Prayer Journal

Wednesday. One of my favorite days at Mt. Olive. We have chapel, and it's not just a basic, bare minimum chapel. It's a full on liturgy with singing and hymns. Warms my heart. I might make 8am chapel there a weekly occurrence when I'm not teaching here anymore. Non-school people are welcome to attend; I noticed a handful of parents who came and sat with their kids.

After chapel the 5th graders fill out a prayer journal. I've never been in their classroom for a normal session, so I'm not sure how that goes. Today, however, each student wrote a special prayer on a colorful notecard for Mrs. M and her baby. I had listed some examples up on the board of specific things to pray for they could use or not use. The main thing was to pray from the heart. We'll bind these up and send them in a school care package to her so she can read these prayers over her baby over and over. The kids always ask about Mrs. M and the baby and want to pray for her often, so they had lots of ideas for themselves. Everyone finished quickly.

Following lunch, we have another class devotion with prayer. Today they asked if we could say a special prayer for Mrs. M. I had the idea to read one of their written prayers from the morning. "You can say 'no thank you' if you don't want to share yours out loud," I told them. 

We read two aloud, and the class loved it. They were so supportive of what their classmates had written. "That was so good!" I heard many of them say. They enjoyed it so much, they asked to read more. We had time, so, why not? Only a handful of students passed. A few were on the fence and I reassured them there was no pressure. Once we went through all that wanted to share, I thanked the students who had allowed their prayers to be read. "It's a very personal thing, these prayers, so thank you for sharing your thoughts. And those of you who didn't share, thank you for saying no and keeping them to yourself, because again, these are private things and it's okay to not share them." 

After that, a few kids changed their minds and asked me to read their prayers. One boy said that his could be read if he wasn't in the room. I said no he had to stay. Another male student said that he would let his prayer be read if that first classmate let his be read. So both of them let their prayers be heard. The first one said he was going to plug his ears when I read his, but I don't think he did in the end. And once those two were read, the whole class cheered them on and said they had done well. It was so sweet to watch. 

These kids really worm their way into your heart, don't they???

Rubik's Cubes

There's an epidemic at Mt. Olive in 5th grade... both classrooms. The rise of the Rubik's Cube is here! Since I arrived, students have been solving them every spare minute they have. There are traditional cubes, neon cubes, pyramid cubes, and megaminx (a 12-sided puzzle). Today, one of the boys brought in a cube that looks all black except when heat is applied; then the colors are revealed. Wow. That caused a stir in the classroom.

Social studies was on Martin Luther and the Reformation. The kids were excited they already knew a lot of this stuff. A few of them asked me if I had corrected their narrative writing project yet. Nope. It takes a lot of time to grade 35 papers! My goal is to finish them tonight. I think I have about 30 to go.

The Mt. Olive PTA brought the staff lunch today. Last night, Mrs. L texted me not to bring a sack lunch, but by the time morning rolled around I had forgotten and packed a lunch anyway. It's a bummer because as I packed my lunch, I was grumbling to myself how we didn't have anything good in the fridge and I had to throw together whatever I could when I could be reading the kids' stories... Oops. Well, now I have a lunch ready for tomorrow. They served us a creamy soup, Caesar salad, and oranges. Very tasty. 

Monday Monday

Another decent day at school. Religion and social studies are the subjects my students seem to be the most engaged in. Today we did the story of Balaam and Johannes Gutenberg/printing press respectively. The 5th graders were also excited to share their narrative writing stories with the class, date TBD. I decided to correct that assignment. So far I've read two. Only 33 to go!

I started a new read-aloud book with Mrs. M's class, Running Out of Time by Margaret Peterson Haddix. I read it with a past year of 5-6th graders and they were sucked in. I hope this class will feel the same. So far we're on page four and they're still a bit disgruntled I didn't pick one of the books they recommended. The other class, Mr. N's class, and I are reading Restart by Gordon Korman. It's just as good as I remember, and the kids are eating it up. We read it as often as we have spare time when I'm in their classroom. 

The girl drama continues. Nothing to report there. I thought things were looking a little better (they ate lunch together and I heard they played a bit at recess), but according to her mom, they still feel stuck. Me too.

Almost all the girls in 5th grade play basketball. Two or three of the five asked me if I would stay and watch their basketball game after school. I wasn't planning to, but then I ended up still being there close to game time (and I had papers to correct), so I stayed for the first two quarters. They played well and if things continued like they did for the first two, I think they won the game!

My time at Mt. Olive is still up in the air, nothing new to report. I have a feeling they will hire the MLC graduate to be the long-term sub for the rest of the year. That's fine with me, but I have also had twinges of regret thinking about being done teaching these kids. They're a good group. The principal is trying to meet with the graduate in person sometime this week. I'll just have to be patient until then!

Oddities and Skiing

I've achieved a new level with these 5th graders. Today, two of them came up to me separately to tell me a random fact about them. One girl lost a tooth and now her mouth feels weird. One boy showed me how double jointed he is, particularly with his thumb. No context for either. Just volunteered facts. 😆

A third student shares his food with me. Yesterday he gave me a Cheez-It, today he gave me a cucumber followed by a french fry followed by a Rolo. He didn't want to ski at all, so he hung out with me most of the day. He also spent a big chunk of time telling me all the countries of Europe (because he has them memorized), Asia (mostly memorized), and South America (also mostly memorized). 

The ski field trip was chaotic at the beginning and at the end, but in the middle- the part that matters- it went very well. The bus was crammed with students on the way to Mt Kato. Some had to sit three in a seat! 

Once we got there all the students stayed on the bus while the 6th grade teacher went inside to purchase tickets. Then we had to fill out paperwork for ski rental, get helmets, boots, and skis, and then be instructed on how to ski. Some students already knew how to ski and a few even had a ski pass, so those students got to go to the slopes after passing a quick test. 

The beginners spent most of the morning doing lessons, but they were able to get a few runs down the hill before lunch time. They spent the rest of the afternoon skiing the slopes with their friends and having a great time. The workers told us they love when our school comes because the children are so polite and nice.

There was only one injury today; a boy had a bad fall and bruised his hands. He said he felt fine, but they put him in a splint/arm wrap anyway. His mom is a nurse so I'm sure she will check it out when he gets home.

Collecting everyone at the end of the field trip was another huge ordeal. Some students went home with their parents, some stayed to ski longer with their parents, and the rest of us packed onto the bus again. I was in charge of getting both 5th grade classes back to school... made more difficult when they kept wandering as I counted them! One of the chaperones helping me kept messing up the pronunciation of my last name. I ignored the mispronunciation since my name is a tough one and I had more important things to worry about, but the kids seemed annoyed and kept correcting her. Ha!

We made it back to school just barely in time to send everyone home. It was a great day that went much better than I expected it to. I'm proud of all the kids who tried skiing for the first time and rocked it! 27 of them!

Rhythm

Yesterday back at Mt. Olive felt like normal. The schedule is getting easier and I'm remembering where things are/how to do them quicker. It feels like I'm getting into a rhythm. The only thing I need to work on is remembering to do my blog post at the end of the day!

Still no long-term plan for teaching beyond February 9th. The school boards are still working on a plan for how the pay will work for the sub and the principal doesn't seem in a rush to make an official plan (maybe until that happens?). 

So, besides the unknown of late February, the continuing saga of the 5th grade girls' friendship and the ski field trip are also on my mind. The ski trip is tricky because three classrooms are involved. The 6th grade teacher doesn't want to keep track of both 5th grade classrooms in addition to hers, and the other 5th grade teacher is not a strong communicator. So the bulk of it falls to me and Mrs. L. We have to keep track of two forms per student, parent forms, and parent ticket money... all coming in at different times. Sigh. I will be glad when the trip is over.

Band

 Today was an interesting day. I subbed in the high school music room, the same place I subbed on Monday. This music director is brand new to the school, he just started but still needs to teach at his old school through the end of this week, hence all the subs for this week. His wife has been subbing for him but she couldn't do it today which is why I was there. 

They have their day set up in block periods, class periods are 1.5h. Classes are an hour and a half long which is a super long time for a music lesson, which feel even longer when you run out of things to do. That happened quite a bit because this new director is still trying to figure out where the students' skill levels are.

I only had three students to teach for the whole day. The first was a percussion lesson, however she was late to class because she had an appointment. I didn't find this out until halfway through her lesson because she didn't let anybody know she would be gone. One of the other teachers poked his head in to let me know that that is probably what happened to her. Eventually she showed up and we muddled through the percussion lesson. It went fine. She practiced putting her foot hand and other hand together while playing different rhythms. This is a very challenging task and it seemed like she made progress through the lesson. 

After that I taught a piano lesson which went better than the piano lesson from Monday. This student had more music background so she was able to pick up on the skills quicker. The teacher had left more for her to work on, which helped, but the lesson still felt very long for both of us. 

After that was chapel followed by lunch time and then my last lesson of the day. This was a guitar lesson, another class I've never had to teach before, but again we muddled through and it seemed like he made progress. He said this was only his second guitar lesson and the first lesson he had been by himself with a non music teacher supervising, so he didn't know how lessons were supposed to go normally. I told him his third lesson would be the best yet since it would be with his actual director! This student too was more skilled in music than the director had anticipated, so we finished everything he was supposed to do in about 15 minutes. 

Yikes. Time to improvise. Pretty tricky to do when you don't have any guitar experience. The teacher had left a bunch of guitar music books so we flipped through them and let him sight read and practice picking the notes. The last few minutes of class, the student and I chatted about music and discovered that both of us play the tuba. 

Overall an interesting experience I'm glad I had, but not one I would like to do every day. I'm looking forward to being back in 5th grade tomorrow!

Standard

Today was a pretty standard day, as far as days go since I've been at Mt. Olive. 

I'm more familiar with the lessons/where to find them on the computer, so I actually had everything set to go before morning devotions for the teachers rolled around. So I went! It was the first time I've been to one in all the subbing I've done this year. After devotions, the principal gives announcements. The only one for today was a prayer request for the teacher I'm subbing for and her family. Her baby has a lot of serious infections and it doesn't look good. So please pray for them!

Tomorrow I have another subbing obligation not at Mt. Olive (teaching music at the Christian high school I was at yesterday). It feels so strange to be the sub making sub plans for someone else. It will also be strange to leave school tomorrow right after teaching and not be thinking about lessons for the next day or if all the students turned their things in or if parents have all been contacted about what they need to know. Back to that on Thursday, haha.

Friday is a skiing field trip for 5-6th graders at Mt. Kato. That will be interesting since I've never skied before. I think I'll be 'ground' support for everyone else.

Circle Talk

Middle school. What a tough age. Everything is changing: bodies, friendships, who they are as a person... Rough stuff.

A group of the 5th grade girls have been caught up in some pettiness. I've noticed a group of four of them ignoring a fifth girl and purposefully leaving her out. A few parents have contacted Mrs. L (classroom aid) and me about it. So, today I kept them inside from morning recess to have a circle talk. The left out student didn't want her mom to do anything about it, so I kept it vague. "First of all, none of you are in trouble. I'm new here and I noticed some tension between you four. I wanted to give you the chance to talk to each other and/or talk to me so we can figure out what's going on and fix it if there's a problem." 

Ugh, I was so nervous going into it. Weird, huh? I was worried what they'd say, like if they'd say really mean things and the friendship would be broken further, but actually, it was a really productive conversation. Both sides said it was little things adding up until it was too much. And they had been mad about the one girl being rude and instead of talking to her about it, they just left her out. Lots more conversation happened, but in the end they apologized to each other. They weren't sure how to rebuild the friendship, so I suggested they sit together at lunch. They weren't ready for that, haha. But they did come up with some other ideas of where to start. They all agreed they weren't ready to be hanging out friends again, but they were ready to be done with being mean.

It was awkward at first. None 

For Such a Time As This

Two Fridays ago, I subbed at Mt. Olive for a 5th grade teacher who had taken the day off to go on vacation. She and I had been messaging the night before when she said an emergency had come up and she wasn't able to get things as put together for me in the classroom as she would've liked. I said not to worry, I'd figure it out. 

It wasn't until about 10am Friday morning as I was teaching that I learned she had given birth early and wouldn't be coming back to school for the rest of the schoolyear. The principal had sent an email to his sub list (including me) asking if anyone could help out for the next two weeks. A very wise classroom aid/sub suggested having one person do as much of the subbing as possible to keep things constant for the students. I didn't have much going on, so I volunteered, with this aid filling in for me on the few days I couldn't be there. 

So, all last week I was Mrs. M in 5th grade. Most days I went home with my head ready to explode from trying to remember all the things: where the electronic documents were saved, what papers needed to be passed out tomorrow, which students were home sick and needed an assignment sheet, which kids were back and needed to catch up on late work, names of all the kids, what is the schedule like for tomorrow... the list goes on. Thankfully, the aid (Mrs. L) pitched in to keep things organized and track down missing assignments/enter assignments into the gradebook/locate things in the classroom. She and I are a good team.

The tricky thing is, both of us are not getting paid for extra work we're doing. The basic sub rate is meant to pay someone to show up, teach the already planned things, then go home. Not make plans for future days, not correct papers, not to be communicating with parents about homework, etc. The principal doesn't want us to get burned out (or taken advantage of), so he's counseled us to not go above and beyond (although he's grateful for anything we are willing to do). The trouble is, how can a person be an effective teacher if she's not looking through her students' work to see what they mastered and what needs additional teaching? And how can she teach from day to day when someone else is making the plans and doesn't know where she left off the day before? So we're in a bit of a mess. 

The powers that be don't want to pay either of us the higher long-term sub rate because we're not long-term (at this point in time anyway). But this is an extenuating circumstance. Time will tell if they change their minds or make an exception. So, I'm holding my ground and not correcting any papers until that point. I am making the lesson plans though. I'm experienced enough I can whip those up pretty quickly and this teacher was prepared enough she has all her lessons saved as an electronic file AND most worksheets printed and stored in a filing cabinet; we just need to find them and pull them out.

Word on the street is there's an MLC student available February 12th to take over for the rest of the year. I'm going to sub until then. Although, the principal asked me on Friday what I was doing for the rest of February... and the rest of the school year... Not an explicit offer, but definitely hinting at something. We're planning to have a conversation later this week. 

I don't think I want to be a full-time teacher again, but I would be open to teaching a half day with someone else taking the afternoon. It sounds like that could be a possibility. Of course, that means I'd give up going to two morning bible studies and the opportunity to sub at Immanuel to see my former students. On the other hand, I'd be helping out a school (and students) who really need the help. Hmm... I guess I'll keep praying about it and see what happens!

House update: we have a signed purchase agreement for the Nicollet house! The buyers found our listing on Facebook, toured the house, loved it, and after many questions they made an offer. It's a young, newly married couple who attend the church next door. The husband works in North Mankato and the wife works from home. We've had a home inspection (and passed) and an appraisal (waiting to hear the results later this week). If the appraisal comes back at the price we listed the house, it's smooth sailing to our closing date on February 14th! Whew, that will be a huge weight off our minds. 

G and I used his work truck/trailer to move all the rest of our furniture to the Mankato house. All that's left in Nicollet is a bedframe we needed an allan wrench to take apart (forgot to bring that tool on moving day). Thankfully that will fit in a normal van once it's disassembled. 

Our Mankato house is coming along too. There is some tile on the wall in our upstairs bathroom, the closets have shelves and I've stocked them to the brim. Our living room is 'livable' even if things aren't in their permanent homes. I still have a number of things to sort through and reorganize, but the house is feeling a bit more like a house. Slowly but surely! 

The two stray (likely abandoned) kittens, Flopsy and Mopsy, have adjusted well to our homestead. Too well. They're outside cats only, but judging by how much they want to come inside, our suspicion is their previous owners had them as housecats. 

Our newly installed basement door sometimes doesn't latch. It's worse in cold weather. Saturday I came home to find the door open a few inches letting all the cold air in. When I walked in, both cats scurried downstairs and sat there staring at me. I swiftly sent them back outside. Thankfully they didn't destroy anything or go to the bathroom inside (as far as I can tell). I was paranoid about the door, so I deadbolted it overnight. Tonight I left for a few hours and tested the door to make sure it was latched when I left. Yep. We were good. But when I came home, the door was open a few inches again. Ugh! The cats must've been curled up with the goats because I didn't find them in the house this time. Whew! That door is staying deadbolted until our contractors can figure out what's wrong with it!

All that being said, we're hoping our house will be finished in a few weeks. Just the upstairs bathroom, a few pieces of trim to put back on, and the basement entryway ceiling to finish up!

Five Below

No, the title is not referring to the weather, although it is chilly outside. I'm subbing at Mt. Olive today in 4th grade. Their teacher is home with a sick kid and it wasn't a planned day off, so the morning was a little crazy trying to make sure I found all the things we need for the day, printed off or not printed off. We got it figured out though. 

Religion class was about the magi visiting Herod in Jerusalem. Since we had time, I did some extra history/geography and had them look at the map to see how far it would've been for Mary and Joseph to walk to Bethlehem. 

Later in the morning during snack time, one of the boys showed off his gift card to Five Below (a $5 store in town). He said it was the best store in town, etc. Then he asked me where it was. I told him. He said disappointedly, "Oh, that's far away." I said, "It's too far to walk that's for sure." He said, "Well, not as far as Mary and Joseph had to walk, so I'm sure I could get there." 😆

House update: we have a signed purchase agreement to sell our Nicollet house! Closing date is Feb. 14th or earlier.