14

My students have pretty much wrapped up their pinata-making. I finally hung them up and cut a hole to insert candy. I'll wait to put the candy in right before we smash them, just in case. It took a surprising amount of effort to stick the string through them. Both Miss K and I had to work on the pickle. Turned out the balloon blocked the hole on the other side. But we got it eventually!

It's teacher appreciation week. Yesterday a student gave me a giant cupcake on behalf of PTL. Today I got a hollow chocolate apple. A different student brought me a pot of flowers with a little note saying "Thank you for helping me GROW!!!" So cute. And the flowers are bright and pretty, just the way I like them! Now I need to decide if I'm going to keep it at school or at home...

We didn't get a chance to practice our English skit today. Our balloon prize was read-aloud all morning. My thought had been to practice in the afternoon, but I forgot today was a PE day, so we didn't have time. Oh well. We'll practice tomorrow and hopefully film it. I plan to film the 7-8th graders playing tone chimes tomorrow too. I had wanted to do it today, but the girls said we shouldn't film on a PE day since they wear athletic clothes that day. Some of them want to dress up.

Speaking of filming, we teachers came up with a plan for filming our part of the Talent Show. We're going to shoot our little bits after school Thursday. I talked to our cook and our piano teacher about being in it. Our cook is still thinking; the piano teacher is in. She left me a note in my mailbox, "Emily, I'm good Wed/Thur after school to 'do our thing'- text and let me know" ...very clandestine. (I told her it was a secret from the kids). Quick refresher on our 'talents': I'm going to hula hoop badly, Mrs. L will juggle (she can't), Mrs. E is going to play piano (she's actually going to be good), Mr. D will make balloon animals dressed as Batman (his trademark costume for Variety Night). Miss F said she is the magic opener of glue sticks for her preschoolers and they are just in awe of her, so she's going to open things. I thought one of us could walk past with a pickle jar or something we can't get open and then she'll say her magic words and open it easily. Mr. E is our judge (not impressed with any of our talents). 

Mrs. O (piano teacher) is going to play a beautiful piano piece, but Mr. E will cut her off, "We already know you can play piano! What else do you got?"

"Uh, I can draw?" She's going to draw on the whiteboard or something. 

Mr. E, "Hmm, I think you better stick to piano."

Ba dun ching!

I can't wait for everyone to see it!