End of "I Love to Read", Start of Lutheran Schools Week

Singing and ringing yesterday was a little rough... nerves got in the way. An 8th grader accompanied the whole choir, she couldn't hear the kids singing and got lost. When she started over, Mrs. L couldn't tell where she was, and while she tried to figure out when to cue the kids, one of the preschool teachers cued them all to come in. So they did. It was a little rocky. Then in bells, some kids had their bells switched around. Not our finest moment. Not the worst either. It still sounded decent and you could only tell they messed up because of the looks on their faces. 

We started LSW (can't call it National because we're celebrating it at a different time) with devotions in the morning. Each teacher takes a different day. I volunteered to be first for the selfish reason that no one could compare me to other teachers; I could set the tone. Mrs. E talked about the book fair and Mrs. L gave an update on our reading goal. We were still 1,500 short of our 30,000 goal. 

My kids were NOT about to lose out on a popcorn party, so they read up a storm the rest of the morning. Some had been hoarding pages and hadn't turned in any sheets. We read for 10 minutes after devotions, and during our rounds a bunch read graphic novels to boost their numbers. Our class ended up being the top reading class in the whole school with an average of over 1000 pages/minutes per student! Surprisingly, only two of them were in the top five pages read group.

Our day ended with a popcorn party in the gym. A mom sold concessions if kids wanted to buy something extra. Mr. E read the battle of the books winner, The Legend of Rock, Paper, Scissors. Then we did the basketball shootout between my class and the teachers. We teachers did waaaay better than expected. Results from the first two minutes: tied. Add another minute to the clock. Tied again! One more minute added... We lost big time. They had more stamina. Still, for us to hold out for a double overtime is pretty good.

The final event was for the top reader to pie a teacher in the face. In preparation, I collected science goggles, a lab apron, and a bandana to protect as much as possible. I also made the whipped topping pie. One of my 6th graders was the top reader with a whopping 3,754 pages this month. She picked Miss F, a preschool teacher. That was kind of a surprise because this student had been talking a big game about picking Mr. E since she hates math so much (she later said she didn't want her grade to be docked if she had picked him). All in all a fun end of the month and a fun kickoff to the week!

Missing: Joe

Wow. My class pet is such a little turkey. I just spent a half an hour, on and off, looking for him. He's been scratchy today, so we've let him roam. (Or prowl, if we want to use the Word of the Week). My kids forgot to put him away at the end of the day and thankfully I heard a bit of his scratching. He wasn't in the usual places. I thought about leaving him and putting a note on the door "Joe is loose" in case the janitor came in to clean, but I did one last sweep around the room. He was underneath a set of drawers under the lab table that only have access through the back side. I shouldn't be surprised; Joe hid there one other time.

Other things of note today: we registered for the Fine Arts Fair just before the deadline. That was a bit of a situation because neither Mrs. L nor I asked the 3-4th graders what they were officially doing. Last I remember, Mrs. L was going to talk to them since she does their music. She did briefly bring it up with the kids to get them thinking, but their teacher likes to plan that with them, so she was going to let Mr. D do it. Except neither of us told him to do it. The deadline snuck up on us, and we had to put something down. Thankfully, the piano kids are doing piano and we know who those kids are. And Mrs. L remembered most of the non-piano kids' preferences. She's going to talk to Mr. D Monday and we'll see if we need to switch anything around. At least their names are in the system. I would be surprised if the FAF coordinator makes a schedule over the weekend. 

My prayer partner is sneaky... he or she put a little tin of salted almonds in my mailbox in the office. The handwriting on the top is not familiar, so my partner must've enlisted help in trickery. Monday is the grand reveal! I wonder if anyone will be surprised...

Frindle

The word 'frindle' has taken my class by storm. Uncoincidentally, our latest read-aloud book is Frindle by Andrew Clements. For those who haven't read the book, a boy invents a new word for pen (frindle), and convinces his friends to only use that word from now on. Their English teacher doesn't like it, so it turns into a huge thing resulting in the entire nation learning and using the word. My kids decided they'd join the frindle movement and even wrote a contract. The whole class signed it; it's hanging on the back of our classroom door. So we don't use pens anymore. We use frindles. 

They tested the word with the piano teacher (she knew the word), Mrs. L (she knew it too), and Mr. E (he didn't know it). That was two days ago. So far the hype continues. They even came up with a 'new' word for pencil, "pringle". Since that's already a word of something, I say it doesn't count. They didn't make a contract over that word.

A prayer partner left her partner an actual Frindle. The pen was taped to the inside top of her desk. It's a regular pen with "frindle" written on it in the actual font of the book title. My class tried to deduce how the person could've gotten the frindle here in time since we only began the book Tuesday. I have a theory. One 6th grader and her mom are super handy with a cricut, the little machine that cuts out letters for crafty things. I could see them printing it out to stick on a pen. That would explain how it arrived so fast! 

The other big hullaballoo today was a big splat of ink spilling on the carpet. I have no clue how the 5th grader had so much ink available to spill, but she did. Right in the middle of the floor. Probably messing around with her frindle. Thankfully, I have some experience getting ink out of things... We dumped rubbing alcohol on the spot and laid paper towels on it, weighing it down with the rubbing alcohol bottle. We'd periodically check it and move the towel or add more rubbing alcohol over the course of the day, and I think the crisis is finally averted. Whew. Not sure ink will come out in the annual summer carpet shampooing. 

House update: The USDA is finally going to lock in my loan! The agent is examining my papers as I write. She has everything she needs and will hopefully have everything wrapped up by tomorrow. Thank you Lord! Still no physical updates on the building itself. Maybe things will move faster now...

101 Week

As part of the 5-6th grade unit on the beginning of America/our government, I'm having my kids turn our classroom into a 'school' or 'country'. It's a project I did when I was in 5-6th grade and LOVED it. My kids are not enjoying it as much as I did. The girls are getting on each other's nerves. They need some time apart. Or outside recess. Too bad it's frigid outside again. 

The Holiday group has a grand scheme... They want to win the class that reads the most in February so they can have a shootout vs the teachers. So, if everyone in the class reads 101 pages/minutes by Monday (and pays $0.75 as a class tax), they get a surprise treat (ice cream bars purchased with the taxes). This group really didn't understand the spirit of a 'holiday', but the idea is creative. 

Nonsnow Day

We definitely didn't get as much snow as everyone expected, but it's blowing around and made the roads not great. Mr. E thought we should've gone home early. He even called the superintendent. No go. We toughed it out. Two families took their kids home early. Oddly enough, all the boys in my class went home. We were girls only this afternoon! Tomorrow is supposed to be windy as well, so my kids are again expecting a snow day. I'm not so optimistic, although I did remind them to bring a book home, just in case.

When does spring come again? I'm ready for warm weather.

My class is finally adjusting our spelling start/stop dates. They don't like how many things are due on Friday, so we're shifting the week around to make it easier. Now, we start spelling on Wednesdays, turn in workbook pages on Mondays, and take spelling tests Tuesdays. We'll see how it goes! I will probably forget the most, since I've been doing spelling the other way for soooo many years. 

Low for the day: finding out THREE 6-8th graders won't be at the Fine Arts Fair. They have a wedding that day. Bleh, that put me in a bad mood the whole morning. The FAF is in three weeks! The song we're playing is really hard! We need all the players we can get! Sigh. 

High of the day: I think I switched enough things around to make it work. I pulled a few kids off the optional parts, shuffled the big kids to the lower bells, and gave a few kids an extra bell. It actually didn't sound too bad today. Plus we were missing a student (one who will be there that day). We play bells on Sunday, a song that already sounds pretty good. Just one more practice for that performance. I need to remember to set things up on Wednesday so we're ready to go Thursday...

Prayer Partners

First week of prayer partners was a success. I left my partner an earring/necklace set in her desk before she got to school. She doesn't know it's me... I think. Three kids forgot to bring presents this week. That means two next week. I hope they remember. One of the 6th graders said, "It is way more fun to give your prayer partner something than to get anything. You can see their reaction and see how much they like it... so much better." Great lesson to learn!

My prayer partner hid a box of Chicken in a Biscuit crackers in my podium. It's one of my favorite school snacks, and I can actually eat them now that Whole 30 is officially over. I haven't cracked them open yet. I had a huge breakfast and lunch, so I haven't been hungry. After school, I'm headed to a Trivia Weekend where I've been told "come hungry, cuz there's a ton of food." 

This Saturday is free admission to all MN state parks. If you're close to one, go check it out! G and I are going to poke around Minneopa tomorrow, if the weather cooperates. It was supposed to be in the 40s, but the forecast shifted and now the highs are in the 30s with a -17 wind chill. Today is gusty as well... 50mph winds at times. Earlier this afternoon we had a few small flurries and even heard thunder! Strange weather...

Research

Class with the 7-8th graders went surprisingly well! Before class, I had partners written up on the board. Two groups said they were together last time, so I swapped two of them and they were content with that. Three students were out sick (just one tuned in via Teams), so the people without present group members tried to convince me to shuffle their groups so they could be together... and conveniently NOT be partners with the girls. I thought about it for two seconds until I realized one boy would be stuck with a girl and it wouldn't be fair to him. So I told them to tough it out. Besides, today was a research-focused day anyway. 

I also read through the spring musical checking for typos and solidifying the cast. There are so many sound effects that have to be played at just the right moment. I think we're going to turn that into a part for a student, that way we can practice without snitching Mr. D away from his class. He can still run the mics/projector, but the music will be one less thing on his plate. Mrs. L will look over the script one last time and then I'll print it and show it to my kids. Man, I can't believe March is in two weeks! Only 3.5 months of school left! Wowza.

Teaching with Technology

A few weeks ago I watched a webinar about how to flip a classroom. That means, the kids learn at their own pace by watching a video of the lesson at home/school and applying what they learned via project/etc at school where they can ask questions. I've always wanted to do something like that with my science and social studies classes, and ever since the webinar, the thought has rattled around my head. The problem is, it takes a lot of planning and prep, plus I have to teach myself how to use the programs to turn everything video/online. My mind puts up the roadblock that there are too many things to do to prep for it and I don't have time to do it (*ahem* I don't want to take the time to do it because it will cut into the little free time I have).

But I signed up for the email list anyway. 

This week they've sent short videos of quick how-to-apply-tech-teaching-in-your-classroom-to-change-the-way-you-teach-to-make-it-even-more-engaging-for-your-students. This is what I need. The 7-8th graders have been hot and cold all week. Super engaged in the lesson one day and super NOT the next. Tomorrow's history lesson is one of those times it could go either way. So. Perfect time to put it into action. 

Today's video topic was choice boards. Give kids an option in how they learn, what they learn, or how they show off their learned knowledge. Tomorrow the 7-8th graders dig deep into daily life of the medieval social classes in Europe. Pick a project works perfectly! Better yet, they gave me a choice board template I can share with my students so they can click the links and get started. I don't have to reinvent the wheel!!!

In the doc I share with my students, the links take them to the program websites where they create their projects based on what they learn. I love it! ...I hope it goes as well as I think it will...

Theater

Today's schedule was all mixed around... We went to a play at Nicollet put on by the MSU students. After we got back to school my kids wanted to analyze the play and talk about what they liked and didn't like. The 7-8th graders too! We started class with an analysis. Overall thoughts, not one of their better performances. They didn't use mics, so it was hard to hear. It was super short, about 20min, normally an hour. The play had a TON of plot holes, although there wasn't much plot to begin with... Good things: the dancing was excellent. All of them were in sync, had great rhythms, and it looked cool. Their singing sounded decent, also very in sync (lyrics-wise, they didn't have much to work with with the songs). 

We got back to school earlier than anticipated, so we did a few rounds. Lunch was later than anticipated, so we did recess beforehand and bumped math 15min later. Bell practice was okay. I had to kick a kid out for throwing a pencil across the room (he tried to eat one of my class plants during social studies just before that... yikes). And the rest of the day was pretty typical after that. 

Tonight: bible study!

Whole 30 update: Yesterday I could add gluten back, so I had G over for supper. We had bruschetta on fresh bread (so tasty!). Then I made noodles from scratch (surprisingly easy) and he handled the sauce. 

Tournament Update

My classroom was in perfect order this morning when I got to school. You'd hardly know it had been a locker room two days prior. Well, except for the abandoned gatorade bottle just outside the door. My kids played hard and the boys won the consolation bracket and the girls got 2nd place! The team they played for championship is undefeated Lakefield. It was a hearty loss... my kids said our team only had four points or so. Yikes. 

Valentine's Day at school on a Monday is always an adventure. For our class party we had extra read aloud time and passed out treats. My 6th grade artist painted a blue dwarf star on a square canvas. Last week during our review, her classmates asked her to paint it since they look so pretty. She actually did! She had it propped up on a book easel in the front of the room. It looks just like the picture from class. Other treats: I shared peanut brittle with my kids. There was the usual candy. The same painting girl made all the girls in class (and me) earrings. Another gave mini heart boxes of chocolate. The PTL gave us teachers fancy cupcakes. More things for me to tuck away for just one week! 

Today I get to add back gluten, so I'm making homemade pasta and bread for supper (with other things too, of course). So far, I haven't had too much trouble adding food back into my diet. Peanuts were the worst. Everything else felt normal. 

Tournament Time!

Holy cow the distracting voice ran rampant through my students today... of course, it's an early out and it's tournament weekend, so no surprise.

My classroom got moved into tournament position pretty quickly, before we let out of school even. The kids had ideas of where to put things, and since our girls are using my classroom as a dressing room, we felt more comfortable leaving things out. 

The pep fest was over the top as usual. It's crazy how in-to it the parents get for a middle school basketball tournament. But the kids had fun. The teams broke through a poster to run into the gym, classrooms did cheers, and the basketball players played a relay race with a hula hoop. 

After school, I corrected papers while supervising the kids who's parents set up for the tournament. Normally there's not a specific place for them and they run rampant around the school. This time I volunteered to host them in my room so we'd have a place to direct all rampant children. It's a good thing we did that! It kept the chaos to a minimum. I was able to get all my plans ready for next week and most of my papers corrected. 

So far the girl's team is winning. The boys play after! 

Class Color Day

My class always gets the short end of the stick in picking colors. For whatever reason, they do our room last so we end up with no choice in colors. The 8th grader always asks, "Okay, what color do you want?" And then says "Nope, already taken," for every choice my kids bring up. Wouldn't it be better to say what colors are actually available? Our colors are gray and pink. Brown was another option. I wore pink pants, gray shirt/sweater, and a pink scarf, just to be a little out of the ordinary. My kids were like, "Oh big surprise, you're wearing a scarf again. Have we ever seen you without a scarf?" It's just too cold in winter to go without one!

As depressing as yesterday was, today was the opposite. My kids remembered all sorts of stuff we've learned over the past weeks. They were productive with their morning time and problem-solved schedule changes in the morning. And they were quick to volunteer to run errands. The 7-8th graders were focused in class today and asked a bunch of questions, plus the stuff we learned easily tied into stuff we learned in past units, which they remembered! And we finished five minutes early. 

Bells went so much better today than Tuesday. I figured out we've been playing our Fine Arts Fair song waaaaay too slow, which is why it didn't sound like anything. We had to double our current speed. One student asked if we could play a metronome to help us stay in rhythm... awesome idea. A quick Google search and there we were. My players were able to up the tempo! Plus we fixed the books so the page turn is easier. The song is still rough, but we've made leaps and bounds progress from Tuesday.  February's song is in good shape too. I'm a little nervous about the March piece because of the running 8th notes. I wanted to practice that today too, but some didn't have parts highlighted, so we ended practice with highlighting. Next time!

Another high from today was the 5-6th brainstorming after our morning devotion. We're doing the Red Letter Challenge and today's challenge was to pick a person to pray for for the rest of the challenge and leave little gifts for them every once in a while. Well, you might have guessed my kids wanted to do that. So we did! We picked prayer partners for the rest of February (Even me!) and will leave a little treat in our partner's desk once a week. They wanted to do new ones each month for the rest of the year, but the 6th grader who brought it up had a better idea, "Actually, we should do this month first and see how we like it." I love it because that's usually what I say to them. They are learning things after all! 😁

Our day ended bittersweetly. We finished our exploration of space today with a science test. In the middle of the test one of them looked up, wide-eyed. "Wait Miss H, does this mean that we're done learning about space?" I nodded. More heads popped up. "What?! We are! But I don't want to be!" Another, "Yeah, this stuff sticks in my head way easier." Another, "Me too. It feels like we've been learning about it forever and then not very long!" Our next science topic is biomes, which, they probably won't get into as much as space, but they do get to make another powerpoint, so they'll be happy about that.

Career Day

Great high and horrible low today...

I had THE worst science class I've taught in years with the 7-8th graders. Ugh. The plan: three stations they'd finish in a half an hour; one lab I would supervise, one they'd do on their own (or I'd pop back and forth between), and an independent activity about wind/ocean currents. On paper, a great plan. Reality, not so much. 

First, they were fired up from unnecessary roughness at recess. Then, they didn't like the groups I picked. Thus, the experiment began with bad attitudes. Then the instructions of the tricky lab weren't super clear, so it didn't work right and nothing happened. And since I'd done it in the past, I hadn't tested it ahead of time (ugh, huge mistake there), so I was trying to figure out what the problem was, bouncing back and forth between all three groups and everyone was annoyed. Including me. 

Eventually, I gave up and just had them all come over to one station and we did it together. Then we did a revamped version of the other one. Ugh. They were all still pouty and whiny, but at least they got the main concept of the lab. Salty water sinks, fresh floats. In between goes in between. I wrote a bunch of notes about the lab so it won't happen next time. 

Now for a positive: It's spirit week before our home basketball tournament, and today's dress up day was Career Day (Monday was PJ Day, Tuesday was Jersey Day... I wore my Croatia soccer jersey). A ton of kids dressed up as teachers! My favorite was a 1st grade boy who came to school in glasses and a scarf to be a teacher "just like Miss H!" Cue melting heart. His mom is a teacher too, and she was super confused why he had to wear glasses and a scarf to be a teacher. Mrs. L told her, "He's modeling Miss H; she always wears scarves and glasses to school." (My computer glasses to be exact). My other favorite career is the 5th grader in my class who came as a dad. He wore a baby carrier with a baby doll in it. Such a great idea!

Phases of the Moon

The 5-6th graders taught the kindergarteners the phases of the moon with oreos. It was a huge hit, not just because of the sweet treats. We're at the end of our space unit, so it was the perfect time to refresh their memories. What better way to study than to teach it to someone else? Even better the kindergartners are just starting space exploration. The main point hammered over and over is that waxing moons are lit on the right, and waning moons are on the left. 

After school, I had a dentist appointment. This is only the second dentist's office I've ever been to. Most things were the same, but it was just different enough to make me uncomfortable. They went over all my records with me and then I waited for the dentist. For 45 minutes. I thought they forgot about me. Then I wondered if they were even going to get to the teeth cleaning part of the visit... they did, eventually. So my dentist appointment took two hours. The good news is they were quite thorough with the cleaning, and I don't have any cavities or anything wrong with my teeth. Bad news: I was late to bible study.

Coleslaw

Those who know me well know that coleslaw (traditional coleslaw) is one of my least favorite foods. I avoid it at all costs... I guess my students know me well.

As I heated my lunch in the microwave, the 7-8th graders trucked through the lunch line. An 8th grader poked his head around the corner and said excitedly, "Are we having coleslaw for lunch?! Quick, spoon that up and give Miss H a big ol' scoop! It's her favorite." 

Then he shot me a big ol' grin, waiting for me to fuss. What a stinker!

Blustery

Holy cow it's windy outside! Visibility is not great because of the light snow that dusted us this morning. Hopefully I will leave school soon. For once, I don't have plans tonight, so I'm looking forward to reading a book (unless I decide to be productive and do dishes/laundry/correct papers/lesson plan). Don't fret, the rest of my weekend more than makes up for my mild Friday night (in case you suddenly thought my jam-planning nature had suddenly disappeared). Watching two basketball games tomorrow, supper out, heading to Fulda, church in Fulda, and celebrating my mom's birthday are on the agenda for Saturday and Sunday.

Whole 30 update: I finished my 30 days of plain eating and have moved on to reintroduction. Saturday I can add back non-grain legumes such as peanut butter and beans. I can eat everything on the 17th. A student gave me a donut today which has tempted me from the corner of my desk. I'll add that to my freezer to enjoy later. 

House update: nothing to report. No news from the USDA on my loan status nor from Habitat about next steps. 

Blowup

Holy cow my kids were at each others' throats today! Tempers were running high and hot. Three of them yelled at each other over the course of the day (over little things, like someone was too bossy in what they were saying or someone always gets kicked off the couch). Ugh! 

We had to have a class discussion about couch rules. Our end results: helper of the day gets first dibs on the couch; if you haven't had a turn, you get next choice; you can't sit on the couch two times in a row. They wanted to add more rules, but I said we should live with these for a week and then reassess. 

I was not the 7-8th graders' favorite person today. First I gave them the news they had to count picture books read in MINUTES not pages. That completely wrecked their grand plans of reading the same book over and over again for mega pages. Then, it was discovered that the orange spelling group needed to write sentences this week instead of definitions. One out of four remembered/checked those instructions. So three had to re-do the assignment. One 8th grader said, very politely, "Please Miss H, leave our classroom before you tell us anymore bad news."

One nice thing from today: the 7-8th graders have been on a mission to find books to read so they can win the I Love to Read Month class challenge (so they can have a shootout vs teachers). They noticed I have more shelf space, so they decided to make a display of their favorite books. The boy who did it moved a shelf of books down, "so it will be more at eye level, then it's more eye-catching!" It actually inspired some of my kids to pick out some of those books!

Messy

My desk is getting cleaner, but my lesson plan clipboard is getting messier. This week I've been doing great at getting things done! Five things were added to the list after our staff meeting yesterday and already today all five are crossed off! Same for the other things I had slated for after school this week. Strange, but nice. 

One thing that's not on my list but should be is to type the spring musical. We have it in book form, but that's not easy for students to use. I have the first two scenes typed, which is not that much. I need a solid chunk of uninterrupted time to do it. Maybe someday. 

In other news, I rearranged the front bookshelf that holds my nonfiction books and textbooks. The textbooks I never use are put away. That leaves room for my "don't judge a book by its cover" books. My class library used to house a bunch of books where the back description sounds great and the cover is outdated. No one read them. My summer brainstorm was to spray-paint the covers so now you CAN'T judge them. Have to read the back. I color-coded by genre. So, we have four tubs of books with no covers. And two more crates of books yet to be painted in the closet. Now the question is, do I reserve the space for them? Or shuffle my other books around. Time will tell...

Parachute

My kids found a parachute in the gym at afternoon recess. Mr. E used it for the previous class's PE and asked my kids to put it away. They were happy to do so... after playing with it first. They even roped me into it. Man that brought back memories! We did the wave shaking thing. Then we raised it up as high as we could go, then quickly brought it to the ground as we ducked inside the cave/tent. It was fun, but static galore!