The 7-8th graders are gone for the day on a field trip, so we have some adjustments to make in our schedule. First, the 5th graders needed to be buddies with the kindergarteners. We left our classroom shortly after 8am to pick them up, met a traffic jam of other classes in the hallway, and then discovered the other class of 5th graders had beat us to the room, so there were only ten kindergarteners to match up with my class of 18. My kids had been super excited to be be buddies with them, so I was bummed not all of them got partners.
The other big change was that we ate lunch in our classrooms today instead of the fellowship hall. The 7-8th graders set up and take down the tables and since they weren't around, that was our solution. I was a mean teacher and made them sit in their desks instead of being able to sit by friends. My reasoning: much cleaner if they weren't sharing desks with others plus the friendship drama might get stirred up again if the girls were allowed to comingle. The 5th graders wanted to watch a movie during lunch. Mean teacher strikes again... I said no. I put on a youtube playlist called "lunch music" which was basically jazz. None of them liked the music and wanted it off.
They ended up going back to their first grade days playing "raise your hand if you...". They turned it into a game and went up and down the rows one at a time asking a question.
"Raise your hand if you think dogs are the best pets."
"Raise your hand if you like long hair."
"Wait... on yourself or on other people?"
"Uh..."
"Raise your hand if you like dogs better than cats."
"You did that one already!"
"No, I said if they are the best pets."
"Raise your hand if you like pizza."
And so it went. It was pretty interesting to see what they came up with, both questions and answers.
I've been bringing a few books from home to school for my nonreaders. Today I brought five more books and four of the five got snatched up. I wrote a "book request" space on the board to help me tailor my offerings. The list for books about: dragons, the Civil War, survival, babysitters club, you choose books, and graphic novels. Now I need to peruse my shelves!
Our church counsel Lenten chili cookoff was a hit. I made labels for each item with G's direction: Bill's mom's chili recipe won first place by a landslide. Pastor's (definitely NOT made by his wife) white chicken chili got second. G's (stolen recipe from his mom) noodle-infused chili (don't knock it until you try it) got third, and Greg's vegetarian (google AI generated) recipe got fourth. Honorable mentions with one vote each were the garlic bread (bought from Walmart) and the chocolate chip chunk cookies (made by me). People loved trying a little bit of each kind so they could vote responsibly.
My lemon bars turned out strange. I think I didn't put enough flour in the crust. It ended up floating to the top of the lemon mixture, so when I took them out of the pan, they had to be flipped upside down. A few turned out the right way, so their sign read "upside down or right side up lemon bars". Even though they were deconstructed a bit, they were also a hit.
After church, I sent eggs home with our future goat watcher who will do chores for us in a couple weeks. We got sidetracked talking about tapping maple trees. He got all of his stuff for it off Amazon and encouraged me to try tapping a few of our trees. It's a 10:1 for getting syrup. So you tap 100 gallons of maple sap to make 10 gallons of maple syrup. You can store the sap in food grade garbage cans, then boil it all at once when you've built up a supply. He showed me a cool outdoor boiling station made from cement cinder blocks and stainless steel roasting trays (like they use in catering). You make a little hut with the trays on top, a chimney on the end, and space for a fire underneath. Yep. I definitely want to try that someday. Probably better not start that now when I'm teaching full-time and we're going to Arizona in less than a week...
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