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.