11- Eat Lunch Outside

My goodness, what a beautiful day today! Perfect for our annual Swan Lake canoe trip and our balloon prize of eating lunch outside. 

We paddled at the Poor Farm Bay lake access point this year (my second time there, first time with my class) because of the Highway 14 construction shutdown blocking our normal access point. The north entry is way nicer... fewer reeds, shorter channel to the main lake, easier to see where to enter/exit. My kids had a great time. Miss H came too and it was her first time! I think she had a good experience. But the trip ended on a slightly sad note; the DNR guy who always leads us is retiring this year. We were his last paddle group. I'm bummed because he was the right balance of tough yet kind and let us just experience being out on the water yet pause to educate. I hope his replacement is just as good.

Musical practice went MUCH better today. Tonight will be a good show. Hopefully there won't be too many mess-ups. I definitely didn't give as many cues as I did yesterday; we're as ready as we're going to be. The sound board is still a little worrying, but our IT guy and Mr. D weren't up there the whole time running things. IT guy kept busy replacing mic batteries and teaching Mrs. E to use the spotlight while Mr. D took pictures of the cast. I wish we could've had one practice with both of them solely doing their sound jobs, but oh well. It is what it is.

Yesterday's end of after-school care got pretty exciting... I had all the kids outside, they were playing house, etc. on the far side of the playground. One of the 4th graders (who tends to be a bit melodramatic) walked over to me saying, "Miss H! We have an emergency!" Since he was walking and not sounding too panicked, I didn't think much of it until he added, "I dropped a rock on my finger and I think my fingernail fell off." And then the panic entered his voice. "I'm bleeding all over the place. There's a lot of blood." There was. With more coming the longer we stood there. 

So I gathered all the other three chickies to come inside with us. Most of them didn't understand what was going on, which I was glad about. My first aid training kicked in and I gave them jobs to do while I assessed the situation and calmed him down. We wrapped paper towels around the thumb in layers adding more when they bled through (it only took three). He wanted to check it, but I wouldn't let him. His mom is a nurse, so I knew she'd doctor him up once she got here. And it only took her 10 minutes to arrive! Then she whisked him and his brother away. He was in school today, thumb wrapped up, good to go.