Complaints

Update from yesterday... Turns out the teacher who supposedly emailed MLHS did not email about it. She said one of our students blew on the back of her neck, she turned around and asked him to stop, he did. End of story. They were too busy dealing with one of their students in jeopardy of being kicked out of school right then and there to worry about what other schools' students were doing. So. It must've all come from that other student. Ugh. What a mess that could've been completely avoided!

It was a quiet day in 5-6th. One student was home sick, which makes the whole class feel completely different. Lots of complainers about not getting two rounds to work on spelling this morning. They made a deal with me that their workbook and test should be due on the same day, Tuesday, to give them more time to work on it. Normally workbook is due Monday, test Tuesday, learn new spelling Wednesday. They were mad that they ran out of time today. Over half the class had to stay in from recess until they finished. Huh. I seem to recall most of them playing games during rounds yesterday, saying they'd take their workbook home and do it.  I hope they'll make a better choice next week. 

Something Out of Nothing

I got a call from Mr. E Sunday afternoon about an incident that happened on our field trip to MLHS last Tuesday. They'd gotten a report some students shot spitballs at another school and the other school was furious (a new school to the area). Someone had taken a picture of the instigators and circled them in red. All four were our students. Great. 

So, Monday morning rolls around and Mr. E drags each of the accused to the office for grilling. Three of the four boys didn't even know what a spitball was. The only one who did said one of the others had been blowing air on the back of the teacher in front of them. What? His explanation was that when he gets hot, he blows air to try to cool down. 

Next, Mr. E called the school's principal to tell her he talked to everyone involved and they have no clue about any spitballs. It's all a bit hazy from here... but my understanding is a kid from Lakefield took the photo and circled the boys from our school. Not sure who contacted MLHS about the spitballs, or if there even were spitballs. The school that was so angry/upset is not angry/upset, especially since Mr. E talked to the 'perpetrators' and dealt with it. But Mr. E isn't the kind of guy to let it rest if it's not all figured out, so more people need to be contacted... He's waiting on a call back from the teacher who was sitting right in front of our guys to hear about these spitballs. 

Lakefield Tournament

Update on the stinker from yesterday: he had a much better day today. Way less back-talk, respectfully said his memory work and did late work, and we had a fantastic conversation about his read-to-self book during our weekly meeting. I'm glad that instances like yesterday aren't common and that the people involved can go back to 'normal'.

Today was a super strange day of school. Our morning was normal, but most of the school left between 1:30 and 2pm, all basketball players and their families heading to the tournament. For once, I am not attending the tournament, so I took the kindergarten class and the stragglers from 7-8th grade with my two remaining kiddos at 1:30 for the rest of the day so Mr. and Mrs. E could get there on time. 

My classroom was pretty chaotic. My students worked on wrapping up late assignments... memory, spelling test fixes, science labs... until their parents peeled them off one by one. The 7-8th graders did other homework. One student interviewed me for a reading assignment. He asked about a trip I went on out of the country, one of my El Salvador Thrivent Builds. The kindergarteners built forts with some of my STEM stuff and the 5th graders joined them after their work was done. 

At 2pm we went to the gym for recess until the end of the day. Another chaotic time: PreK-5 in the gym together. Lots of big emotions from tired kids playing. But we survived! 

I am ready to hit the road too. My sister and a former co-worker and I are doing a spelling bee tonight, hosted by the North Mankato library, then I'm heading up to the Cities to visit a college friend. She and I are going to a Secret Supper in Mora on Saturday (a Christmas present from G). We don't know our official destination until 24h before the event, nor what's specifically on the menu. Something northern I think. We're spending part of the event outside, so I have all my heaviest winter gear packed! Sunday, I pick G up from the airport and we're heading down to Fulda for my grandparent's 65th wedding anniversary! Lots of driving, but lots of quality time too. 😀

Bringing in the Big Guns

Uffda, what a day. It wasn't too bad except the tail end of the morning. Another altercation between a 6th grade boy and a 6th grade girl. 😖😒 

We were doing Daily 5 rounds. I first noticed the disruption when she chucked his stocking cap across the room. Ahem, a hat that should've been in his crate or the coatroom. He got mad and shoved the back of her head super hard so she almost fell over. I stopped working with the writer I'd been conferencing with and asked him to come to the coatroom with me. He went to the reading corner with a game and sat down instead. Well then. I repeated my instructions. No response again. I said we'd bring in Mr. E if he didn't come in five seconds. Still no movement. 

I tried to call Mr. E on my school desk phone, but it's still on the fritz and it went straight to his voicemail. Sigh. So I walked down to his room, interrupted his class (ugh, I hate doing that), and had him get this student to come out in the coat room so I could get to the bottom of what happened. I don't often get mad, but this time I was actually shaking... either with anger or nerves about having to deal with the disrespect. Ugh. 

He was mad because she wouldn't move out of his way enough for him to get past, so he kicked her in the legs to get her to move, then she threw his hat, then he got mad and shoved her. A problem that could've been solved with a simple, "Mrs. H, she won't move." And now he missed recess and has to write two apology notes that have to be signed by both parents. Not to mention additional consequences from parents (he doesn't get to make venison jerky with his dad tonight). Sigh.

The rest of the day was better. The 7th graders and I talked about books they enjoyed reading when they were in my class (in preparation for finding books to read for February I Love to Read Month). Bells went pretty good, even though we didn't have time to practice all the songs I wanted to. They had PE so I did a lot of lesson planning. And we ended the day with 5-6th grade social studies talking about the 1900s and all the causes people championed back then. 

In other news, it is G and my one month anniversary! He's down in Florida playing on a baseball team with his dad and uncle, so they're celebrating there. I'm celebrating by going to bible study, reheating leftovers, and correcting the papers I didn't get to last night... maybe organizing bathroom cupboards... Maybe once that's finished I can mentally relax and read a book sometime!

It's Tuesday, No... Thursday. Wait, Wednesday?

I keep forgetting which day of the week it is. I know it's not Friday or Monday, but otherwise my brain flopped between Tuesday and Thursday all day, even with chapel in the morning! The no school Monday and field trip yesterday are throwing me off...

This Friday will be another strange day. The basketball players need to leave at 2pm to get to the game on time, and no doubt a bunch of them will leave even earlier. I think I'll be left with just one student from my class. Mrs. E is going with Mr. E, so I'm going to watch her class for her from 2pm until the end of the day. We were going to do STEM time anyway, so we'll either do that or recess. 

House updates: so far no more water leaks! I had a productive night yesterday putting things away. Tonight cleaning is on the agenda. That and correcting spelling. But first I have to finish changing my name on the last two documents: driver's license and passport. Hopefully I have all the right paperwork! They make you jump through quite a few hoops for that!

Field Trip Tuesday

It's going to be a short week! We had no school yesterday so teachers could get our report cards finished. I'm still waiting for PE grades from Mr. E, otherwise mine are ready to print. 

The field trip was pretty good, but the speaker was a little too wordy for the audience. He used a 600 page slideshow originally created for a group of Korean War veterans. Great for them, not great for 5-8th graders. He did skip a few slides and summarized some concepts, which helped. My kids noticed he read right off the slides... really fast. So he talked for an hour and a half and then did interactive stuff for a half an hour. Some kids dressed up as soldiers and got to demonstrate how to fire a bazooka (all dummy equipment of course). Then nearly 70 kids 'joined the army' and did some army drills (lifting up their wooden guns, setting them back down, turning around, etc.). My kids liked that part. 

Afterwards we did our traditional Pizza Ranch meal in New Ulm. So tasty! Then it was back to school for a few hours of working. A pretty low-key day. 

Finally Friday

Holy cow, this felt like the longest week ever. Praise the Lord it's Friday! We actually had a pretty good day today. Still some unnecessary comments and ridiculous statements trying to poke holes in everything anyone says, but not as much as the past few days. 

The 7-8th graders earned a class prize and chose recess all class period. They wanted to do a movie, but Mr. E vetoed that because otherwise they'd have THREE movies in one day. They always get to watch a movie in Pastor's class on Friday and their Christmas present from Mr. E is to watch a movie at his house and he grills for them. So. Recess it was. 

I corrected papers and then played "sock snake" with two 7th grade girls. It's like the basketball game Snake, except you play it in sock feet. I kept my shoes on, but the girls took them off. They have a few other rules they changed or are more strict on in the sock version: the ball can bounce three times if it goes far away from the hoop. You actually keep track of letters. Not sure of others. 

After a while the others in the class asked us how to play so they could play it on their own hoop. They played regular Snake, not the sock version. 

Good news: I got all my papers corrected and report cards finished as much as I can without grades from Mr. E and our piano teacher! No homework for the weekend! I don't even have to do my lesson plans because there's no school Monday (end of the quarter) and we have a field trip Tuesday. I can get everything ready for the week Tuesday after school. And that's a great end to the second quarter.

Mining the Snowhill

My kiddos got creative at recess today. Three boys used various tools they found (left at the school's front door for snow removal purposes) to "mine" the hill. That's the exact word they used too. They wanted the icy powder to put on the already semi-icy kickball field so "it will melt and get even icier. Then we can ice skate on it!" Creative, but I don't think the weather will warm up enough this week. Plus there's another snowstorm on the horizon. 

The girls were on an ice hunt. They searched all the nooks and crannies of the playground for ice left behind from this week's earlier rainstorm. They found a really good piece in a tilted up sled and struck gold in the mud kitchen's pots and pans. The real motherload was in two sleds tucked back in the space between my classroom and the gym. Some other grades had collected the ice chunks a different recess and then forgot about them (there was a layer of snow on top). 

A final group of students opted to organize the gym shed instead of play outside. They were fed up with the basketball racks always getting shoved in our coatroom; it makes it really hard to get around. So I told them to problem solve. Cleaning the shed was their solution. It looks FANTASTIC in there... tons of space for everything. Now to just keep it that way...

Physics

The 5-6th graders began a new science book today. We had wrapped up our final chemistry lab last week and have moved on to physics! Some of my students are more excited than others. I think I enjoy the chemistry content better, but the physics labs are much easier to set up. 

The 7-8th graders had three girls from MLC speak to their class about the semester they studied abroad. The girls went to different places: London, Ireland, and Germany. It was very interesting, but my students were very quiet and didn't ask many questions. We wrapped up after about a half an hour then had study hall time instead of bells. No one was sad about that.

The battle has begun to get late work turned in before the end of the day on Friday. That is the official end to quarter two of the school year and everything has to be turned in. Next week, we have the same rule: everything turned in or you can't play in the Lakefield basketball tournament. That lights a fire under some of them! 

Book Boom

"Boom" a period of great prosperity or rapid economic growth. One of our vocab words from MN history today. As I scrounged for an example to use, one of the students chimed in, "Oh, like your books Mrs. H! We have a boom of books!" Yes we do. 

Someone dropped off a couple of bins of books, read once by her son who is now grown up and out of the house. They're good books too... Inkspell, The Percy Jackson books, Warriors series, Eragon, etc. Most of them I've heard of but there are a few new to me. Lots more books to add to the library! 

Slimy Desks

There's mold in the 7-8th graders desks. Don't worry; it's there on purpose. Since we've been learning about protists, we're doing an experiment trying to rehydrate and grow slime mold. To give you a better picture in your head, each student has a petri dish with agar at the bottom (a very pale beige layer of nutrient-rich solid gel stuff), a tiny piece of paper with hibernating slime mold, and a bunch of oat flakes. The petri dish and lid are in a zip lock bag stored in a dark place. 

I did this project two years ago with the 7-8th graders. I had purchased a slime mold growing kit from Carolina Science Supply and had kept the extras. A few students back then had huge success growing their slime mold, so when they dried out, I kept the best one. It's in a plastic bag labeled "Helga". 

We're trying to rehydrate some from the lab supply company and some from a revived Helga. Helga is growing the best. I heard a report that some little webs are forming now. Most of the other students only have little yellow spots on their petri dishes. Although, some mold is forming... A nice specimen of thread-like fungus is appearing complete with black sporangia on the tops. 

There's still some of Helga left in hibernation mode and in the original ziplock bag. The student who grew Helga does one of the days of afterschool care, so I showed it to her today after school. She lit up. "Oh yeah! I remember Helga! Oh my goodness I can't believe it!" She was tickled someone was regrowing her old experiment. 

Don't you just love science?

Ding Dong Done

I've been trying to think about what to write today, and all I can think of is that Christmas program songs are still playing on a loop in my head and that bell practice today was horrible. 

We cancelled our January singing/ringing Sunday because it's the Sunday after an away basketball tournament and lots of families said they would not be coming. We've been practicing the January songs already, but I like the February songs too, so I had to decide which to keep and discard. I flipped through the songs during recess and had a big plan to practice both February songs plus the three March ones (including one for Fine Arts Fair). 

I hate to say any class session is a disaster, but this one I'd say qualifies. First, it took them forever to get things set up. Then they couldn't find the specific songs in their folders. Then the songs weren't all highlighted. All this is somewhat normal for the first time we're looking at a song. This year I tried printing ALL the bell songs for the whole year so we could highlight them all at once. Mixed reviews. It's really nice to not highlight every month, but it was a lot to do all at once. And not everyone got everything highlighted and they forgot that they didn't, and I forgot to check in with kids, so we waste time. 

Another problem is that if I tweaked anything in their books and not mine, I don't remember because it's been so long. That was our problem today. Three kids had something different marked in their books for what they're supposed to play compared to what was noted in mine. I couldn't remember which way was right. They were all crabby and snappy. I was getting frustrated while trying to stay even-tempered... The other kids gave up and sat down, knowing it would be a long time before we played anything. They were right. We only made it through the song once. It sounded horrible because some of them didn't highlight their flats/naturals correctly. Again, nothing out of the ordinary, something fixable with practice. But two of the girls got into an argument about which notes to play, followed by a lot of hurt feelings. Because I didn't immediately punish one girl for saying something mean, the other girl yelled at me and called me a bad teacher. So I sent her to the principal.

With only five minutes to go, I wanted to end on a better note, so we flipped to "In the Hall of the Mountain King"... Which they promptly complained about playing for Fine Arts Fair... "Why can't we play 'Patapan'? That one sounds good and we know how to play it already!" The answer is, because you play it too fast! It sounds like a runaway train. (I didn't tell them that last part.) We were just about to begin playing when someone yelled out, "Oh. Mine's not highlighted." 🙄 Great. So I had everyone put their stuff away while the late highlighters highlighted. Sigh.

Praise the Lord tomorrow is Friday.

The Program At Last

My last Christmas program went off swimmingly! It was a little foggy, but that didn't impact travel too much. Everyone was able to get to school; we had a good crowd for an audience. My parents and G were in the crowd along with a handful of church members and lots of family members. 

The kids all remembered their parts and sang strongly. The kids remembered when to sit, stand, and walk out. The bell songs sounded great and I got a few compliments from the audience about their performance. We served donuts afterwards and had some fellowship time before lugging all the kids back to school for the rest of the day. 

It was so nice to not feel like rushing off after the service. To get a chance to chat with people I haven't seen in a while. To have the time and hands to take down risers, bell tables, and load everything up in my car to bring back to school. 

The rest of the day was pretty quiet. My class had Daily 5 rounds and a normal afternoon. The 7-8th graders learned about protists and the 5-6th graders studied DNA. After school, Mrs. R (1-2nd grade teacher) and I planned February I Love to Read Month activities. In a half an hour I have a PTL meeting. After that, for once, my evening is free! Aside from the ever present pile of papers to correct...

Chemistry of Pancakes

Tuesday was our rescheduled "Chemistry of Pancakes" day with retired Betty Crocker test kitchen worker Mary Bartz. This is the second time she's done this class for me since I've used this science curriculum (we missed one year because of covid), and it was just as good! 

We worked over at church in the kitchen to have more space/kitchen supplies. She had everything set up for four groups. Each group would make a different pancake recipe, mostly the same but just one ingredient changed, and compare them. Recipe #1 was the traditional Betty Crocker pancake recipe. #2 substituted almond "milk" for the milk and gluten free flour (I have a dairy/gluten free student). #3 used buttermilk instead of milk. #4 used baking soda instead of baking powder. 

They had a great time whisking, pouring, and flipping the batter/pancakes... and an even better time tasting them! It was split pretty evenly that recipe #1 and #3 were the best. I thought the regular ones were better than buttermilk. My second favorite recipe was actually the gluten/dairy free pancakes! They had a great flavor! #4, baking soda, was the worst batch. Very bitter and salty tasting. Smelled like baking soda. The students wanted to play a prank on the 7-8th graders and give them the leftovers. They got 'em! 

Some of the kids took the recipe home and made pancakes again that night! My gluten free kid was one of them. His family normally makes a gluten free box mix pancake and he said this recipe was so much better. His mom said it's a much simpler ingredient list and tastes better too. Awesome! 

Just a Monday

Is it really only Monday? Man, it feels like any other day of the week but Monday. Not sure why. Possibly because we had Christmas program practice again this afternoon. 

It went pretty well. The kids remembered a lot of where to go/stand/when to move. Still a bunch of changes to be made since one kid is going to be gone and the two kids who were each going to be at the program on different nights are both going to be at the Wednesday morning performance. We're getting it worked out though. 

Other than program practice, it was a pretty low-key day. One of my students stayed home sick which always alters the dynamics of the classroom. Everyone got caught up on their late work and fixes. We had good English and Reading lessons in the morning. The kids were a little miffed the lunch menu this week is altered because of all the snow days we had. But Friday's lunch is one of their favorite menu items, bosco sticks, so they were excited about that. My sack lunch was extra delicious. G packed it for me, so maybe that's why; I didn't have to cook! 😂 

Icicles

Lots of long icicles hung from the gym eaves before afternoon recess. Now, not so many. My kids had a great time trying to knock them down by throwing chunks of snow or broken pieces of icicle at the hanging . 

I had to add a few rules about when to throw and when to collect the fallen ice because students weren't paying any attention. They'd rush to grab a big hunk of ice while paying no attention to the other hunk of ice hurtling through the air at their heads from one of their classmates trying to knock an icicle down. Sigh. So we enacted the rules of the archery range. I said one minute of "shooting" and one minute of retrieving. It worked! No injuries during recess.

Even though it's been a two day week, everyone was still glad it was a Friday. All the craziness I'd been expecting yesterday came in full force today. Lots of snappy kids getting on each others' nerves. Maybe a weekend apart will reset everyone? 

A lot more kids called me Miss H today instead of my new name. It's still so new, I don't even think to correct them! I did change my name on a field trip permission form that went out. I wonder if they've changed my name in the church bulletin... I told G about the holes-eater thing and he said it's okay to pronounce the name that way, but he says it with more of a "t" sound in the middle: holts-eater. I think I got it down now. 😅

Mrs. Holes-Eater

Two snow days in a row on the backside of Christmas break! What a way to start the new year! There are HUMONGOUS piles of snow all around school. So many gigantic piles you can hardly see the bus from inside school! 

It was a megablessing to start school on Thursday this week. G and I returned from our North Shore honeymoon Saturday night to G's house in Mankato, packed up his things Sunday, and moved him into my Nicollet house Monday. Our unpacking/settling in plans were waylaid by water... I opened the door to find a huge puddle of water in the basement yet again, this time from a broken valve in my new fridge (the one connecting the water to the icemaker). Thankfully it was easy to shut off. Thankfully it didn't damage anything. Thankfully it was "easy" to clean up. Could've been a lot worse. So, the house is still not fully settled-in, but we're working on it. And now we know, SHUT OFF THE WATER anytime we're gone longer than a day or two. 

It was good to be back in school today. My kids weren't too crazy. Most of them kept calling me Miss H. I wrote my new name on the board, complete with pronunciation. The easiest way to say it is "holes-eater" with the "s" as more of a "z" sound. A lot of people gave up and called me Mrs. H. It's an adjustment!

Both of our Christmas services were cancelled due to weather and a TON of people called Mr. E and Pastor asking to reschedule. So, after much deliberation, we are doing it next Wednesday morning, January 11th starting at 8:45am in case any of y'all want to come. 😉 It will be livestreamed and recorded for those who want to watch, but can't make it at that time. 

Lots of people wanted us to do it in the evening, but it's so hard for young families to keep their kids up so late on a school night. Plus there are three meetings scheduled for that evening and all the other nights that week have basketball things scheduled. We don't want to go any deeper into January. It's already taken up so much class time to prep... So we're making the decision to do it this way. If it means so much to people, they can watch online at their convenience or take time off to come see it. 

We have a staff meeting today after school, along with our rescheduled staff Christmas party. I wonder if anyone will guess that SPS means salt and pepper shakers?