Painting

8th grade questioning is this Sunday. I'm not going to be there, but I did get invited to an 8th grader's confirmation open house, which I am going to. I'm painting his confirmation verse on a canvas. That's been my go-to gift for confirmands thus far. But all the other ones have been girls. Since he's a farm kid, I decided to do a field/open sky/tractor with the verse written in the sky. It's going okay. I wanted the sky to be light to see the verse better, but that means the tractor has to be colored and not just a silhouette. His family's tractor colors are green... 

Bring a Friend to School Day Round 2

BAFTSD #2 went great. I had one visitor in my class. She fit right in! They were a little goofy and showed off for her, but after a while the class settled down. This girl wants to come back tomorrow. Fine with me! We're hoping she'll transfer to our school next year, so any extra time with her at our school is good. 

I feel so accomplished today... all the books behind my desk are finally cleared out!!! I powered through and added them to my book cataloguing app. New books are spread out on the white table for book commercials tomorrow and duplicates are in a tub now stored in the shed. There's so much space behind me! 

Next is the empty crate to fill with picture books to move into a rotation. I already have two or three crates of picture books in the closet we swap halfway through the year. But my kids were complaining the picture book shelves are too full, so this is the perfect time to weed.

High of the day: getting those books sorted. Low: one of my youngest brother's classmates died in a car accident last night.

Sock Snake

At afternoon recess, I was invited by two 6th grade girls to play "Sock Snake", a game they invented a few weeks ago. It's a basketball game, basically the same as regular Snake, except you play in sock feet so you can slide, the ball can bounce three times instead of just twice, and you can shoot at whichever basketball hoop is closer/you feel like aiming at. It was pretty fun. 

One of my kids' high for today was something that's happening later this week, which inspired me to have a future event be my high as well: Dollar Bag Day. The best day of the year for the Heintz sisters. Of course, my kids wanted more details. So I shared all the joys of Dollar Bag Day with them. I happened to be wearing a dress found at a previous $ Bag Day, plus I pointed out a bunch of other things in our classroom acquired from the mega sale. They were impressed, specifically that you can get so many cool things for just $3. 

My class is big into money. They have their own snack/toy economy going in the classroom and on the bus. A few kids buy big boxes of snacks and sell portions to their classmates. Another girl brought a bunch of her old fidgets and small toys to school with garage sale price tags. Money is changing hands left and right! It's crazy how many of them have little stashes of money tucked away in their desks and backpacks. Not a lot, just enough to buy these treats.

Six Words

Have you heard of six word memoirs? You try to condense a topic down to six words. It could be your life, a topic, how you currently feel... anything. I tested it with my kids today. It took a while for them to catch on, so I showed them a few examples. 

It took a while to sink in, but when it did, my kids were shocked. "Gasp! That's horrible! Oh wow. That's so sad!" All except one who had a different perspective, "What if the kid had big feet though?!" True. 😂This kid is such a ray of sunshine. Every morning he enters the room with a huge grin and a, "Goooood morning Miss H!" 

My two six word memoirs: Plants, tea, books: my perfect day. Loyal friend, endless adventures, countless memories.

Let There Be Light

Science with the 5-6th graders today was a blast. We began our final unit in science: Light and Sound. They had some great questions and we ended up down a rabbit hole (but not too far, it was still light-related). That was my high for the day.

Bells went super well too, playing-wise. Last night's song was probably the best we've played it. My off-beat ringer played his notes exactly when he was supposed to. The kids' songs sounded pretty too. G came in time for church and he sat next to me right in front of the bells. The funny thing is, only a few of them recognized he was there! One 8th grader asked (completely innocently for once), "Who was that guy sitting next to you last night Miss H?" Others were confused, "Someone sat next to Miss H? I didn't see anyone." When I told them who he was, a 7th grader said, "What?! I missed it again! I've been wanting to see him and every time I miss it. Ugh!" They must've been so focused on me they completely looked over him; he was right under their noses, literally two pews in front of them! 

Time with the one-day student teacher went just fine. She was pretty quiet all morning and she looked a little bored during my kids' work times. I tried to get her involved with them when I could. She helped one student with a math redo and played a word work game with half the class. It's hard when she was only in our room for one day. My reading lesson went all right. Nothing super spectacular, but not a failure either.

House update: The windows have arrived! The guys start installation tomorrow! I'm having another 7:15am phone call to go over financial information before the Saturday deadline to sign papers. This call should have more answers than the last call we did.

Sing and Ring

Can you believe it, I got stuck in a traffic jam this morning? TWO cars ahead of me had to turn left shortly before my turnoff. There's always a long line of cars on highway 14 in the morning, but today was especially bad because of the wet, sticky snow. People drove slow and caught up to each other not leaving enough space for cars to turn. Thankfully, a kind pickup driver coming from the opposite direction stopped to let one of the cars through. Then we sat for another five minutes until a semi driver did the same thing. If he hadn't, we'd probably still be sitting there! The line of cars went on and on and on.

My kids sing and ring at the Lenten service tonight. We're... basically ready. The singing songs have made a drastic improvement over Tuesday. On Tuesday, my kids hardly knew which song we were singing ("What Wondrous Love is This" and "Above All"). The bell songs are decent. There are still measures they don't play the same speed and it sounds garbled, but I don't think anyone in the audience will be able to tell. 

We braved the snow after PE to do one last run-through, all of the 3-8th graders. My choir plays during offering, so we practiced sitting in the pews then coming up front when I stood up. The 3-5th graders play after the final hymn (they're doing the Doxology), so they practiced the same way. I had them put their tone chimes and books on the floor underneath the bell tables so they're not in the way for my kids' playing. 

We have a one-day student teacher tomorrow. Originally she thought she had to teach a lesson, but she is actually supposed to observe and record a literature lesson to analyze for an assignment. So I'm teaching reading tomorrow and getting recorded. I don't like being recorded and analyzed. I know I'm not a perfect teacher, especially in reading, especially for the purpose of being analyzed by a future teacher. So that was my low for today. My kids were so empathetic. One girl said, "Just remember Miss H, you are really good at teaching us stuff, so don't worry about being videoed." I'm still not looking forward to the video part, but I am looking forward to our guest. 🙂

Biomes

My kids presented their biome projects today. A few were missing pieces, but I let them fix it before I gave them an official grade. Some had done the research and forgot to put it in their project, so they could just add it in verbally. 

This time I gave them the option to do something besides a PowerPoint. I had two groups still do a PowerPoint, two make poster/graphics on Canva, and one make a podcast (and a cake and some 3D printed objects from their biome). You can listen to their podcast here. 

The best part of the presentations today was when the desert group taught about stuff to bring to the desert. "You should bring stuff like clothes, shoes, food, something to drink..." A classmate chimed in, "house, home..." Another added, "land, animals..." Everyone else kept going, "money, goods... You should probably bring a devout husband or wife, good friends, faithful neighbors. Oh how about  good government? Yep, definitely need to bring that along!"(part of Luther's Small Catechism that was memory work a few weeks ago). Glad the memory work stuck in their heads!

Bugs and Bookmarks

Or, insects rather. My 5-6th graders practiced observing, comparing, inferring, and predicting with plastic insects. They each wanted their own, so I stuck a bunch in my lunchbox and made them reach in and pull one out. It grossed them out, but they loved it. 

The 6-8th graders ran through the first half of the musical today. It went much better than the first time, not that the first time was bad. Smoother reading this time, more voice inflection. Also, more silliness. The 4th grade sidekick-to-the-villain came for the last five minutes to read his scene (his teacher forgot to send him sooner), and the 5th grade sound guy practiced his part (he was a little late too, but he jumped right in). 

After school a parent shared two funny stories with me. She and her son had been watching a movie this weekend, but she kept needing to pause it. A few times of doing that, the next time she reached for the remote he said, "Ugh, this feels like read-aloud! Like every time Miss H reaches for the bookmark to leave us on a cliff-hanger!" 

Later, he randomly asked her, "Mom, can you raise one eyebrow?"
"No."
"Miss H can. But it's usually only when we're doing things we're not supposed to be doing."
It's official: I have a 'teacher look'. My life is complete now. 😂

Habitat update: I had a phone call with the financial person from Habitat this morning before school. She hasn't had time to look at the USDA paperwork yet, but she plans to make my case a priority before she leaves on vacation next week. First step: she's going to ask the USDA why my loan amount went up so much. She was surprised because I haven't done anything different with my finances since the last time they approved my loan. I have been trying to save as much as possible. If the huge loan increase is because I've saved a lot, she'll see if there's anything we can do so I'm not penalized for saving money. So. I'll get updates as she finds things out. In other news, the new Habitat liaison put in her notice; she's done Friday. If another person is hired for the position before my house is finished, that will be #4. Uffdah. 

Free Time

The best part of the day was reading through the musical script with the 6-8th graders. My grin grew wider each time someone spoke. They all read with expression and played their parts perfectly. And they're excited to begin acting stuff out next week. It's going to be so good! 

This week has felt like eternity. The combo of Fine Arts Fair Saturday and Daylight Savings Time Sunday (plus a crazy-busy week both weeks before that) had to have some affect. Last night was the first night I didn't have anything going on after school in... I can't remember. It was so nice. I actually read a book! 

This weekend should be more relaxing than the past few. I'm Fulda bound! As an added plus, my lessons are planned and my papers are already corrected. No homework! Well, I suppose I do have homework of a sort: maid-of-honor duties. My bridesmaid dress needs hemming and I need to send out invites to the bachelorette party. Not too much hassle.

St. Patrick's Day

Most people wore green to school today, and those that didn't were unmercifully pinched by the stalwart St. Patty's Day followers. I actually remembered for once and wore a green shirt, sweater, and scarf. Plenty of green for me. 

Our fundraiser last night went fantastic! We served about 70 people and raised about $300! That's the most money we've ever raised in a single class fundraiser! Wow! Leftovers got spread around a few places... I got to take some egg bake home and the kids had leftover grapes for snack today. The few leftover muffins went to the school breakfast cart. 

Next Wednesday we sing and play bells for the Lenten service. It's a quick turn around time for the bells, but we've been practicing this song for a while. Today we polished up a few rough spots and it's sounding pretty good. One more practice until we perform. We didn't have enough time to run through the last section of musical script, so we'll do that tomorrow.

After school I spent my time mapping out the rest of the school year. Not too many days left, about two months total, and fewer instruction days remaining once you take out field trip days. If I stick to the schedule, I'll have just enough time to fit everything in for science and social studies. 

Next Thursday my class has a student teacher coming in for the day to teach a reading lesson. Then in April/early May, we get another student teacher for social studies for a few weeks. My kids are very excited to have some new faces around here!

Lenten Supper

Tonight is the class fundraiser! We are 90% ready. We just need to pop the garlic bread into the oven. Serving starts at 5:30, but some people come at 5:15. 

I have four kiddos staying after school and they're a little restless. They worked in my room for a bit, then bopped to Mr. E's, then back to mine, back to his, back to mine... I just agreed to a three minute bouncy house brain break and then we're moving the party to church.

My big accomplishments (besides setting up for supper) were to get sign-in sheets made for the joint baby shower for Mrs. L and Miss M (a preschool helper) and connect with the IT guy about the projector not working. He claimed he knew nothing about it. I sent him a screenshot of my text message back on February 23rd. After that he gave me some ideas, most of which I had tried, and one I hadn't: clean the board with whiteboard spray. 

It worked! I guess my kids' fingers were stickier than I thought... the board was pretty dirty. Unfortunately, I tried recalibrating the board and it made the interactiveness way off. So it works, but your finger moves things three feet away from where you're touching. He doesn't remember how he got that fixed last time, so he's doing research. Hopefully he gets back to me sooner than last time. He also promised two spotlights for the spring musical, plus at least six microphones for my main speakers. Woohoo!

Caught Up

Today was a power-through kind of day. I have one assignment to correct and then I am caught up on paper correcting from before I left for Arizona. I also caught up on prepping my lessons for this week, and I caught up on paperwork at home and at school. It's a good feeling!

I had latchkey duty after school. Seven busy bodies kept me company for about two hours. This is a different crew than last week's since I swapped days after getting back from my trip. Some of these kids switched activities every 10 minutes or so, with the exception of the fort builders. Such a good idea to buy two sets of those. They're simple kits: green and blue balls with holes in them for long blue sticks. They make cubes and igloos and whatever else they can put their minds to. It's nice to have something different than what's normally on the cart. I'd imagine the kids who come every day would get kind of bored. 

My prayer partner left me a present this morning. It was a cute little box about an inch and a half on each side. She had it wrapped in small, colorful rubber bands that took forever to get off, but it looked super fancy and festive. I figured out who my partner was because of those rubber bands. One student has made bracelets with the rubber bands all this week; she has a giant kit she brings to school every day. Inside the box was a silver necklace of a tree in a circle. Pretty! 

Bakin'

Prepping food for our Lenten meal went quite quickly today! I have a lot of students with kitchen skills, so they were raring to go. I had kids chopping onions, mushrooms, and green peppers. Two cracked all 8doz eggs. One floated and did off jobs. I mixed ingredients and told everyone what to do after they finished their tasks. We finished mixing all eight egg bakes in less than an hour. I stuck around church while they cooked and the last ones just came out of the oven. Mrs. B will put them in the fridge later tonight once they cool. 

Another high for today was that our pen pal letters arrived! My kids were pumped. One girl said the letter made her day. A bunch already started writing back. Next step, plan a virtual meeting with them all.  

Fine Arts Fair Rehearsal

I can't believe how much the last two hours of the day exhausted me... The 7-8th graders had a bunch of little things to catch up on: finishing up two history lessons, taking a spelling test, reading through the musical script, and setting up bells/practicing our bell song in the gym. All in one hour. We got most of it done! Only made it to scene three in the musical though. 

Our bell song sounds MUCH better today. Being in the gym helped. New environment, a few more nerves. I think it will be fine on Saturday. Thanks Lord! 

We had a quick dress rehearsal with the 1-8th graders. Main points were how to do introductions and how to end your piece. A lot of kids forgot their music, so they only practiced introducing themselves. 

My kids had a mock legislative session in social today. That was quite contentious. They had $10 to spend on the class and had to write a bill for the executive branch to sign. The current bill says "These $10 should go to buy snacks." I told the executive branch they should veto it because it's not specific enough. One of the legislators was mad at me over it. Another argued, "We'll pass it first and then figure out what snacks we'll purchase!" Then that statement should've been included in the bill... now I can buy gross snacks, or snacks only I like. We ran out of time so the executive branch has not officially passed/vetoed it. A project for Monday.

Bring a Friend to School Day #1

I had one guest in 5-6th grade today and one from 7-8th grade. The guest of my student fit in just fine with my class and seemed to have a good time. The 8th grade friend's presence caused some of the boys to show off. Ugh. Overall, it went well though. 

We had a normal day for once. My kids wanted to skip a round so we could have more read aloud time. Nope. Too much to do. 

Other things of note: They're still having a great time in the bouncy house at recess. For science, we walked over to church to count trees. Our project was figuring out how many people the trees provide oxygen for in a given year. The answer is about 50 people. People need about two pounds of oxygen per day by our calculations. 

The bell song for Saturday is still rough. It sounds okay, but to our trained ears, it sounds garbled. We should've picked a different song, but I'm stubborn. That and with our missing kids, it's too late to change to something else. Double ugh. We're doing a dress rehearsal tomorrow; I asked Mr. E to give me feedback from someone who hasn't heard the song over and over again. I hope it sounds good...

YWAC

Young Writers and Artists Conference was a hit! They didn't have one last year because of covid (or it was all virtual and we opted not to 'go'), so there were a bunch of first-timers. Over 500 kids and 100 chaperones attended! Wow! My kids had a blast at their sessions. 

The 7-8th graders went to one about advertising and came up with some cool ideas. They couldn't wait to show me this one...

Highlights from the ad:

• buddy seats to ride with your husband
• showers are always ready
• husband tracker and field map
• big! crockpots
• 1# cook book for men
• farm housewife essentials
• heavy duty washing machines
• parts runner machine

After the field trip, we swung by my house in Nicollet to check on the progress. I'd heard a rumor siding was going on... It kind of was. Still no windows installed. They put the front door in and put siding on one wall of the garage where there are no windows. The other doors are either in or are there waiting to be installed. There is a bathtub/shower appliance in the upstairs! Progress. Also, my loan got locked in today. They reserved me more money than originally anticipated, so once again I'm nervous about being able to make monthly payments. I'll need to have a meeting with Habitat and actually crunch the numbers. They need to meet with me anyway since my purchase agreement expires in March.

Today was my first day running our new latchkey program (aka, after school care). I had five girls stay after. We played in the bouncy house in the gym, built forts, played games, and colored. Well, they did. I supervised/assisted, took a walk in the gym, and did some teacher work. 

National Treasure

Uffda. This day has been a whirlwind... It began in Arizona, believe it or not. G and I made it to the Phoenix airport around 10:30 and were at our gate by 11:30. We snuck a quick hour nap before boarding; our flight left at 1am. A few hours of sleep on a plane did not leave me feeling refreshed, but I was wide awake as we left the airport and found my car again. 

I was nervous about the rain/ice/snow storm that came through over the weekend, if it would freeze my door handles shut. Not much I could do about that. I was supposed to have indoor ramp parking, but ALL the parking spots were full and I barely found a space in the parking area. I had put my car cover over my windshield just in case, and it kind of helped, but actually left a sheet of ice where the wet cover stuck. G scraped while I warmed up in the car (I had left my winter gear in my car since I didn't need it in AZ and I had limited packing space). It wasn't too cold outside though. My car water bottles weren't frozen that much and thawed by the time we got back to Mankato. 

G drove so I could nap. We had ham sandwiches and leftover veggies for breakfast along the way, plus blueberries (cleaned out his parents' fridge before we left). Since we got out of the airport in a timely manner, we drove to Mankato first to drop him off and I headed to school from there. The alternative plan was for him to drop me off at school and pick me up afterwards. The nap refreshed me and I made it to Courtland with no problems. 

My plans for the day were pretty cushy... Camp Omega did chapel and my class watched National Treasure the rest of the day. It was so fun to watch with them. They did AMAZING at predicting and inferring. I wanted them to watch it for the historical value, but it ended up being great reading skills practice too! It was so fun. The only problem was I hit a wall close to lunch time and had to fight sleep... Mr. E had a sub today and she supervised recess in the gym so I could take a nap. That 10 minute nap got me through the rest of the day! 

Tonight, I have a pile of papers to correct and plans for an early bedtime.

Ugly Sweater Day

Today was a short day since we're bowling at 12:30. Still, the day seemed leisurely even though we had to cram our normal day in the morning. It helped that my class is doing spelling tests on Tuesdays. One less thing to do! 

It was Ugly Sweater Day. I wore a bright sweater I got from our Galentine's Day clothing exchange last weekend. Surprisingly, three 7-8th grade boys strutted into my room as if they were on a catwalk, showing off their ugly sweaters. Turns out they were simply ladies' sweaters from TJ Maxx, but still. One had an argyle sweater with a gray sweater vest over top (looked smashing), another had a red crop sweater with fringe up and down the sleeves, and the third had a black and gray sweater dress (baggy and loose and verrrry long). My high of the day! 

While my kids did rounds, I prepped my classroom for next week. I'm Arizona bound after bowling! I'm even taking Monday off. Mrs. O the piano teacher is my sub. My kids were not terribly excited about having a sub, "No offense, but we like you best as our teacher." The day should go well; even though our day is flexible, we have a routine and the kids know it. 

Dress to Impress Day

Whew! I can't believe how pooped I am when it feels like I did nothing all day! 

Not true. The day was packed with people and things. I didn't lead anything, but I did do a bunch of behind the scenes work. Our guest pastor emailed me the chapel order of service in the morning for me to print. Then I noticed he had us using the All God's People Sing hymnal. Ohhh, we're going to need a piano player. And hymnals for our guests... Mrs. L? Can you sight read these songs??? She could, thankfully. I enlisted the 7-8th graders in rounding up hymnals and a place to put them. 

Then came cramming in as much as our normal routine as we could into the morning before chapel at 10:45. We did pretty good. We read a bunch of picture books practicing finding theme and the characters' points of view, read aloud, practiced spelling, and did three rounds of Daily 5. Chapel was fantastic. Lunch was delicious. Entertainment was wowing. 

Before I ate lunch, I had to deal with some technical difficulties. Our aux cord that hooks up the gym's sound system broke earlier this week and I thought nothing of it besides it would take our IT guys forever to fix it. Our juggler needed it today. Uh... 

Then I thought to disconnect my desktop computer's aux cord as a temporary replacement. Worked like a charm. I even got it hooked back up with no troubles. 

After entertainment came clean-up. We were left with an hour of school. I ended up showing my kids a Wishbone episode, the one on Treasure Island so they'll be familiar with the story when we watch Treasure Planet. They played games with the kindergarteners at the end of the day while I worked with the 8th grade boys on a plan to hang chairs in the old shed. 

BINGO

Backwards Day. I wore a sweater and scarf backwards. It drove me crazy having to tug my cardigan sleeves over my shoulders! My scarf stayed put, mostly. 

Our end of the day activity was playing BINGO in the gym with leftover concession candy as prizes. The kids loved it! I got to do the number calling. We played for 35min and instead of doing a new card every time someone won, we used the same cards for 10 minutes so more kids could get prizes. Even so, there were still prizes leftover. Oh well. We'll save them for the spring carnival. 

My main after school task was looking up info on the colloquy. I found out I can test out of up to four classes, but it costs $350 PER test. Not for all four as I previously thought. The Old Testament class is probably the same one pre-sem students take to get admitted to seminary. There's a scholarship available that cuts the cost of the program roughly in half (free first class, $300 off subsequent classes, so the total cost is about $3500 instead of $6500). Classes are very rigorous and a lot of work (a lot of writing) and homework is due on the 25th of the month, no matter if it's a holiday. Ugh. Now I'm waffling back to I don't want to do it... Guess I need to sleep on it some more.

Twin Day

Mrs. L and I were twins today. We wore the same black ILS shirt, jeans, computer glasses, and our hair in braids. Oh, and I stuffed a lump under my shirt so I'd look pregnant. It got a lot of laughs. The preschool teacher saw me checking my mail in the office and actually thought I was Mrs. L. One 4th grader kept saying, "Oh hi Mrs. L! Oh wait..." anytime he saw me just to be funny. Another teacher said, "Wow, that came on fast!" My response: "Oh yes, I simply blossomed overnight!"

The lump started as a pillow from home, but it was too boxy, so I upgraded to a squishier pillow from my classroom. Still too bumpy. Next attempt was a rolled up blanket... needed to be rounder. I finally settled on a few small foam balls rolled inside two blankets. That worked. Except it was quite warm and heavy (much like a real baby, I imagine), so over the course of the day I took away part of the bulk. I gave up at lunchtime. Everyone teased me, "Wow, Miss H, you gave birth already?!" Yep. It came on fast and was born fast. 

Tomorrow is Backwards Day and Ash Wednesday... somehow I need an outfit that's fun and fits the dress up day but can also be switched rightways for church.

Habitat update: They're waiting for windows to arrive before they can do anything else. Once windows are in, they can put up siding, then the doors, then they can do interior work. Sigh. Pray the windows come quickly!