16

 Filming Mrs. L and my duet went fantastic today. So funny. I can't wait to share it. There are a few mess-ups, but it kind of works with the song, so we just left them.

There was a half day of school today which made everything feel just a little crunched. My kids wanted extra read-aloud (no surprise) but we had too many other things to do: spelling tests, finish our static lab conclusions from yesterday, finish NaNo edits, read to self... I had to meet with a student who didn't get a chance yesterday and we had to practice our Talent Show skit. Plus lunch and a little recess. Whew. We did get all that accomplished though!

17

The caterpillar skit is coming along nicely. My kids keep coming up with ideas of things to say and do, so it's becoming more cohesive. Their latest idea is for me to make an appearance at the end and ask where Joe is (answer- he got eaten by the caterpillar). 

Mrs. L and I just came up with an idea for our teacher skit: Immanuel's Got Talent. Mr. E will be the judge, the rest of us teachers will have terrible talent. I will hula hoop (can't hula hoop), Mrs. L is juggling, Mrs. E will jump rope. Everyone else TBD. It ends with Mr. E saying "our school has to have better talent than this!" Then we cut to the rest of the class videos! Tada! Then at the end, Mrs. L and I will come in and say we want a redo... cue our "Anything You Can Do" video. It's gonna be so good.

My 5-6th graders did a lab involving static, cereal, and balloons. It kind of flopped, but was still a learning experience. Miss K and I tested if the balloon would pick up cereal prior to the kids trying it (rubbing the balloon in Miss K's hair to build up friction), but when they tried, the balloon didn't pick up anything. We tried all sorts of ways to increase the static. Nope. Didn't work enough. So then we brainstormed reasons why the balloon wasn't doing what we thought it should do. Maybe it was too humid. Maybe the sugar coating on the cereal played a roll. Maybe only the cocoa crispies picked up because they're made of rice flour and the other three kinds were corn flour. Maybe the metal tray caused the static to disperse instead of the cereal. We ran out of time, so they're supposed to finish it in the morning. We'll see if they actually do. They tend to move slower before school starts. I might have to carve out some time to write conclusions together. Or prod them into trying the lab again.

18

Another good day at school. The morning started foggy and ended up sunny and beautiful. I actually went for a walk outside after school! 

We were able to walk to chapel, instead of having it in the gym like we do when there's inclement weather. We were also able to get outside to do some spring cleaning. Instead of having a preschool roundup open house, our school had parents schedule individual tours of the school, so we wanted everything looking spic and span. My class washed outside windows and weeded the sidewalk and flower beds. They worked on that during their math study hall time. 

They came up with a grand afternoon scheme to get more recess while still getting their work done: after math, do science right away, pack up for the end of the day, then finish weeding, then go straight into recess. Miss K and I were both okay with that, so that's what we did! They ended up with a lot of recess time because it didn't take long to finish weeding. 

After school Mrs. L and I practiced our duet for the talent show. It is so fun to sing with her. Our acting is looking pretty good and we almost have our parts down. We did a few practice videos today to get the sound and lighting looking good. Maybe we can film next week. 

My class practiced their Amazing Caterpillar Show skit for the first time. They had dragged their feet starting it, but once we were going they said, "Hey, this is kind of fun!" Hopefully they won't fuss so much tomorrow when I say it's time to practice...

19

My kiddos were much calmer today. They also behaved very well for Miss K, even the 7-8th graders. They all raised their hands and asked good questions. Good learning day.

This morning during read-aloud, my kids focused on adding tissue paper to their pinatas. They got super far! A few of them are pretty much finished! Of course they bartered their focus for extra read-aloud time, so we finished our latest book. We haven't done much art this year, and this class is so anti-art, if there's a project they actually want to work on, I better capitalize on it. 

It was dreary and rainy on and off. Mr. E sent a 7th grader outside to check out the field conditions to see if we could have recess outside. I was there when he gave his report; it was very thorough. "The ground is a little damp, but it's not sticky and the dirt doesn't stick to your shoes. There's a wind from the northwest at about 10 miles an hour that's making things dry out real nice. So by the time we'd go out for recess, it'd be perfect." Yes, this is a farm kid. So, Mr. E said he'd take the kids outside for noon recess. Well... 30 minutes later, just as they got outside, THUNDER. Gigantic thunder. Pretty soon it poured and they scurried into the gym for hockey. 

The rain stopped at the end of the day, but Miss K finished her lesson with the 5-6th graders early so we could have an extra 10 minutes of recess (since our tone chime practice went long and cut into their afternoon recess). These crazy kids. They never want to go outside if it's even the slightest bit yucky, but now that there's a softball tournament coming up, outside recess is all they can think about.

20

Only 20 days of school left. Yikes.

My kids were excited to finally finish the Old Testament in religion today. Tomorrow we start the New Testament! 

We started prepping for our talent show skit during English today. I thought I had "The Amazing Caterpillar Show" saved as a file somewhere, but no matter how much I searched, I couldn't find it. So I google searched and found a version of it that my class tweaked. Tomorrow we're going to start acting it out. 

Miss K (our student teacher) taught her first lesson to the 5-6th graders today. It was on the Cold War and she did very well! I could tell she was nervous, and she wasn't hesitant about confirming that. She said she paces when she's nervous, but once she does one lesson, she's good to go. She's teaching both the 5-6th and the 7-8th graders tomorrow. The 7-8th graders are a little trickier than the 5-6th graders. They were super chatty today; hopefully they'll be better for her tomorrow. But Miss K said she wants to work on her classroom management, so either way, she'll have a good experience!

Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better

Spring brings the talent show, aka Variety Night, and Mrs. L and I decided we were going to make it happen, covid or no covid. Our plan is to have classes record themselves doing their talent, and then we (ahem, Mrs. L) will compile the videos into one movie to show on the screens at church the evening we choose to show it (or people can watch in their own homes online if they're more comfortable with that). 

My class is doing the Amazing Caterpillar Show skit again, as we've done the past two talent shows. We've been studying skits all week for English in preparation for writing ours. Mrs. L had a fantastic idea that she and I should do a duet of Irvin Berlin's "Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better", so she and I practiced that today. It was so fun. We changed some of the lyrics to be more school appropriate and we marked who is going to say which part. Now my homework is to listen to people singing the song so the notes stick in my head better! 

We teachers want to do something as a group as well, but we haven't settled on an idea yet. The best (and only) idea so far is to do a skit about teaching during covid and all the things we have to talk to our kids about. Meh. No good ideas come to mind on that topic; my kids have been pretty good about the regulations. Maybe if I do a quick Google search...

School today was awesome, especially science this afternoon with the 5-6th graders. They were remembering stuff we learned at the beginning of the year, making connections left and right, having deep discussions about serious science stuff. Sigh. It made my heart happy. AND it was our student teacher's first day in class, so she got to witness it. So good.

I also heard from my marine friend yesterday. He sent some pictures and videos from the latest mission they'd done. It was artillery practice in the desert again. He said next week they're going to the Mojave desert for three weeks for a mock war with another unit. My kids wanted to know if they are actually going to fight each other, or if they'll use rubber bullets or something. I asked him, but haven't heard back.

This morning when I checked kids' temperatures, a 7th grade girl commented, "Wow, Miss H, you're looking very bohemian today. It's like, you're 31 now and you're all zen!" The funny thing is, I had been thinking the same thing about my outfit... not the zen part, but the bohemian look. My outfit today: hair down and flowy, dusty red skinny jeans, and a white tunic-y shirt that does have a bohemian vibe. Not my normal style, but it's fun to mix it up sometimes!

Birthday

It was a pretty good day as far as birthdays go. My kids were a little argumentative, but that's kind of this group, always wheeling and dealing. Yesterday they convinced me I should bring birthday treats, specifically something from one of the read-aloud books we just finished. "Something that Gladys would make, something from Classy Cakes or something!" was their specific idea. I couldn't remember any specific recipes, but one kid suggested the rhubarb blueberry crumble. I didn't have blueberries, but I do have rhubarb in my freezer and a super easy rhubarb crisp recipe. So I prepped everything last night and popped it in the oven this morning so it would still be warm at snack time. By the time we got back from chapel, the rhubarb crisp was slightly warm, so it wasn't at its peak, but it was still tasty. My kids all liked it! 

Mr. and Mrs. E gave me flowers and a birthday balloon and the 7-8th graders made a card that everyone in school signed. An 8th grader gave me a card and some fancy soap (it's in the shape of a cross and I have a feeling it might be a leftover confirmation present, but it smells nice and is pretty, so I don't mind if it's a second-hand present). 

The kindergartners sang to me as we crossed paths on our way back/to chapel, and the 7-8th graders sang Happy Birthday as I left chapel with my class... they forgot to sing during chapel, which I am totally fine with. To wrap up my birthday celebration, I'm having supper with my two best college friends and saving all my paper correcting for tomorrow morning. 😁

Looking Like a Mom

This morning when I walked into the 7-8th graders' room, the first thing one of the 7th grade boys said to me was, "Miss H, you look like a mom... well, your outfit does." Then a different 7th grade boy chimed in, "No, she just looks like a teacher, like she always does." Thanks kids.

Another typical day at school, nothing out of the ordinary. I prepped things for making pinatas; we'll do the first steps tomorrow. I tidied the room a bit and put things away that have been sitting out for a long time. 

Tuesdays are piano days, and our piano teacher Mrs. O shares a birthday with me. Since she won't be here tomorrow, the kids made her a card and Mrs. E gave her some flowers. And Mrs. O gave me a present! It's a cute house lantern thing, partly as a birthday present and partly as a 'I'm so excited you're getting a Habitat house!' present. 

Speaking of the Habitat house... I finally heard back from the USDA granting me the loan. The trouble is, the monthly payments are way higher than my current rent. Add in utilities and it doesn't make financial sense for me to take the loan, unless Habitat would do something to lower the cost of the house. We talked this afternoon and basically Habitat can't do anything about it; I'd have to take the USDA loan for the full amount and then have a second mortgage through Habitat to cover the rest of the costs of building the house. If I live in the house long enough, the second mortgage gets forgiven. So. Now I have to decide if I am actually going to go through with it or not. I could always buy a house not with Habitat for less money so my mortgage payments aren't so high, but then I have to figure that out on my own. Or I could find a roommate to help with mortgage costs. Sigh. Not the easy home-buying experience I had been hoping for. 

Countdown

Just 25 more days of school to go this year. That means it's time to start thinking about end of the year projects... pinatas, publishing NaNos, balloon countdown. Normally I put up 20 balloons to count down, but that just seems like too many this year. So we'll go with 15. Each balloon has a special activity for the day tucked inside, some of which I can't do because of covid, so going down to 15 helps too. 

The 7-8th graders asked if I'd do balloons for them too since we missed out on that last year. Hmm... I told them if they gave me a list of things to put inside, we probably could. Maybe we'll just do five balloons for them. 

Today was the first day of me staying in my classroom all day. It was strange, but nice. I do miss seeing other parts of the school though. Still, I didn't have to lug my stuff around, the 7-8th graders were super focused, they didn't fight over who got to sit in which seat, they pretty much remembered to bring all their stuff along, and we had a really productive class period! Our lesson was my favorite science topic of all time: digestive system. After that is my second favorite body system to teach: excretory/urinary system. It's so fascinating! And it has the extreme gross-out factor that sucks the kids in. It's going to be a good week of science. 😎

Also, I have to share these pictures from one of the 7th graders' spelling workbooks last week... He is a huge John Deere lover and loves to give me a hard time about Case tractors, as you can see. 

I shared these with my dad and he said this student deserves an F for the week. Sorry Dad, grades don't work like that!

Whirlwind

Another whirlwind day. All half day Fridays are a bit crazy trying to get our normal Friday stuff finished. Today the kids were wound up too... 

We have two homeschooled girls who tune in for Religion class with us on Fridays. They're planning to come back to our school next year, and I finally thought to see if their Teams accounts were set up. They were! So the girls were able to log in the way my regular students do which made joining our class virtually a whole lot easier. Their daycare lady emailed me and said it worked so well today, so I offered that if they want to tune in for religion more days, we definitely could. It's not hard for us to do. We'll see what she says.

I had a lot of kids cramming their work at the last minute. Hardly anyone turned in handwriting or said memory work prior to today. They also had an invention report due (although most of them turned it in yesterday). 

Next week we're shuffling our schedule around again, the last time before the end of the year, hopefully. We're going out to recess from 12:05-12:25, (pretty much like precovid), and now the students get to change classrooms instead of us teachers! Both Mr. E and I are excited about that. We like our own classrooms. The kids are excited too and are looking forward to seeing different walls for at least part of the day. After school I gathered up all the things I've accumulated in his room and brought them back to mine. Time to adjust to a 'new' normal once again!

Wacky Day

Today's schedule was thrown off by all the guest speakers we had...

Our first was this morning by a CropLife speaker who talked about pesticide regulations in MN and some agriculture statistics in Nicollet county. 

Then the nurse talked to the 4-5th grade girls and 6-7th grade girls for puberty education. Those talks went long, which shuffled everything else back in the afternoon. There was some rigmarole with the permission slips... they were sent home Tuesday, and all the kids assured me they'd bring them back by Thursday, except a handful forgot. 

The boys were no big deal since they're puberty talk isn't for another two weeks, but two girls forgot, which meant we either had to postpone, or find some way for the parents to give us written confirmation besides via the permission note. One 7th grader texted her mom. I thought the 4-5th boys should just go today since they had their slips in, but Mr. D was pretty set on the 4th grade girls going today since they were so geared up for it. So, I caved and messaged the mom of the 5th grader who forgot her sheet. 

She and I got into a discussion on whether the videos were the old ones that had been previewed by both of us, or if with a new nurse there were new videos. Oops, I probably should've thought of that sooner. So I emailed the nurse. New videos, but no propaganda. And she assured me that she'd be keeping it to the hygiene and changing bodies (but wait until marriage for anything else). Whew. But now the mom and I are on a hunt for better puberty videos that are Christian based. There are a couple places I'm checking, but if you know of anything, give me a heads up!

The other speaker was in 7-8th grade, a friend of mine who's been to Africa. He had a poll involved in his presentation, which was neat. He had questions in his slideshow for the kids to answer anonymously, and it was interesting to hear what they said. It was also a way for him to hear their questions without getting overwhelmed by talking. The intro question was, "How old do you think I am?" Most guessed 35. Only one guessed right, 29. The other questions were to help them make connections between their lives and life in Africa. There was one other unrelated question though, "What is your favorite thing about Ms. H?" Some kids put "I don't know." Others wrote "no homework" or "kahoot", and a few put some actual nice things about me. One girl's answer didn't pop up, but she told me what she said. Something along the lines of, "She's the sweetest thing ever and is so nice and helpful..." The 5-6th graders were disappointed to miss such an exciting speaker, so I'm going to see if he'll do a mini-talk for them in May sometime. 

Egg Cars

Yesterday, I introduced a building experiment for the 5-6th graders: egg cars. They get a budget of $20 to 'buy' supplies to make their car. Then I have a list of supplies they can buy from me, things like paper, string, tape, balloons, straws, etc. I got the idea from a different teacher and I've only done it with one other class. Of course, could I find pictures/videos from that class to use as an example? No. Not until after my kids had left for the day. Oh well, I'll show them tomorrow. 

Today, they wanted to work on their car ideas. Who am I to stand in the way of students excited to learn? So I let them turn a Daily 5 round into an egg car experiment round. While they brainstormed, I did research to see if I could find other examples online. Turns out, I found a few other experiments that look fun too. One is to build a car powered by a balloon (see how far it can go... students get the same materials to build and/or they can build with whatever else they want), the other is to build a protective shield around an egg and then drop it from a high place to see if it cracks. 

My kids want to do them all. The only problem is, there are only 27 days of school left! But we're going to see what we can fit in. I think we can do it if they work on them during read-aloud and use a bit of Daily 5 time. We're going to try!

Can you believe it's already the end of the school year again???

PS- Mr. E told me one of the 7th graders wants to throw me a gigantic birthday party next week because "Miss H turned 30 in isolation last year! She was all alone and couldn't do anything, so we should do something awesome this year." (Last year my birthday was during the quarantine lockdowns and yes, I didn't go anywhere, but Pastor and Mrs. B sent me a lovely meal in a cooler so I didn't have to cook for myself.) 

Mr. E said if this student came up with a plan, they could do it. I'm not sure how I feel about such a fuss being made over me... we'll see if anything comes of her idea. Although, if any of the students were to pull it off, it would be her. Haha, I don't think Mr. E was supposed to tell me though!

Testing, Testing

My class did FAST testing today (our standardized testing). Since each of them has a device, we all did it at the same time instead of taking turns during rounds. That was nice actually. They took one test today and will take the other tomorrow. 

The 7-8th graders had a map test on Africa today. I had hoped it wouldn't take them long and we'd have time to finish talking about South Africa, but no, it took basically the whole hour. 50 countries is a lot! And then we discovered that I had left some countries off the word bank. Oops. But we figured it out. Now I just need to correct them...

Tonight after school I have to run to Mankato to pick up some 'work from home' papers from Habitat. The lady in charge said I didn't have to be in the office to get them done. Then, I have two webinars tonight, one for a teaching social studies forum and the other is from the Arboretum about making your garden butterfly and bird friendly. Should be interesting!

Reproduction

Day one teaching the reproduction to the 7-8th graders went better than expected. They handled it maturely and asked a lot of good questions. Normally, this body system would be the last one we tackle, but with the student teacher coming at the end of our body system unit, we all decided it would be better to do this one before she came. Less awkward that way. Some things would've made more sense if we had already learned about the execratory and digestive systems, but we'll get to those. 

After class, one of the girls asked me if we were finished with the tough stuff or if it gets worse. I was happy to tell her that the worst was over. Today focused on the parts of the reproductive system; Wednesday focuses on baby development in the womb. 

The 5-6th graders are making me a tad nervous. They have a writing project due Friday, but it seems like they're spending most of their work time on their WWII powerpoints that aren't due for another two weeks. Sigh. They always do this, wait until the last minute to get their project done. Actually, there is one boy working on his. One out of six. They do have a half an hour study hall time with Mr. E after math, so maybe they're working on it then. Time will tell!

Sticky Keys

Not much to report today. Same old, same old. 

We finished another read-aloud book and started our next one (the sequel to All Four Stars called The Stars of Summer). They were really focused while reading, so we read for longer and bumped our English game to the afternoon. We wrote Circular Stories on the computer and switched seats instead of papers. I was surprised how particular my kids are about their keyboards. They didn't like mine. They said the keys are sticky, especially the o. Huh. I don't notice. It is a loud keyboard though, that I do notice.

Bananas

The 5-6th graders did a lab today that involved Hot Wheel cars cruising down a wood rap to smash bananas at the bottom. We were testing potential and kinetic energy's association with weight and height. My kids had fun experimenting how much smashing they could do by increasing the angle of the board ramp... the answer is a lot. 

The cars didn't roll very straight (could be the cars or could be the boards are a little warped), so there were some bananas that didn't end up smashed. Joe must've been able to smell them (bananas are his favorite), so he impatiently hovered around his food bowl waiting for us to give him some. After the lab, we did, and he immediately chowed down. 

Some of the banana chunks were in pieces, and in his haste to scarf his treat, some got stuck on his nose. He tried shaking it off with mixed results. Then he used his front claw to knock it off. That worked after about five tries. Such a cutie. The bananas were gone in less than five minutes.

In other exciting news, one of the cotton seeds sprouted! It was a surprise in the middle of the day. This morning the container was plain brown dirt. This afternoon during the lab, a yellowish green sprout had popped up. It was surprisingly tall! We were all a bit shocked to see something appear so quickly. Hopefully more will come soon!

Joe

Yesterday was jam packed after school... Staff meeting, regular school to-dos, Arboretum webinar (this one was about growing fruit trees in MN... now I want even more plants...), then helping mom write her quilt pattern. In the rush to get home before the webinar started, I saved a draft of this post and promptly forgot to finish it when I got home. Oh well. So, here's what I wrote about yesterday:

Poor Joe got his face smacked... by me. He was really restless this afternoon, so we let him out to roam. My kids said I should write a note on the board so I wouldn't forget to return him to his tank after school. Good idea. 

After school, we had a staff meeting, so I opened the door to grab my teacher stuff and smacked Joe in the face. Oops. He was literally right in front of the door. I moved him over by my desk so the same thing wouldn't happen after my meeting, and when I came back an hour and a half later, he was chilling on the computer cords under my desk, aka his happy place.

...Now for today's update. Rain was in the forecast for the rest of the week, and we did get some rain both yesterday and today, however, a big chunk of the day was sunny. Of course, it was rainy when it was my class's turn to have recess, so we hung out in the gym. After school today I met my student teacher, Miss K. We went over the science/social studies topics to be covered during her two weeks at the end of April and she picked out which lessons she's going to teach. She was ready to dive right in! So she'll be teaching a lot of 5-6th grade physics, a few 5-6th MN history, and a bunch of 7-8th geography. 

It seems like she likes to challenge herself, which is good; she knows her strengths and weaknesses. This is her first official clinical at BLC. She said she did a clinical earlier (I'm guessing an observation one) where the teacher was gone and the sub didn't know the schedule, so she jumped in and taught everything. She's also the lead teacher at a daycare. So lots of good prior experience. 

I've had students in the past who've taken on a lot of lessons and have risen to the challenge, and I've had students who took on a lot but weren't able to keep up. I'm excited to see how she does!