Last Day

My kids were out of sorts today. It wasn't a horrible day, but they were hard to settle again and back to their old name-calling shenanigans. And complaining. Good thing it's the last day.

I ended up doing a balloon thing of sorts... Instead of writing our schedule on the board, I put our "last day of school to-dos" on slips of paper inside balloons with the amount of minutes they would take on the outside. Each kid popped one balloon.

Book Launch Party- 10min- They were excited to unwrap their NaNos. They loved the covers, but the back page... Complaints about the pictures I used as their author picture. One kid even threw his in the trash because he didn't want his picture on the back. We ended up putting a sticker over his face and then he was okay with keeping it. 

Daily 5 Rounds- 1h- I met with six students this morning to wrap up their reading. It went quick. They were pretty settled during that hour and quite a few read a bunch trying to finish reading their books before school got out. We had a class 'garage sale' where they could spend tokens they'd earned on prizes from the prize box. I got rid of quite a few items that way! And re-collected a bunch of tokens. I think a bunch went home in crates and backpacks... Their clean-up was not very clean. Lots of stuff shoved in wherever it would fit. Pretty typical of this class! 

Pinatas- 30min- Instead of hanging them by string that always breaks, we just hit them with baseball bats. 

Religion- 30min- We finished the bible but skimmed/summarized pretty much everything after Jesus rose from the dead. Bummer, because there's a lot of good stories in Acts.

Snack/Read Aloud- 30min- We didn't finish our read aloud, but no one cried about it. I had written that this had to be a morning activity on the outside of the balloon to ensure we'd have snack this morning, but they ended up popping it the half an hour before lunch. Oh well. 

Time Capsules- 10min- They loved looking through the things they put in there! Their pictures from the first day of school got a big reaction. Those were the pictures I used as their author pictures on their NaNos. The other big item was the string that was the height they were at the beginning of the year. A lot were surprised by how they grew! One girl must've held her string loose when she cut it because according to the string, she actually shrunk!

Lunch/Recess- 1h-ish- Indoors because it was cold. I had four kids staying in to study memory work. There was a shoe incident that involved a 4th and 6th grader throwing a 7th grader's shoes around the gym (before I got out to the gym of course). Sigh. They found one shoe, but not the other. She had to call her mom to bring an extra pair of shoes to wear home.

Science Lab- 30min- We made electromagnets! They wrapped wire around a giant nail, hooked the wire to a battery, and tested how many paper clips it could carry.

Clean Out Desks/Crates- 30min- This ended up being 10min because we went on a hunt for the missing shoe. No luck. We had to end early so we could get over to church by 1:30 for closing chapel.

Chapel ended at 2:10 and the kids who got their desks done already went to recess with the preschoolers. The others continued to clean. I had a few kids who used paint pens on their desks. That was a bugger to get off. The longer it had been on the desk, the harder it was to get off. I knew it would happen, but the kids didn't listen to me months ago when they decided to draw on their desks. A lot of elbow grease went in to scraping that stuff off.

After school, I spent my time entering grades, listening to memory work, and filling out report cards. I got them done with 10 minutes to spare! Then came the potluck (I brought a super juicy watermelon and cheerio bars). Then came the awards night. They honored me for my 11 years of teaching with a few pieces of chocolate cake, special cake from Lola's. They wanted to get a big cake, but two cake places said they didn't have time because of graduation cake, so PTL decided to go small and easy. After that came the carnival. I stood around talking to people awhile; it was nice to visit. Now it's time to pack up Joe and head home for a good night of sleep before our wedding celebration tomorrow!

Egg update: Nothing hatching in the incubator.

T Minus One

Caswell Softball Day= we took 3rd place! Total: we won three and lost two. I pitched all five games. 

My glove is the one my dad had when he was a kid, so it has lived a long life. Some of the strings holding it together are brittle, and today they finally bit the dust. A few of them broke, so the catching part of the glove began to split apart. I still pitched all my games with it! But I'd say it's time to retire. 

T Minus Two

Still no ducklings. There's still time though. We're giving up on the chicken eggs; I think I'll unplug the incubator before I go home tonight.

Today was another mostly okay day. We had read-aloud all morning, but they got a little antsy after a while. I gave them brain breaks and we did some chunks outside, but man, they were hard to focus outside. I ended up bring them in early. Still, they were mostly productive this morning. All the piñatas are finished! A few got math or handwriting finished. A few worked on crossword puzzles or drew pictures. 

We started a new book, The Unteachables by Gordon Korman. One kid complained that we only read Gordon Korman books and he wanted something different. Actually, we've read 12 books this year not counting this one, and of those, only four are by Gordon Korman. But they have been back to back. I don't think we'll finish this book by the last day of school. I tried to skip over irrelevant sentences to make it read faster, but there's only so much I can do. We made it about a third of the way through reading all morning. 

The kindergarten class had their celebration (aka graduation) over at church this afternoon. Mr. D went over to help, so I was going to supervise his class at recess. Mr. E normally does PE for K-3 at that time while his kids do art, but their art teacher (Mrs. E) was running the graduation! We had a lot of kids and not many teachers to supervise. I suggested we have a massive game of kickball. And so we did!

It was really fun. Mr. E made teams, dividing kids by grades. I was all time pitcher and Mr. E all time ump. One of the parents arranged for an ice cream truck to come at the end of the day, so when it was time for that, Mr. E sent them over by grades while the rest of us kept playing. The teams stayed even! After everyone had gone through the line, we did all-school recess until the end of the day. 

Tomorrow is Caswell softball day. The weather is a little iffy over the noon hour, but hopefully we can get a few games in beforehand. Maybe it will pass quickly and we can play afterwards. Time will tell!

T Minus Three

We actually had a decent day today. I would even call it pleasant. Of course I had to deal with a few situations and general buckiness about late work and memory work, but they were minor and right away in the morning. 

They were probably tired from track and field. Or my schedule flopping worked. 

The half an hour after PE is often a battle, so I moved history to the morning, and let them pick what they wanted to do after PE. I wrote a list of what we needed to do on the board and then we voted what to do first. MN history won out ("Let's get the worst stuff over with!")

After that we did rounds and then pinata time. Ugh. Two groups were out of glue because of poor management of their resources. One group forgot to put the lid on and it dried up. The other group mixed food coloring in their glue, which made it runny and not sticky. Their consequence: do a job to get more glue. The kid who forgot to do the lid did a job right away. The kid who put the food coloring in refused to do a job saying he did a job already. Yeah, he 'wiped' the lab table off, but it's still dirty. I told him he had to do it again to earn more glue. So he said he would leave the pinata as is, only half done, even though it would be a bad grade. His poor partner eventually did a job to get more glue, while the first kid tried to use the food colored glue on the pinata anyway. 🙄 Sigh. 

T Minus Four- Track and Field

It was such a lovely day for Track and Field. Sunny, 71, with a slight breeze every now and then. 

As usual, I helped run the long jump pit. No hop step jump again this year. Man, that makes the day go much smoother and faster. We finished around 11:30 and had plenty of time for lunch. 

After that was the running events and relays. I usually help with the lining up or timing, but they had plenty of high school volunteers, so I mostly stood around and watched. 

We wrapped up the day by 1:45! I was in Mankato around 2:30 and started doing wedding errands. Still lots to be done before our party Saturday! 

T Minus Five

Boy, today was a tough day, but actually better than I expected. Rain was in the forecast for today. Not good for Track and Field Day in Fairmont. If it got cancelled, the rain date would be Monday and we'd have to go to school today. I got the message this morning that it was postponed due to rain. 

Fantastic. 

I had a room full of kids cranky about having to come to school. Some hadn't said their memory work yesterday and now needed to say it before they could go to recess. Others didn't do their math because they wouldn't have math until Monday. So. The start of school was rough. 

One kid got kicked out to work in the 1-2nd grade room for a half an hour because he was so disrespectful. He wouldn't leave the classroom, so I called for backup (his mom). I hated doing it, but our morning would've been so much worse had he stayed. Another student was on the edge of her worst behavior, so I had a chat with her before school started. Lots of attitude, but she turned it around and she had a good morning. Once the other student came back, he had a good morning too. 

The rest of the day had ups and downs. But I made it. They made it. We made it. Only five more days to go! And two of those are not in the classroom. We can do it! But keep the prayers coming.

My kids are adamant that the chicken eggs are still growing. I wanted to empty out that incubator, but they insisted that the eggs are alive and we should keep them in. So, they candled them all and picked out the ones they didn't think were growing. They took out four. We're going to crack them open to see what we can see. Our duck and goose eggs should hatch Sunday! I hope we have better luck with them.

Last night's talent show was a success. You can watch it here. Or you can just watch our teacher skit, which was the best act for sure. 😉 My kids did okay on their Amazing Caterpillar Show. 7-8th bells sounded good. Serving root beer floats went well too. We had a lot of ice cream leftover and a bunch of pop (we'll serve it at the spring carnival next Friday) and raised about $200 towards Camp Omega next year!

Hair Genius and Worm Rescuer

I have an 8th grade boy who loves his hair. This kid has what I like to call "flippy hair." His long bangs are 'just so'. He kind of makes fun of himself for them and his classmates tease him about it, but all good-natured. Today, he said to his male classmate, "Do a side part. It's easy."

His classmate, "No."

Him: "Come on. Just try it! It'll go back in place easy." 

The other boy was not convinced, "Why should I listen to you?" 

He said, "Cuz I'm a hair genius." 

The other funny thing from today was at noon recess. It rained a lot, so the worms were out. (I picked a few off my driveway before leaving for school). One 5th grader made it his personal mission to rescue all the worms on the ball field. He'd catch a ball, throw it to me (the pitcher), look down and notice a few worms, grab them, then throw them off the field. 😲 All recess. 😂 

No Chicks

I brought back a heat lamp, waterer, and feed so we'd be prepared, fully expecting to see a few yellow fluffs wandering around the incubator when I got to school on Tuesday. Nope. Nothing. And today, still no chicks... 

I read online that they can sometimes hatch up to 26 days after incubation, which would be Friday. I'm worried our extreme temperature variations at the beginning (and that one time someone left the thermometer outside the incubator) have just been too much for our eggs. That would be a major bummer. The ducks/geese are slated to hatch this coming Sunday. Hopefully we have better luck with those.

We're down to only seven days left of school and just five academic days. I'm working on my last week of lesson plans. Weird. And a little sad. But there's too much other stuff going on to dwell on that for long! 

Friday!

A pretty good day today. My kids got crazy the last half an hour, but there were no major meltdowns or blowups today! 

We had our last time reading with the 1-2nd graders, everyone turned in handwriting on time, and had piñata worktime. LOTS of kids weren't ready to say memory today. Ugh. Four have pieces to say next week. And next week has a long memory chunk plus we don't have school Friday (it's Track and Field Day). So I'm nervous it will happen again. 

I tidied the classroom for Monday's sub. I have Mrs. L in the morning and Mrs. B in the afternoon. I'm glad they were able to tag-team for me, otherwise my kids would've been in Mr. E's room all day. Not the best. This way, they can still do the lessons I had originally planned. It should be a good day. They're particularly excited for Mrs. L. "She's fun!" was their reaction. Most don't know Mrs. B very well, so they didn't have much of a comment for her. That's okay! I hope they'll behave well for both of them. 

I've been plowing ahead on Talent Show stuff. The program is made, the projector slides are made, and there's a plan in place for filming the teacher skit! Whew! Now I can go rest in peace for the rest of the weekend... after I correct my papers...

Class Potluck

It was an awful morning. Everyone was out of sorts, even my most even-tempered kids. I'm guessing they're all tired, but that doesn't excuse the behavior. I had to call one 6th grader back to the room twice because he didn't do everything I had asked him to do before going to math (wipe the table from lunch, clean off his desk). Thankfully, the class turned it around in the afternoon. 

My last guest speakers of the year presented to the 7-8th graders on living in Ethiopia. They are two girls who attend Bethany to get their nursing degree. They were very polite, good with the students, and talked super fast. I had planned on them being here until 1:30 and told their ride accordingly. They wrapped up their presentation at 12:50. Thankfully, they had a slide on how to write your name in the alphabet of their language, so we took turns writing students' names. Some of the 5-6th graders came down around 1pm, right as everything wrapped up, so the girls just re-presented everything. They were good sports about it, and it was interesting to hear everything a second time! 

Even though our speakers were great, the best part of the day was the 5-6th grade potluck. One of the 5th graders had the idea to do it as a class bonding experience. Everyone would bring an item that was dairy/gluten free to accommodate allergies. I brought extra items thinking some of them would forget. Nope. Everyone followed the instructions! And some brought extras! We had a whole table full! 

Items: Tang, homemade strawberry lemonade, Bubbly (a kind of sparkling water?), cookie dough ice cream, strawberry shortcake with frosting and strawberries, pistachios, pumpkin seeds, two kinds of chocolate, brownies, cakebatter dip and vanilla wafers, animal crackers, pickles, green/black olives... I think that's it. 

One boy forgot to bring something and he refused to eat anything. At first he said he wasn't hungry, but I could tell that wasn't why he wasn't eating. Eventually, he said he felt bad eating because he didn't bring anything. His classmates and I reassured him we wanted to share what we brought with him. He shook his head no. Later, he asked to go to the bathroom. When he didn't come back for a long time, I figured he was 'hiding' in the gym. Yep. He was on the front step of the bleachers. We had a heart to heart talk and in the end he participated in the eating of the potluck. 

Amazing Caterpillar Show

Our first day of talent show practice did not go fantastic. It wasn't horrible either, but there was too much complaining for my taste. I wish I had a 'bad attitude' button that could banish a bad attitude with a single click. Sigh. Dream on. In other news, I found out one of the 8th graders is missing the talent show for a softball game. Sigh. Now we have to change parts around again and it's a bare-bones crew to begin with. 

So many moving parts in this month of the school year. Tonight was my last PTL meeting of the year. Our central topics were summer fun activities, the end of the year carnival/potluck, and the talent show. My class serves root beer floats at the the talent show, so I need to buy those groceries next week. I also make the bulletin and the powerpoint of acts for the screen. That part won't take long, but it will take some time. 

I'm still working on finding a sub for me on Monday. My top two choices are busy. My third choice has to find childcare, but she thought she could do half the day. Thankfully I found someone who can do the other half, so now we wait to see if childcare can be found. 

The eggs are doing well. The chickens are set to hatch this Sunday. I'm bummed I'll miss the first day of hatching. I will probably make the rule that no one can go in the incubators on Monday. I read somewhere the chicks can survive for three days in the incubator without food or water, living on the last of the yolk. We'll have to get a box for them to live in after that.

All right, I've been at school long enough for today. Time to go home!

Jeffers and the Farm

The field trip today was fantastic. My kids were respectful and engaged in what we were doing. There was only one minor pushing incident as we walked along the path at the petroglyphs, otherwise everyone kept their hands and feet to themselves. 

The petroglyphs were surprisingly fun. New leaders have vamped up the field trip activities! Instead of watching a (semi-boring) video upon arrival, we had a two minute orientation, then went straight out to the rocks to see petroglyphs. 

Holy cow was it windy. It was so breezy we couldn't hear our guide if we weren't in the right spot; the wind took his words. We almost blew over a few times too. Most of my kids did not come prepared. A few only had sweatshirts. A couple had light jackets. Two kids (brother and sister) had heavier coats, hats, and gloves. Way to go Mom! They were kind enough to share with their chillier classmates. One lent his hat and his coat to two of the boys, the other lent her jacket to one of the sweatshirt girls. It really warmed my heart.

After that station, we took a long walk around the property and came to some taller rocks that bison used to rub against. You can tell because the rocks are worn smooth. This is the newest change. The archeologist on site spent all winter creating this activity. He had a bunch of clipboards with tasks for the students to break into small groups to do. Some involved analyzing maps, others measured trees, most had to read and answer questions. They all had something to do with the life of a bison in southwest Minnesota. My big takeaway was that bison quit being around this area about 57 years ago. They rub against trees if they're able, but that kills the trees. The trees at the petroglyphs are not very big around, and if you calculate it, they're about 57 years old! (Although, now that I think about it, does that timeline make sense? One of my students calculated that number, but the guide said it was right...maybe it's 157 years ago).

The next station was the same as it's been in past years: atlatl throwing. They updated the throwing apparatus to make it easier to keep the spear on and to throw. The wind really made it tricky to aim, but quite a few of my class improved enough to almost hit the bison!

Our last station was about gardening techniques used by Native Americans in the area. Four sandboxes were set up for groups to hoe mounds of sand together to plant seeds. My kids actually used hoes made of shoulder bones, sticks, and rawhide! And there was enough for each of them. They were beyond thrilled. This group of natives made their mounds in rows. One row would be seven corn seeds planted with one seed in the center and the others on the sides of the mound. The next row would be six bean seeds planted in two clusters, three in each, one cluster on each side of the mound. The squash would be planted on the edges of the field or wherever there was room because it spreads everywhere. They wanted it to cover the most ground to keep weeds from growing. Pretty neat. They got this information from an old lady named Buffalo Bird Woman. Back in the late 1800s, an anthropologist interviewed her and put everything into a book. Guess what. It's still in print today. Add it to my to-read list!

My kids were happy to get out of the wind to eat their lunch. They were less than happy they still had to eat outside, but the picnic shelter is pretty sheltered and it wasn't that cold out. 

The farm came next. Of course they had a great time up in the haymow swinging on the rope. There were actually bales up there this year. One of the 6th graders who'd been here last year said, "Oh, now I see what you meant. I tried to picture it with bales last time and I couldn't." 

My niece (1.5 years old) came along for the farm tour. My students were impressed with how many words she knows. She was pretty quiet to start with, but a few minutes in (once we saw the cows), she opened up and started talking. I got her to say almost everyone's name! Most of the time she could only kind of pronounce them, but it was super cute. 

My kids brought boots along, just in case it was muddy. Overall, the farm was pretty dry. Dad said there was only one place with mud. My kids found it. Even the ones without boots tromped through it. They had to wash their feet off before getting into the cars. Thankfully, I remembered past years and brought plastic grocery bags along. 

We also brought along ingredients to make elephant toothpaste. You start with super strong hydrogen peroxide and dish soap. Add a bit of warm water with yeast and... presto! A beaker oozing hot foam. We also added food coloring to make it even more exciting. The student propelling this idea brought most of the supplies. He had read you can try the experiment with potassium iodide. We didn't have any iodide, but we did have iodine. That didn't work as well as the yeast. Well, maybe it did, but it didn't go very fast. We ended up doing it again with yeast. He had brought two kinds of yeast to test. We didn't notice a difference between the two yeasts. Dad brought out gloves for the kids to wear. They ended up playing in the foam (safely of course). Very fun experiment. 

After that, we did one more round of bale tag while I cleaned up. Then snacks on the go, then one more round of swinging in the haymow. And then petting a baby calf (which we forgot to do earlier in the tour). And then going to see the fresh baby calf who was just born when we started our science experiment. We left later than I had planned, but we still made it back around the time I had given parents, just the later time I had said. Thankfully we have an app that makes it easy to send updates. Most parents showed up a few minutes after we did, so no one had to wait long.

Overall, a very good 'last' field trip to the farm. Now we're only 13 days 'til school's out. Crunch time!

Busy Week

The wind howled outside, but inside, my kids were actually somewhat calm today! We had a great day, can you believe it? A few minor mishaps, but we talked through those.

Everyone is excited for our field trip tomorrow. We leave at 8:30 for the Jeffers Petroglyphs then head to the farm after lunch. One of the boys has a plan to make 'elephant's toothpaste' while we're there with Dad's extra strength hydrogen peroxide, dish soap, and iodide. We don't have iodide, so we're going to try it with iodine and yeast to see if they make a difference. 

The 7-8th graders are on their class trip today and tomorrow. That gave us extra class time today. We did science and social studies today, plus had time to work on Mother's Day projects. I dug out all the art supplies from the closet and turned them loose. Some planted sunflower seeds in decorated pots, some glued things onto a picture frame, others are making cards. One is making a Coraline doll. Very creative, these kids are!

We also began brainstorming for our Talent Show act, "The Amazing Caterpillar Show". No one fought over who got which part. A miracle. 

We need to do our state mandated standardized testing this week too. I gave them the option to start today, but only one kid actually did. It's easy to think there's plenty of time when it's only Monday...

Short Day

Today was a great day. A little dreary and wet, but very good. Three kids were gone for various things, so the classroom was quite quiet. My remaining five were productive during their rounds, respectful and courteous during our last Junior Achievement session, and polite to each other during recess (for the most part...I had to give a couple stink-eyes). 

Right after lunch, we took a bus to the MLC play. They did a version of Stone Soup where the families in the town argued over who would get the gigantic carrot they all had a part in growing. They keep fighting until three "surveyors" come to town with a big pot and make soup from a stone. As they make the soup, the townspeople realize that it's better to get along and share with each other. The ending is a bit ambiguous and I don't think the younger audience members realized the moral of the story, but the adults did. As always, a high quality production. 

Problem Solvers

I did latchkey today and as they ate their snack around the table in my room, they talked about the fun things they'd play outside. Gaga ball was the main idea. They were coming up with ideas of how to play, teaching each other the rules, and talking about what problems they may face and how to handle them. I was impressed! They handle conflict better than my 5-6th graders!

A fairly decent day aside from noon recess. They came inside super mad at each other and I thought the rest of the day would be ruined. But, there was math, bells, and PE to forget about it (and a few extra innings in PE), so forget about it they did. Our last 20 minutes of the day was quite pleasant! 

They had two options, work on their piñatas or do the science lab making voltaic batteries. I've had limited success getting this lab to turn out in the past, so I gave them multiple options: do it just to try it or do it writing things down for extra credit. They could also decide to work by themselves, in a group, or with a partner. Four kids chose piñatas, two worked as partners just doing the lab, one worked by himself just doing it, and one did the lab writing things down for extra credit. They all had a great time, were focused, and were kind to each other. What happened to my class???

Earth Day Delayed

Last Friday the whole school was going to clean up the playground to celebrate Earth Day, but the weather didn't cooperate. Gross, snowy, rainy, wet. So we pushed it off until today. Today was much better! Still a little cold, only the low 50s, but it was a little sunny from time to time. 

There wasn't a ton to clean up. The K-2 kids brought plastic bags out to pick up broken plastic pieces and other trash. The 3-4th graders picked up many things in the woods, some trash from our school, some items that were probably junk left in the woods from the farmer who owns the land. I had to holler at my kids to come back; they were going too far in. But they did collect some good stuff. We were finished in about 10 minutes or so. 

Afterwards we had an all-school recess. They naturally separated into three groups: football, gaga ball, and swinging on the playground. It was great. Limited fighting, lots of energy and activity, fun times with big kids mixed in with littles. That recess ended up being the high of the day for a bunch of my students. They want to make it a weekly occurrence. Great idea! Hmm... I'll have to bring that up with the other teachers... 

Fresh Cut

It's piñata time in 5-6th. The girls haven't done too much with theirs, but the boys have really settled into the lab area workspace... white tissue paper scraps everywhere. 

They spend a round putting tissue paper on their piñatas, then take a scissors to the paper and trim everything equally. They call it, "giving him a fresh cut." 

Candling Eggs

Day 8 in the incubator for our chickens, ducks, and geese! I had stopped by over the weekend to rotate them and try candling them, but the flashlight I used wasn't powerful enough. I could see the air sac, but not the embryo. One of my students had the idea to use a phone flashlight. 

Sure enough, that worked! 

We could see the air sac and a dark spot where the baby develops. All three kinds of eggs look like there's life in them! Some look more robust than others, but we're keeping everything in there just in case there are late bloomers. I'm so glad they're still alive even with all the temperature fluctuations we've had. 

Today's new to-do added to the routine: take the duck/goose eggs out of the incubator for 10min, then mist with water to mimic a mama coming back from a swim!

BINGO

A good day to end the week.

We were scheduled to leave to play BINGO at the nursing home at 1pm. Everyone stood patiently in line and waited to get on the bus. But it wasn't here. So we waited. And waited. And waited some more. Finally Mr. E called the bus driver. Oops. They'd forgotten about us.

So my class went into the 7-8th grade room to play multiple-choice trivia while we waited. It was a fun way to pass the time! I answered the questions too and got 8/10 right. Two tricky questions I got right were: What year was the microwave invented? (1946... I have a challenge of the week question on that very topic) and What year was Facebook made available to the public? (2006... I remember being 16 when I signed up for Facebook. It was all the rage back then).

At the nursing home, the residents were all set up for us. We sang one of our church songs and played BINGO with them for about a half an hour or so. The 5-8th graders took turns calling games; they did a nice job speaking in a clear voice. Since we arrived late, Mr. E said we could stay a little later. But that made us late to school for the evening buses. I even had a parent call me to see if there was a problem... 

After school, I wrapped things up for the week and waited for G to text me our meeting location. He decided to surprise me on where we were having supper. We had a beverage at the Wine Cafe followed by a waffle fry platter at the Tav (it's kind of 'our thing') and supper at a sushi place in town (my original suggestion). The poor guy kept forgetting I didn't know any of our stops, so he kept spilling the beans! Still, it was a very nice way to celebrate my birthday. 😊

Classroom Discussions

Last night I texted all the parents in my class about their children's behavior, then came up with a plan for a class discussion about how to build back respect between us. The conversation went well and we had a much better day. 

I also had a discussion with the 7-8th graders before recess, also about respect and expectations. We came up with consequences for disrespectful behavior happening during recess and ended up having a very enjoyable noon recess. 

Good talks, but emotionally draining. Praise the Lord tomorrow is Friday!

Incubator update: the broken one has been fixed! It now holds temperature just fine. The other older incubator had a mishap though, or at least one of my students did. He didn't realize the plastic sheet with the black cord attached was the thermometer and he left it outside the incubator. So, the machine read that it was only 68 degrees. By the time we noticed, the temp inside was up around 110. I took the top off to let off some of the heat and we got it back down to the normal temp. Hopefully we caught it before damaging the eggs. 

Tomorrow we can candle them!

Mutiny

Not gonna sugarcoat it. Today was kind of an awful day. Last night, I stayed up too late tidying and cleaning the house (and reading... 😬), so I woke up in a bit of a funk, which didn't help. Still, I thought it was going to be an okay day; one of my kiddos was home sick, which always changes the class dynamic, usually for the better.

The morning went all right. They were more focused during Junior Achievement than they were Monday. Although, before our speaker came I had a lot of complaints about it being boring and why do we have to do it. Ugh. They were pretty quiet during rounds. 

Recess was a tension-fest. The 7-8th graders were all hyped up about their afternoon visit to New Ulm high school, so they were really rough during the basketball game at recess. That made my kids play rough too, and I gave some students consequences, which made them mad, and we didn't have math class to give them time to get over it, so they were kind of mad at me the rest of the afternoon.

Since the 7-8th graders were gone, we had extra time in my classroom. The 5th graders had music while the 6th graders had studyhall. Then we did social studies (which they complained about), then recess (they had a good time outside with the K-4th graders). Then we did a science lab. Utter mutiny. 

This is boring. Why do we have to do this? I don't want to work with these people. I'm not doing this. This is dumb. This is stupid. Ugh, I hate this. 

And Mr. E was gone so I couldn't even have him come in to shape them up. 

I tried to keep them on task and at least moving forward, but it was a battle. The 6th grade boys were putzing around with their marbles (we're testing how motion is passed from marble to marble, how size and material factors in, etc.) and when I redirected them... "Wow, we were just trying to have a little fun with this. I thought we're supposed to be able to have fun in school but I guess not."

One of the other teachers suggested next time this happens tell them, "I worked hard to plan this activity for you and when you act like that, I don't want to do this either. Put your head on your desk." I'm not sure if that would work, but it might be worth a try. 

Sigh. The weather is kind of gross too... cold and windy and wet. 

Only 22 more days to go. 😐

That Eggy Smell

My classroom has a faint odor of eggs and chickens. You get used to it once you've been in here for a few minutes. My kids haven't commented on it so far, except when they're in the back next to the incubators or lifting off the lid.

So far today, everything in both incubators is going fine! That was not the case last night... Things were fine when I went over to church at 3:30 (I'm co-leader of youth group and we had an event after school). But they were not when I stopped afterwards. One incubator was up to 110 degrees! Ugh. I thought we had fixed it. Time to call Dad. 

He said that temperature is too hot and didn't recommend sticking something in the edge to vent some of the heat off. So I turned off the incubator and went to New Ulm to buy a new one. Thankfully Runnings had some in stock. No humidity thermometers or incubator thermometers though. I wanted one to put in each incubator to be a second opinion on the temp inside. My regular temperature thermometer will have to do.

When I got back to school, the too hot incubator was at the perfect temp for hatching eggs, so I left them sit in there while the new one heated up. Once it was up to temperature, I carefully transferred the duck and goose eggs to their new home. Whew! Hopefully it wasn't too late!

Today, we came up with a schedule for rotating the eggs. I have a whiteboard and marker back there for them to write down when they turn the eggs. I read that you can turn them 3-6 times per day, so we're making a tally mark when we do them and try to do it every two hours or so. In about a week, we can candle the eggs and see if anything is growing. 

My boys wanted to take apart the not-working incubator to see if they can fix it. They are in the process of testing if their fiddling with the dial solved the problem. We're all hopeful it did! If not, they wanted to turn the incubator into an extra heater for the classroom. Or make their own incubator from scratch. 

The two sixth grade boys did research on how to do it. It's actually not too complicated. You need a cardboard box, thermometer, and heat lamps. And for humidity, a wet sponge or covered bowl of water so the chicks don't fall in. I told them if they wanted to build their own they could. We'll see what happens!

Incubators

A very educational day for me... we started two batches of eggs incubating! My dad provided me with two incubators and three goose eggs. A preschool grandparent gave me 24 duck eggs and a 7th grade parent gave me 30 chicken eggs of varying color. 

G and I plugged in the incubators Sunday morning to make sure they worked and were up to temp. When I checked this morning, both were over 110 degrees. They need to be around 99-100 degrees. So I spent the morning adjusting the dial trying to get the temp lower and bump up the humidity. I think we have it figured out now. 

We put the eggs in around noon: chicken eggs in one with an egg rotator, duck and goose eggs in the other with no egg rotator. We'll have to do those manually. I've read it needs to be done three times a day. My class decided we'll do one rotation before school, one at lunch time, and I'll do one before I go home at the end of the day. 

I made a chart on my calendar what day of development we're at, when to candle, when to quit rotating them, and when they'll hatch. An article I found suggested for waterfowl you should mist the eggs and leave them out to cool for 10min daily to mimic the mom going for a swim and settling back on the nest. The time builds up to 20min over the course of incubation. So I have those things noted too. 

My kids are very excited. They all want to bring one home. I said their parents need to talk to me directly before I agree to anything like that. 

We were supposed to do MN history this afternoon, but chickens were on the brain, so instead we came up with a plan for after they hatch and watched chicken development videos. One 6th grade girl has a heat lamp and a container of some sort to put them in. Other ideas were a dog kennel or a cat carrier. I think that problem is one we can solve as the hatch date gets closer. 

I was about to move on to MN history, but a student wanted to know how chicken eggs got fertilized, so we found some youtube videos that showed how the egg develops inside the chicken and how a chick develops during incubation. Very cool. I learned a lot too! A worthwhile rabbit hole I'd say!

Sweet Mud

My favorite part of the day happened in afternoon recess. Pretty much the entire school (minus the 3-4th graders) were outside at recess together. The snow had all melted inside the gaga ball pit, so kindergarteners up through sixth grade played a gigantic game. 

Even though the snow had melted, the pit is in the shade of the trees, so it takes forever to dry out. A grimy patch of ice lingered in one section, but that didn't stop our kiddos from playing. 

Mud everywhere. 

Dirty hands, dirty shoes, dirty ball, dirty legs. 

One kindergartener said (about a 5th grade boy with dirt streaked all over), "Mrs. H, do you even recognize those legs?!" 

They didn't care. They were having a blast! The last game of the day came down to one kindergarten girl and two 5th grade boys. They whispered to each other, nodded, and said, "Let's do our secret plan." They then proceeded to get themselves out so she could win. So sweet! 

On the walk inside I suggested they trudge through the little bits of remaining snow to attempt to clean off their shoes. A 5th grader swished his hands in the snow turning the mud into 'chocolate' (as he described it). Two of them packed up for the end of the day in their sock feet because their shoes were too dirty to wear inside, even after wiping them in snow! In the classroom examining their filthy attire one boy said, "It's so fun playing in mud in the moment. You never regret it until after you're done." Wise words.

No More Dead Dogs

Another fairly typical day in 5-6th grade. The only out of the ordinary thing was, we took a mini field trip out to the kickball field to see two horses a preschooler brought for show and tell. 

We had time for pinatas, religion, read-aloud... We started a new book today, one I find hilarious but sometimes doesn't jive with all my audience. It's called No More Dead Dogs by Gordon Korman. 

So far we are two chapters in and they're loving it. Or at least liking it. There have been quite a few laughs anyway. The book only gets funnier, so hopefully their interest continues!

Pinatas

There's at least one first layer on all the piñatas! My kids had a blast getting messy with the glue and newspaper. Well, most of them did. A few didn't like getting their hands dirty. We used up all the water in our classroom sink in our attempt to get clean. 

Again, gorgeous weather, so we did our papier-mâché outside. It was just a little hot. My kids complained about the heat and the wind, but the problem-solved and set up their tables in the shade of the playground in the morning and the shade of the classroom in the afternoon. The wind was a bit trickier to outmaneuver. Some used sandbox trucks or their glue containers to hold down their newspaper strips. One group set up shop in the tucked away back area between my classroom and the gym. Man, I love it when they problem-solve! 

29

It's a little early to start the end of school countdown, but over breakfast G asked me how many days were left so I had to count. Not many! And about four of them are field trip days. Holy buckets, that came fast!

My kids were so-so today. Some were acting super silly, many made unnecessary comments. Overall not a terrible day. 

We started pinatas this afternoon. Everyone was really excited to get started. We didn't have enough time to actually put layers on, but planning has commenced! I have plans for us to do the glue/newspaper layers outside. 

It is so nice out, I can hardly believe it. I was comfortable in a sleeveless shirt! Tomorrow it's supposed to be in the 80s... One of the 8th graders asked me if I thought school would be called off for potential tornadoes (because the temperature is shooting up so much). Hmm, I've never thought about that before. Can't see it happening though. It sounds like the good weather continues through Thursday or Friday, then temps dip down a bit. 

This warmth makes me want to kayak, but all the lakes are still ice covered! 

Fake Friday

Woohoo! Made it through the week! We have the rest of the week off for Easter break and I'm very excited. Of course I have a bunch of grand plans... bake sourdough crackers (for me) and hardtack (for my class), sort through the craft stuff in the basement and box up thrift store stuff at our Nicollet house, then go to the Mankato house to box up thrift store stuff there, organize and clean out closets and the laundry room... G and I are bringing his mom to the airport on Wednesday and we're popping in for a visit with his godson's family. Then Thursday night after church I'm heading to Fulda! G has to work, so he'll be joining me Saturday afternoon.

It was a good end to the week; today was a much better day than yesterday. My kids were calmer, the boy I had trouble with Monday apologized, and everyone was pretty productive. Our morning was messed up because of puberty education. The nurse was supposed to come at 8am to take kids over to church for their session (girls separated from boys), but she had technical difficulties and didn't arrive until 9am. We started our day normally and then adjusted when she finally arrived.

The rest of the class did Daily 5 rounds while their classmates were gone. We ended up having seven or eight rounds! Granted, each puberty ed session was about two rounds, so they did maybe 4-5 rounds total. The poor 5th grade girl did hers last, but it was time for lunch, so she had to eat her lunch over at church with the 4th grade girl while they did their movie. We're all glad that's over!

Quiet, Recording

My kids have been all about their podcasts lately. Everyone in the class is involved in one of the groups; they've split into three. Most of their topics are on food taste tests. They have to submit their plan before recording and they divvy up between themselves who's talking about what and who's bringing which supplies. It's quite the operation. 

They've been recording in the coatroom, sometimes while recess happens in the gym. They end up holding the mics on their headphones right next to their mouths so the computer picks up the sound. So, it makes sense that they want to find a place in school to have a recording studio. Not many options. 

I brought it up at our staff meeting and the other teachers had a few ideas. No teachers liked the shed idea: possible bad internet connection, no supervision. This class needs that. Someone suggested the end of the hallway where the bus picks kids up. A decent option. A few teachers offered their classrooms when their kids are out of the room (at PE). If I did some changing to the schedule, that could work. I'll bring up the ideas with my kids tomorrow and we'll see what they think!

In other news, my house's sump pump sprayed water everywhere throughout the night so the basement has water in it again. I heard a weird sound from the basement before I went to bed last night, but thought it was the dryer or something outside or the neighbors. I heard it again this morning and found the water. A few minutes later, the sump turned on and water sprayed out... it looks like something didn't get sealed up during construction. Sigh. 

Miracle of miracles, nothing is damaged. The extra miracle is that the water went to two rooms that haven't been flooded yet, so I had moved a lot of the boxes there to get them out of previously wet areas. So, G and I had a lot of boxes to move, but again, no lasting damage. The sheetrock looks like it will dry fine as well. Thank you Lord!

Lego Maze

Finally Friday. Whew. And only two days next week! 

We had some fun joint activities with other classrooms today. As usual, we did reading buddies with the 1-2nd graders. This afternoon we did STEM time with the kindergarteners. 

Their task was to build a maze for a marble out of Legos. Some groups got more into it than others, but everyone completed the challenge. I didn't have many Lego bases (flat for ease of building), so we had to get creative with the supplies we had. A few groups stuck smaller flat pieces together to make a bigger base. A few groups made double decker mazes or covered mazes. A bunch created towers in corners of their mazes. And a couple used arches to build tunnels for the marble to go through. The groups that finished early kept building and tweaking their mazes, or they gave up and made something else. They were all proud to show off their creations! 

Quick

My bell players are playing the endings of our songs quick. Too quick. I keep trying to slow them down, but they won't do it!

We had a highly productive morning in 5-6th grade. The boys have been making podcasts lately and go out to the coatroom to record so they don't pick up the rest of the class's noise. I'm skeptical of how much work is being done, so we had a meeting to talk about how to prove that things are accomplished. The plan is for them to make a podcast plan before getting to film each episode. 

The girls want to start a podcast too, so we had a meeting and talked about much the same. Their topic will be what's happening at school, what people are learning, favorite subjects, etc. Great plan! 

Softball

It was chilly today, but we went outside for both recesses, no fussing! Most of them are hopped up on the excitement of softball. I ate my salad at the picnic table outside next to the giant snow hill while wearing my mittens. If I hadn't left my mittens on, my hands would've frozen. 😉

Second recess I pitched wearing mittens. Well, one hand wore a mitten (the tossing hand). The other hand had a glove within a glove. I stayed decently warm that way. My pitches could've been better, but such is life. My kids were okay with me trying to stay warm. They knew I was their best option for consistent pitches, regardless of the mittens effecting pitching quality! 

The rest of the day was pretty good. No major meltdowns, no major fights. The boy who had been so rude yesterday apologized and had a quiet day. Most of the late homework kids got their names off the board... all but two. 

I sorted through a few shelves of my teacher bookshelf and have a big stack of things to go home (things I won't use anymore this year). After school I've gotten a bunch of computer things finished. Still a big pile of papers to correct... can't seem to get away from those. I get caught up and then there's a new batch of spelling to correct!

Tuesday Already?

No school yesterday because of the end of the quarter. I finished my report cards, ran errands in Mankato, and G and I spent time sorting through things in our Mankato house to prep for renovations. It was a good day off. 

My kids were back in full force today... lots of attitude, but no physical altercations thankfully.

I spent the day trying to track down their missing work. Ugh. 5th grade music. Our piano teacher teaches them and said some of them haven't handed in a single homework sheet all quarter. When I asked, all four had blank stares. "She never gave us anything!" Yes she did, I was in the room (I should've written a note to remind them to do it right away 🤦‍♀️). Two of them found their papers. The other two admitted to throwing them away last week. Ugh!!!

She reprinted them and I wouldn't let those two see their report cards until their homework was done. Now I gotta crack the whip on spelling... Their workbook page is normally due Monday, but with the day off, it was due today and they needed to do their test too. Most of them forgot to do it over the weekend and didn't have time to do both during their rounds. Sigh. And then the 5th graders forgot to do it during their math study hall time. Sigh again. 

Two highlights from today: noon recess outside. They fought me on going out until I pulled the "I'm the teacher and I decide where recess is and if you want to choose you become a teacher" card. One 8th grader asked why I wanted to go outside for recess when it was so cold, and I said, "Because it's sunny and I want fresh air." And he didn't argue! They ended up playing softball and having a blast. 

It's my day for latchkey after school, and the girl's are playing dance competition. They have music from my old purple iPad piped over the gym speakers and they're doing routines and taking turns judging each other. It's a pretty intricate game!

Mapping It Out

I had more prep time today than usual, which was pretty nice. It was Mrs. R's turn to host reading buddies, so I had a little time off in the morning. Then Mrs. E hosted game time in the kindergarten room and I got a half an hour to work! I spent it mapping out the rest of the year for science and social studies. 

There really isn't all that much time left of school... one week left of March (and no school Monday because it's the end of the quarter). April has four days off for Easter break plus a BINGO field trip at the nursing home and a field trip to see the MLC play. Then we're in May with our many activities... Talent Show, Track and Field Day, Caswell Softball Day, and the trip to the farm/Jeffers Petroglyphs combo. And hopefully a canoe trip thrown in there as well. 

Even with all those extra activities, I'm sitting very good with getting all the topics covered I want to get covered. We might even be ahead a little in MN history! I have a project in mind to do to use our possible 'extra' time: let each kid pick an era of history they want to learn more about, then do a project on it. Can be whatever project they want it to be; they just need to present their information in some way/shape/form. I hope we have a chance to do it!

Egg Car Lab

Today was a pretty good day up until the end. 

We served 61 people last night and brought in over $400! That's a record for us! Lots of people came at the middle of the serving time, so I got pretty nervous at 5:50 when we were down to just one small corner of the roaster pan. Not too many came after that, so at 6:05 I let the kids eat. A lot of them took soup. Still, we had only about one pan of egg bake scraps left at the end. The rest of our groceries were pretty spot on too. Not too much milk leftover, just a few pieces of sweet bread, one 9x13 pan of fruit (oranges and a few grapes). My kids did a great job prepping, serving, and cleaning. Everyone pitched in and found things to do. They were all willing helpers!

My students ate off the leftover fruit from our Lenten meal for snack today and we had a nice morning working on our daily tasks. The boys are still on their podcast kick. Every day they make a new episode, most of the time featuring a taste test of sorts. Then they upload it and obsess over how many views and subscribers they have. Two and one. But that doesn't faze them!

Bell practice went fantastic. We ran through the three songs we have left and even without that much practice, they sound amazing. They are all victory lap songs with lots of running notes and cords and just a whole lot of joyful ringing. It's pretty great. We have one student out with a long-term illness and we're not sure when she'll be back, so I've found 'volunteers' to play her parts for these songs if she's not back to play them. No one has fussed too much about getting an extra part and they've picked up those notes pretty quickly.

My 5-6th graders ended the day with a physics/STEM challenge: build a car that can carry an egg down a ramp with a one meter high incline. If the egg breaks, you fail. They're all pretty excited about it. Making groups was the tough part. I had some eyes closed voting to see preferences and there was one student who didn't speak up when I misread her voting. The boys had some mixups in partners too, but they worked it out without any hard feelings (that I could detect). This girl though, she blew up at me and was quite rude while I tried to calmly talk through the situation with her. 

It's exhausting, dealing with situations like those, where you need to be the calm one and figure out what to say to help the student learn how to handle future situations better and at the same time fix the one you're currently in without breaking the relationship you do have all the while hoping that you're taking care of it in a way that doesn't involve the rest of the class who are no doubt listening in to see what you will do, even if you try to have the conversation in a private way. So. That's how my day ended. School day, anyway. 

After school G and I have a meeting with the Nicollet County foster care social worker to do a home inspection and talk about next steps in becoming foster respite care givers! The rest of the night is open after that. A minor miracle! I sent out our Marriagewarming party invitations yesterday/this morning, so I feel a huge weight off my chest. Maybe after correcting, I can actually read a book!

Lenten Meal

The 7-8th graders did a lab today. I'd say it was a fun lab, but I'm not sure how much fun they had. We made a model of a kidney filtering blood. Cups with beads and water poured into a bowl with a screen over the top. Then we used spoons to move beads back into the cups to show the blood components moving back into the blood stream. It was a lot of work to prep! But it got the point across.

My students were crabby today. I tried not to join them. 

Now they're bouncing off the walls in the classroom waiting for me to finish enough stuff for tomorrow so they can go in the gym for a while. We're serving the Lenten meal tonight and spent the first 45min after school prepping things at church. 

I left two boys over there to watch the last three egg bakes in the oven (with my cell number and a lot of instructions), and the rest of us have been at school. I had to abandon them for 10 minutes halfway through when the egg bake boys had a question if the pans were cooked. Yes, they were. 

Everything looks and smells delicious! Hopefully we have a good turnout!

Late Night

Yesterday was a full day. School was pretty good, and so was after school. It just felt long. 

Tuesday is my day for afterschool care, and nine squirrely preK-2nd graders hung out in my classroom and the gym until 5pm. Lots of "Mrs. H, look!" I did get all my papers corrected though, so that's a plus. 

After that, I got some things done in my classroom and then zipped over to church in time for the PTL meeting. Normally we meet at school, but this time we sat around tables at church and Pastor did a hymn study. It was very nice to meet like that. Everyone was calm and cheerful. The meeting was long, but we accomplished a lot. Many of the tasks were prepping for next year and picking out people to take over the things I've been doing for the past 11 years. Another bittersweet moment. Our meeting ended around 7:35, but I had a few people to talk to afterwards, so I made it home a little before 8pm. And completely forgot about writing my blog for the day. 😅

Egg Bakes

My class serves the Lenten meal on Wednesday. In an effor to keep it simple, we're keeping the menu roughly the same as last year: egg bakes, fruit, breakfast breads, corn (leftover from a PTL meal). And chicken noodle soup if you don't like egg bakes. 

As per usual, my class stayed after school today to do the baking. Man, we had a blast. It was loud and crazy, but everyone had something to do. They all chipped in and were willing helpers. Many of them were proud to be trusted with chopping vegetables, measuring ingredients, browning hamburger, and cracking eggs. It was awesome. It took about fifteen minutes to get started. We finished mixing things up in about a half an hour. Then with clean-up, we wrapped up about 3:50pm. I had told parents to pick them up around 4pm. 

We had a bunch of leftover peppers, onions, mushrooms, cheese, and hashbrowns. I had the sudden lightbulb we should mix them all together into a hash as a snack. Not an original idea, I'm afraid. I've been reading a book called Teach Like Finland: 33 Simple Strategies for Joyful Classrooms and one of the stories the author tells is an observation he made of a home ec classroom in Finland. The teacher reserves time at the end for the students to enjoy the fruits of their labors; they work hard together and then relax together. So, that scene popped into my head as we discovered all our extra ingredients.

One of the 6th graders volunteered to cook it. One 5th grader volunteered to cook the mushrooms separately since not everyone likes mushrooms. Later he said, "I don't like mushrooms, but I think I'll actually try these." He said they tasted mushroomy. We also left the butter and cheese out until the very end so our dairy-free classmate could have some. 

Another student prepped plates and forks. Finally, time to eat! My kids gushed over it. "We had all these random ingredients left, and we threw them all together, and they tasted great!" We all sat together at one of the tables in the church fellowship hall and enjoyed our afternoon accomplishments. Sigh. It's moments like these that make all the tough days worth it.

Cowboy vs. Alien Day

I was going to be an alien today and wear all green (in light of St. Patrick's Day), but I couldn't figure out how to make alien eyeballs super fast, so I went with the good ol' cowgirl standby: jeans, plaid button up shirt, two braids (with green ponytail holders), boots, and a green bandana. School also had a ton of cowboys and girls. There were a few aliens though! 

We had a two hour late start today, just for New Ulm though, so it was a pretty lazy day. I had to be to school at the normal time to meet the Nicollet bus kids. I had exactly half my class at 8am. In preparation for them, I'd made a big list on the board of things they could do. They were pretty good about quietly working on stuff. I got a bunch of things done myself. A few kids figured out how to use their library cards to check out audiobooks, then listened while doing art. 

We tucked reading buddies into our worktime, and once the rest of the school arrived, we did devotions in Mr. E's room. After that my class had read-aloud (they fussed because I didn't give them snack time... guys, lunch is in 40min!) and two Daily 5 rounds (more fussing because my two Friday students didn't want to meet with me... "Can't we just meet on Monday?"). Lunch, recess, math, a little extra recess, then BINGO! 

That was a blast. We used leftover candy from basketball concessions and let there be 5-7 winners per card. I think everyone won at least one time. Granted, towards the end only raisins and cheetos were left. The last few kids rushed down to the prize table, went to snatch a prize, realized it was a box of raisins, and then drew their hands back wondering if they actually wanted to take them. 

We gave away the last prize just in time to send them all home on the bus. Whew! What a whirlwind week, complete with whirling winds! The wind is still howling outside. G and I are heading to Fulda later this afternoon. The roads look pretty good up to St. James; after that looks more snow covered. Pray for safe travels for us!

Duct Tape Day

I made my outfit for the day at school. Three colors of duct tape in my desk (leftover from bottle rockets at Camp Omega), three lines of tape on each leg. Perfect. Others definitely went more all out... we had full on duct tape shirts, skirts, hats, shoes, stripes on pants... Mrs. R made a duct tape tie for Mr. E. We were a stylish bunch!

Our festivities got cut short today. New Ulm called off school early because of the storm, so they went home at 12:45. Nicollet never did call school off, so the rest of us stayed til the end of the day. Some trickled home little by little as parents picked them up throughout the afternoon. It's a bummer because I had a guest speaker lined up. This one is a 28 year old student in his first semester at MLC on the pastor track. He had previously been in the air force for six years and spent time in Saudi Arabia as a translator (he's fluent in Arabic). The kids who heard him enjoyed his presentation!

The rest of the afternoon was pretty low key. Our all-school activity was a puzzle contest. Mrs. R got multiple copies of the same puzzle and divided whoever was left into groups. We had five groups of four participating plus some preschoolers working on their own easier puzzles. One group only had three, so I joined them after a while. Normally I'm not a puzzler, but I actually had a lot of fun! My group got third place and finished just in time for the bus. 

The Nicollet bus driver must've been in a hurry to get on the road, because she left before all the kids were outside! Three students didn't make it out before she drove off. One of my students began to bawl. Not that many people were on the bus, so we didn't even have anyone on the bus with a phone to call besides the driver. Mr. E tried calling her, but she didn't answer. Thankfully, either someone told her she was missing kids or she realized it; she came back and got our leftovers. Whew! 

Now it's time for me to make my way home... I've been putting it off. It's gross out there and I don't think it's going to get worse, so I might as well stay put and get things done in my room. There are lulls every once in a while; I might leave during one of them. Or right after the plow goes by. 

In the meantime, I cleaned out one of the baskets on my desk, kind of a catchall for loose papers, notes with ideas for later, things I want to look up, teaching hints. I've accumulated a lot of thoughts after 10.5 years. It's bittersweet looking through them; I've put a lot of time and effort into my profession. Some notes are ideas I never pursued and don't care to anymore; those are easy to discard. Some are things I'm still curious about. I have to decide if they are things future 5-6th grade teachers will find valuable and if so, where to put them so they are easy to find and use. But those are thoughts for another time. Time for me to go home!

Class Color Day

My outfit definitely matched my class colors, but it won't win any fashion awards... Camo skinny jeans borrowed from a sister and a red tunic with holes cut out of the sleeves. 

I did some announcing at Family Day and I wonder if I should've made an announcement about our strange attire. 😅 

Family Day was a smashing success. We had over 160 people for the day. Our guest pastor smashed chapel out of the ball park. He was funny, charismatic, and engaging. He had some audience members act out a bible story pretending they were flannel graph characters. Pastor B was David, our tallest student was King Saul, and three other kids were David's mighty warriors. It was the story of David and his men hiding in the cave while Saul, ahem, took care of business. 

After chapel we had time for a few Fine Arts Fair presenters before lunch. Then after lunch we had the RAD zoo talk, which is a reptile discovery zoo type thing. The guy didn't want to use a mic, so it was a little hard to hear him. He showed kids a gecko, bearded dragon, corn snake, another kind of snake, boa constrictor, a couple varieties of tortoises, and a small alligator. Once the snakes came out our 1-2nd grade teacher went to 'help' in the kitchen. She's terrified of snakes. A few of the kids got scared too, especially when the alligator came out. 

He went long, and we still had over half the Fine Arts Fair kids to go, so we didn't wrap up until about 1:40. Oof. There went my afternoon plans... oh well. To be expected. We spent the rest of the school day taking down tables and chairs and then went outside for recess. 

Holy cow, yesterday's outdoor recess did wonders for my class, either that or this is the calm before the storm (we're supposed to get another snowstorm with high winds tomorrow, unless it all comes as rain). They were so much calmer today! We had a super productive, quiet morning up until chapel. I couldn't believe it. Thank you God for answering prayers! 

Tropical Tuesday

I wore a dollar bag day find to school today, a bright orange floral accordion-style shirt made in Hawaii (I originally thought it was a skirt). Pretty basic compared to others. I should've added my floppy sun hat and/or some flower leis. Oh well. Basic is okay. 

Some kids wore swimsuits or swimsuit coverups over their clothes. A few others were in tank tops, shorts, and flip flops. My class of complainers commented we picked the worst day ever to have all-school outdoor recess/snow sculpture making. Well, they were warned to bring winter gear. 

My second day of super keen observance went pretty well again. Things were a little less tense, except for the group playing basketball at recess. Ugh. They love to shove each other. The hard part is I can't tell if it's an accident or on purpose. So a few kids had to run laps. But probably more should've. 

Mr. E and I met with a set of parents after school to talk about Friday's incident. It went well. It was nice to have had two good days at school to report about. We left the meeting feeling positive about our plan moving forward. 

The big drama of the day was in setting up the gym for family day tomorrow. We have over 160 visitors joining us for chapel, lunch, and entertainment. Lots of tables to set up! Mr. E thought a parent was coming at 1pm with a pickup to truck tables and chairs over from church. So I switched my whole class schedule with the 7-8th graders around so we would be free to help. And we cancelled PE. She didn't show up until 2pm, right when we were supposed to have outdoor recess. Great. Up until that point we made good progress setting up the tables and chairs we did have at school. But they were all ready for recess at 2:00.

So they got bucky when we made them help unload. "I already helped enough. Make someone else do it!" If they would all chip in and do it without complaining, they'd be done in no time! One 8th grader flat out refused to help anymore, both to me and to Mr. E. Whew, rarely have I seen Mr. E that mad. His parents got a call after school. 

Spring fever is definitely going around. Let's pray the weather gets nicer so we can go outside more often!

Crackdown (and I am a C Day)

I was a woman with a new mission today... don't give my kids any unsupervised time AT ALL all day. I got to school early, did my errands before any kids were around, stayed in the classroom before school, went with them for their brain break in the gym, walked with them down to lunch, we all went out to recess at the same time. Any shoving resulted in running a lap. I did slip off to go to the bathroom twice. But we didn't have any blowups or dustups or any other kind of ups. Whew. I'm exhausted from being on guard all day; I hope I can maintain this level of attentiveness.

To end on a happier note, today was day one of Lutheran Schools Week. We started with "I am a C Day" where you dress up as anything starting with the letter C. We had lots of cats and chefs. I dressed as a Croatian cook and wore my soccer jersey and an apron. There were a few clowns, a coach, a champion, lots of christians, one cupcake and a captain. 

Our all school activity was to decorate bags for Meals on Wheels recipients. They had more fun than I thought they would! Some brought computers or bibles to the gym to look up encouraging passages. Some drew tractors or flowers or rainbows or just abstract patterns. We probably decorated over 60 bags! 

Testing Boundaries

Ugh... this day did not start out well. My errands before school were going to be short until Mr. E pulled me into the office to talk about Fine Arts Fair. Turns out MLHS was thinking about cancelling the event because of the possible weather Saturday morning. They were going to decide by 6pm tonight. So, I had to think about what to do about bells. Bring them home with me in case we had the fair? Or leave them at church so they're ready to go Sunday morning? Decisions, decisions. Either way, the bells had to be in my car, so I had my kids load them up. They don't fit in a little red car as well as they fit in my Escape. 

When I finally got back to the classroom, a 5th grade boy was on his way out, face red and puffy from tears. Oh boy, now what? Long story short, every single boy in my classroom was involved in the incident. The crying kid had started it with inappropriate jokes/teasing, a classmate decided not to put up with it and shoved him. The two 6th grade boys grabbed PVC pipes they had been using in STEM and wacked him with them to get him to stop. The other 5th grade boy grabbed a sweatshirt out of crying boy's crate and wouldn't give it back. The girls sat and watched it all. 

All this I figured out in bits and pieces by pulling each boy out into the coat room one at a time, sometimes more than once, trying to get to the bottom of it. UGH! The truth came out slowly. Consequences were each of them had to write an apology note to the appropriate person, I checked it, then they read it out loud in front of the class. They all missed recess and had to spend it in Mr. E's room. He had a chat with them too. Their homework is to tell their parents about it and I'm going to check in with parents Saturday morning. Sigh. What a day. 

We all needed a reset after that. So we put our heads down for 30 seconds and then began our day a half an hour later than expected. 

The rest of the day went much better. At lunch the boys talked again and agreed their tempers had gotten the better of them and they overreacted to the morning's situation. They had all been joking around and really the PVC hitters had only been tapping, not full on hitting. Still not okay. Mr. E, Mrs. R, and I came up with a community service idea if it happens again. Next time, the perpetrator will do lunch dishes or mop the gym or clean the bleachers. Hopefully it won't come to that. 

In the afternoon, we all gathered for Fine Arts Fair dress rehearsal. The kids did great introducing themselves, playing piano/singing/reading their dramatic readings. We talked about the plan for Saturday and Sunday (we also sing and play bells for church Sunday) and had a little time for recess afterwards. As the kids went to recess, Mr. E caught me. The principals down by Northrop decided to cancel the Fine Arts Fair. Man! It was a high and low for many of my students today. Our piano teacher came up with the idea to have kids do their pieces next Wednesday on Family Day for the guests in between chapel and our meal. What a great idea! At least then they'd be able to perform for some sort of audience and all their hard work won't go to waste. 

Update

I feel very drained today. Even though I didn't do much yesterday, I think the residual stress is lingering. Hopefully a peaceful night at home will help. 

K sent me the link to a baby cam Rochester has for parents with babies in the NICU. Log in and see the baby any time! Seems like both mom and baby are doing well. 

One night off of school work and I'm feeling super behind. Midterms, Fine Arts Fair, correcting papers, Lutheran Schools Week next week... Pray for recovery for K's family and productivity for me!

Baseball and Baby

Thursday was actually a pretty good day at school. My kids were fairly calm all day and we ended with a fun game of baseball in the gym. I pitched. One kid fussed about everything, but a classmate (one of his friends) told him to knock it off because it was slowing down the game. So eventually he quit. 

G and I were going to go to St. Mark for church, but our plans got derailed... He's fighting off a bad cold, so he dropped food off for others to serve (he was one of the council members in charge of the dinner this Wednesday) and went home to rest. I got a call from my friend K, a college friend with a baby due mid-May. She was in the hospital fully dilated, baby was coming breech, husband was piloting somewhere, and she was going in for emergency c-section. Could I come to the hospital? 

So I dropped everything and zoomed to Mankato. The Mankato hospital is a maze, but I found my way up to her room and suited up in a blue hairnet and disposable scrubs. The nurses were prepping her for surgery and took her to the operating room shortly after I arrived. Before she left, she asked me to be godmother. Of course! I was put in charge of updating husband and family until her anesthesia finalized and then I could go in the room. 

Mostly, I stayed behind the curtain at K's head and talked to her/held her arm/prayed. Every once in a while I'd pop up to see beyond the curtain how things were going. In a few short minutes, baby Ella was born! Nurses whisked her off for check-up since she's two months premature. K got sewn back up no problems, and baby is doing fine too. The main problem at two months early is there's no surfactant being produced in the lungs. Surfactant is what lets the surfaces slip and slide past each other without sticking. So baby can breath, it's just really difficult until she can produce surfactant on her own. They hooked her up to a breathing tube right away and said she was doing really well with oxygen levels. 

Mankato isn't staffed for an intensive NICU; they only keep babies over 34 weeks. Anything under gets sent to Rochester. So little Ella got prepped for transport that night. K decided to baptize in the hospital before she left. No pastor's answered her call, so I was on deck for doing the baptism. Thankfully, the pastor who married her texted that he had literally just arrived in Mankato (back from CA) and could be over in 10 minutes. Right after that we got word the baby was coming down to K's room to say goodbye before leaving. We asked if they could stall ten minutes. The staff was hesitant, but they had to go over paperwork, which wrapped up right as the pastor came to the door. Whew! God's timing is perfect! 

He did the baptism, said a prayer, and did a devotion for us after baby left. (K's sister-in-law had also come down from the Cities to be with us). G came back to town to clean up the lenten meal and brought me some supper. I ended up leaving the hospital around 8pm after visiting hours ended. K was doing well, her husband would arrive sometime around 11pm. 

What a day! 

YWAC

Young Writers and Artists Conference was today, finally. Students signed up for individual classes mid-January and have waited until now to attend them. It's one of our favorite field trips... kids pick from a list which three classes to attend, all focusing on various art, theater, and writing topics. The day of the trip they get to walk around Bethany's campus, attending their classes just like real college students. They have to figure out which room and building to go to and find their way back to the gym for lunch. 

We always have plenty of chaperones attending. Today's all clumped together for the main speaker. Normally not too much of a problem, but this year's kiddos tend to react when in small spaces. And all the instigators clumped together. I should've sorted them out as soon as I noticed, but I'm all about giving people second chances. How else can they rise to the occasion? Unfortunately, they did not do well together. 

Short version: an 8th grader leaned against a 6th grader. He couldn't move his feet and one of them poked a 6th grade girl in the back. She asked him to move but he didn't tell her he wasn't able to, so she turned around and jabbed his feet with a pen. The other 6th grade boy kicked her in the back to get her to stop. Then she stood up and yelled to me (in the middle of the presentation) to get him to stop/move/etc. Sigh. The only positive thing is that all the other schools' students were being loud at that point, so I don't think anyone noticed. Or very few did. 

So I called the 6th grader to come down by me. He didn't move. We had a staredown for at least a minute, maybe two. Finally, after I made the 8th grader scoot over to make room, this 6th grader joined me on my bench, complaining all the while. Ugh. He wanted to argue right away but I told him we would talk after the main speaker. And that's when we got to the bottom of all of this.

Thankfully, the rest of the day went much smoother. All the kids found their classes. They enjoyed the topics for the most part. I helped a bunch of kids with their embroidery in one of the sessions. Two 7th graders from our school were in the class, but they pretty much had it figured out. I ended up working with four kids from another school. It was fun. I had a lot of flashbacks to when my mom taught my sisters and me how to sew. 

We ended our day with recess in the gym to burn off our energy. Not a bad way for me to come back from vacation!

Arizona was lovely. It was a little chilly Saturday, but Sunday and Monday were sunny and balmy. G and I had some nice family time with his siblings and parents. We went on a few hikes, one for a sunrise view and the other around the town's fountain park and a ridge overlook. Our flight home landed a bit earlier than expected. We braved the MN cold and made it home around 12:15am. Short night of sleep! Hopefully we can recuperate a little more this week before another busy weekend... Fine Arts Festival is coming...

Movie and Pie

I escaped pie in the face! I'm extra thankful this year since I'm heading to the airport after school today... G's family is all down in Arizona and I'm off to join them for the weekend. I took Monday off school to make the flight more worthwhile and G will fly back with me. He went down a week earlier to spend time with his aunt and help her move to a different condo. 

My kids were crazy this morning because of all the fun stuff we had planned for the afternoon. Since we met our reading goal, we got to watch a movie in the afternoon. The 1-2nd graders did a basketball shootout vs. the teachers for five minutes. We had to stand at the freethrow line, but they could move up. They also had the choice of using a shorter basket. We were neck and neck for the first two minutes, then the 1-2nd graders pulled ahead. They beat us by six baskets! I made three and almost made a ton more. One basket swooped down into the rim and rolled out! Ugh! So close! Mr. E said if we had had one more minute we could've had them!

Halfway through the movie, we paused for an intermission to announce the winners of the pledge drive and our top readers. The top two readers read over 4000 minutes! Two of the top three chose to pie Mrs. R, who wore a special shirt decorated to say "Bring it On" in anticipation of getting pied. The top reader, a 7th grader, chose to pie Mr. E. She pied him last year too. He was not happy about it, but he did it anyway, and then went straight home to clean up. 

We finished the afternoon with popcorn and the last half of the movie, Now You See Him Now You Don't. I got all my correcting finished and even some grades entered! With the snow days last week, we missed sending out midterms. Oops. Better get them out next week. 

Now I have everything set and ready to go for Mrs. O on Monday, the classroom is fairly tidy, and things are reset for next week. Woohoo! And I'm off!

Long Day

Boy, lots of stuff going on after school today. 

First, I was in charge of latchkey until the high school worker could get here. While I did that, Mr. D and I mapped out car seats for Tuesday's field trip (since I won't be at school Monday). Afterwards, the Immanuelites and Men's Club served us supper before our staff meeting. And finally after that I could get my normal school work done and prep for being gone on Monday.

This time of year is always crazy... lots of moving parts to make sure work together... Fine Arts Fair is next Saturday, but the art projects have to get dropped off on Tuesday. Since I'm gone Monday, I want all my class's art to be ready to go by the end of Friday so my sub doesn't have to mess with it. Unfortunately, I have a few pokey puppies who will be wrapping their art up on Monday. Or maybe even Tuesday morning. 

The week after Fine Arts Fair is when we're celebrating Lutheran School's Week. Even more moving parts for that! Throw in a church youth group activity for good measure. Then, the week after that my class serves the Lenten meal. Whew. Can I keep my head on straight?

GOOOOAL!

We met our reading goal! Woohoo! We read almost double our school goal for the month of February! Goal was 29,000, actual total was 50,000 plus a few minutes. Wowza. 

So, that means we get to watch a movie on Friday afternoon. The class that read the most minutes per student gets to do a basketball shootout vs. the teachers. (I can't say which class that was because we haven't announced the winners yet). The top five readers get a book gift certificate and the top three readers get to pie a teacher. 

It's incredible how much reading our kiddos have done. We had eight people read over 2000 minutes in February! The top two readers were in the 4000 minute range. Only a few teachers turned in minutes, but I know we were all reading. It's been a fun month, but I will say, I am glad we don't need to log our time anymore...

Quiet

The kids must be tired; it was a much quieter day today. 

Surprisingly, my favorite part of the day was Writers Workshop. We just started a historical fiction writing unit and I'm feeling good about the writing the students are doing and the brainstorming/help I'm giving them to get started writing. 

This is the first time I've tackled historical writing in English, and it helps that we've read a few historical fiction read-alouds. All those details help my kids figure out what to write. But I have a feeling I'm going to have to push them to add more historical details. I worked with one student who had quite a long story, but it could've taken place in any time period. If there's one, there's got to be another...

I caught a few students wasting time on their computers during rounds today. One kid said he was reading articles online (a task I'm very skeptical of, but a few of them have actually been reading news, so I let it go). This particular student had been staring at his spelling test audio file for at least ten minutes. Yeah, not a great move buddy. I kicked him off for the rest of the round and he snagged a book off the shelf to read. Or maybe 'read'. Not sure since I had to get back to the other student I was working with. 

The next round the same guy tried to pull the same trick again, reading articles. That stopped when I told him he could go back on his computer as long as he sat at the folding table with his screen out so I could easily see what he was doing. For some reason, he didn't want to do that... probably because it's not very comfortable. Guess he should've thought of that before messing around on the computer. I did a few random browser history checks of other students and they were all okay. A different kid I'd previously caught messing around took me up on the "sit at the folding table" deal and he actually read an article. 

Today is the last day of February. Last day to read. Tomorrow is the last day to turn in pages! I'm not sure how close to the goal we are... with the field trip yesterday and our two snow days last week, we're all playing catchup and no one has had a chance to tally the reading logs. I hope we make it. If not, we're not watching a movie Friday and that will be a bummer...

Trip to the Capitol

Today was a full, but awesome day. We had an interesting start to the trip when we got word that the New Ulm bus would be late because so many of their buses had gone in the ditch. Thankfully we only had one student on that bus, so two parent chaperones waited at school and drove up separate. 

We had to rush because the parent planning the trip got Mr. E the opportunity to say the prayer at the Senate opening. We made it in plenty of time and he did great. We got to sit on the opposite side of the Senate chambers than visitors usually get to sit. It's very steep there, which is why they don't allow it. 

After that we headed to a meeting with our local representatives: Jeff Brand and Paul Torkelson. We told them about our school and asked a few questions. Then the leader of the high school page program spoke to us. Then we went to the Senate building to meet Senator Nick Frentz at his office. He was fun to meet with. We got an inside look at the offices and behind the scenes of our government workers. He took us to the Energy, Utilities, Environment, and Climate Committee Meeting (he is committee chair). After that we finally had lunch (around 1pm). 

Our tour of the Capitol was delayed slightly so we could catch a glimpse of the governor and lieutenant governor. It was Muslim day at the capitol and they each gave a speech in the rotunda. 

The last thing on the agenda was to sit in on the House Session. Michele got the 8th graders and Mr. E tickets to sit on the floor (which means they got to sit where the action happens instead of the balcony, like the rest of us). 

While we waited for session to start, a state trooper asked if a few of us wanted to do a special side trip. Of course! He said he'd take one chaperone and two students. Me! And two of the 7th grade girls (we did bubble gum, bubble gum in a dish). Turns out he took us up to see the golden horses! They don't have that on the tour anymore. You have to have to ask a trouper or sheriff specially and they'll take people up, but only after April. So it was extra special to go up this time. 

We tromped over snow piles and roofs (safely of course). We came to a vertical ladder and he looked at it and said, "huh, I don't remember it being that difficult to get up there... maybe we got off too early." So we went back to the stairs and up another flight. That was much easier! 

We rejoined everyone five minutes later just in time for session's beginning. It was supposed to be a very short meeting, but that plan derailed. The republicans wanted to call into a vote (and skip the committee hearings) for cancelling social security taxes. It's been a 'oh we'll get to it later' topic for years and they wanted to make it a right now thing. It felt like a bazillion representatives stood up to talk. We had to leave before we heard the outcome, but later I asked someone in the hall I recognized had been in there and he said the motion had failed, 68 to 64. Major bummer. 

The ride home has been good. We're making good time and the kids have all had a bunch of snacks. A few have been dropped off at Nicollet and the rest will arrive at school soon! I hope everyone has a chance to rest up before class tomorrow, or we'll have some cranky kids...

Again, great trip. Michele put together an awesome schedule. She had a few people make bars and treats for the ride up and back. We had great chaperones. One was a retired lady from church who had never been to the Capitol before and decided now was the time. She was awesome with the kids and we want her to come on all field trips from now on. 😂

Fizzle

We had two snow days, called on Tuesday night already. It was great having the days off! G took the days off too, so we hung out at home together and caught up on a bunch of things. I didn't get my stack of picture books read or my papers corrected, but I cooked and cleaned and shoveled. 

The storm wasn't as bad as everyone thought it would be (at least in Nicollet), so we had school Friday. Everyone was bummed about that... I had a student on vacation this week. I'd been worried about him catching up when he got back, but he won't have too much to catch up on!

Just Snow? Or Blizzard?

The school was abuzz today with the upcoming weather system. Word on the street is we're getting about 18 inches. Now, I'm not sure if that's on one day or over the course of the storm, which started this afternoon and is rumored to last until Thursday afternoon. It's snowed steadily since 1pm, light, fluffy stuff just perfect for blowing around. And the wind is supposed to pick up Wednesday afternoon and Thursday. Some people predict no school the rest of the week. Others say only Thursday is a for sure snow day. My guess is both Wednesday and Thursday off, but depending how bad it blows, we might need Friday to dig out. I guess we'll see what happens!

Tomorrow we were planning to sing and play bells as part of the Ash Wednesday service. That's now postponed until next Wednesday. Mr. E and I decided that this morning so I wouldn't have to lug all the bell stuff over to church. The kids were disappointed we still had bells today, but we need the practice.

Most everyone else is gone from school. Mr. and Mrs. E are still puttering, along with our janitors, but my car is lonely in the parking lot. Tonight's plan is to get as much correcting finished as I can, read my stack of picture books (or save that for a snow day), and then start watching The Chosen. It's been on both G and my watch lists for a long time. It's a tv show (available to watch for free) about Jesus's ministry told in a narrative that makes the stories come alive. The show producers have done some speculation on the disciples' personalities and conversations, but I've heard from others it's really good. 

Guest Speaker

Boy am I glad it's "Friday"! No school tomorrow or Monday! Woohoo! Granted, I have a bunch of papers to correct and a few lessons to plan, but still, a nice chunk of time to get all that done.

We had a great guest speaker this afternoon for 7-8th grade geography. Nadine is a nontraditional student from China at MLC. She's 51 and in her first year learning to become a teacher. You can tell she loves teaching people; her powerpoint was 99 slides! It had lots of pictures and she told stories about her life that tied in with the pictures. Unfortunately, we didn't make it very far though those slides before our time was up, but we did learn a lot about the food of China! She told us the story of how she came to be a student in here. The short version is that her son goes to high school in the Twin Cities, her husband encouraged her to learn to be a teacher in the US (he stays in China to work), and she decided to listen to God and do it. Very cool lady.

Two Hours Late

The roads were horrible this morning. It rained all day yesterday and the wind howled all night giving us glare ice on most of the roads leading to school. New Ulm had a two hour late start, but not Nicollet, so I had to go in at my normal time. G called me a minute after I left the house to warn me about the roads and then stayed on the phone until I made it to school, just to be safe. 

I did safely make it, but I passed one car in the ditch. Then the wind blew snow around and covered the roads some more. Both buses were late dropping kids off. We had a strange morning with just half the class at school. Some Nicollet kids got dropped off by their parents later in the morning, so I started the day with three, then bumped up to four until the other bus came. I had a big to-do list on the board for them. Most of them worked on their Invention report which was supposed to be due tomorrow. But that deadline is pushed off until next week. 

Since it's Wednesday, a chapel day, we had chapel and music practice at 10:40 after everyone arrived. This left only fifteen minutes of worktime before lunch; we had just enough time to go over spelling for next week. And our afternoon was normal. 

Tomorrow is the last day of school for the week! We have Friday and Monday off for Presidents Day. My good friend L has a birthday on Saturday, so I'll go up to visit her for a few days. G is sticking around and will hopefully get a few house projects taken care of... installing our garage door opener perhaps...