our staff meeting and it sounds like it didn't go over well at the principal's meeting. At this point in time, the plan from the music director is just a proposed change and not set in stone. The two directors are looking for input from the other lutheran schools. My suggestion was that the new director should see how the FAF is run this year, just to see how it goes, and then make changes for next year if he still wants to. That might give him an idea of all the moving pieces that effect everything that happens for all the schools involved, especially those from far away that join in.

Vacuum

Last night one of my 6th graders forgot to put her crate up after I specifically reminded everyone to make sure his/her area was clean. Normally, not too big a deal, but this student had stuff everywhere... not easy to pick up/put on top of her desk. The janitor was going to vacuum, and she's the kind of person who would pick up the mess just because, but I saw this as a perfect natural consequence opportunity. 

So, the janitor did not vacuum our room last night. When our janitor finished vacuuming the rest of the school, I had her leave the vacuum next to this student's desk. The student could vacuum the room since she was the reason we didn't get vacuumed. It worked. This kid didn't complain about having to do it, but she was the first person to put her crate up at the end of the day!

Growing

We have sprouts! Some kids' garden plots have really taken off. We don't have any grow lights on them, so they are showing a lot of phototropism, something I'll teach them about in a while. 

We had a great science class about plant circulatory systems... Xylem and phloem. Which led to a connection to the human body system (and some 7-8th grade stuff), which led to a connection to the chemistry we learned last year involving oxygen use in the body and chemical equations/building blocks in the cells. One of last year's 6th graders had a humongous aha moment when it all clicked. She jumped up out of her desk and waved her arms around when she was explaining...she couldn't even talk, she was so excited. 

That is why I became a teacher, to experience moments like that with my learners. ❤️

Magic Scrap

 Holy cow, I had no idea how crazy my class would get at the end of the day when I said the words, "Let's... do magic scrap."

It's a game I learned from Mrs. L to clean up the scraps of paper on the floor. Everyone picks up schniblets and whoever picks up the one you decided ahead of time (keeping it a secret in your head) gets a prize, in my case, a token. The trick is, everyone keeps picking up scraps until the floor is clean and then you announce the winner. 

I've never seen my floor get picked up so fast. As soon as the words left my mouth, immediate frantic scurrying. We might need to make that game a weekly occurrence...

Even though it wasn't a normal bell day, the 6-8th graders practiced. It went much better and we could all hear the melody most of the time. I decided to scrap the hard song and only focus on the easy one. 

Our first Friday of Reading Buddies was today. It was a hit with both the 1-2nd graders and my class. The littles go to recess right afterwards, and as they got in line to leave, I heard some of them say, "That was the best thing ever! It was so fun! Do we get to do this again?" Woohoo! Some years, reading buddies hasn't gone over well, but this year's class loved it when they were in 1-2nd and I know they were looking forward to being the 'big kid' buddies. A positive attitude goes a long way! Plus this class generally likes to read, especially picture books.