Well, this has been a long day. I think this is the first day all year that the 6th graders have had more energy than I've had. They were off the walls! Pastor came to teach our class about stewardship this morning, so that might have set them off. It snowed this morning too; not a whole lot, but enough to get them excited. And I'm still recuperating from the wedding I went to this weekend.
This morning, all the 7th and 8th graders kept asking me questions about their upcoming PowerPoint presentation. A few came up to me and said they were almost finished with it. They first heard about this assignment on Friday. Talk about excited to learn!
Since our books are so old, we divided up the countries in South America and each student is going to do a report/presentation about each country. They can work in pairs or by themselves; they just have to present the information to the class in some way. They are also going to write worksheets for the class to fill out during the presentation. The presenters will pick five of these questions to use on the test. They'll get their worksheets back to study for the test. Tomorrow we're going to go over the difference between a good PowerPoint and a bad one.
At recess today, I had way too much junk food. And by junk food, I mean pretend, imaginary food "made" for me by some 1st and 2nd graders. They were sitting behind the bleachers by the scoreboard keyboard, waiting for customers. One of them asked what kind of smoothie I'd like. Then he asked if I wanted a meal with that... but they were a candy shop, so they only had cupcakes and candy. It seemed that there was tension in the ranks because one of his "coworkers" said they had some hot dogs. Then they changed it so they had pizza. So I ended up going back for three meals.
One girl asked if I would jump rope with her. I was kind of confused, thinking "how are the two of us going to jump together." But she had a long rope and wanted me to twirl the other end. Pretty soon there was a long line of kids waiting for their turn to run in. I started singing "Cinderella, dressed in yellow, went upstairs to kiss her fellow..." One student got up to nine doctors! Everyone (including me) was sad when recess was over. Maybe we'll do it again on Wednesday!
Monday, November 12, 2012
Friday, November 9, 2012
13 hours
Whew! Yesterday was quite the day. It was Parent-Teacher Conferences, so I spent about 13 hours at school yesterday. What's really interesting was that only family came on time to their appointment; the rest were early and because I wasn't meeting with anyone we could get started right away. Of course, the people who actually came at their appointed time were my last conference, so I didn't get get to sneak out early.
Everything went fine. The parents were cordial and didn't have a whole lot of questions for me. The principal checked on me a few times, to make sure I wasn't having any trouble. Then afterwards, one by one the rest of the teachers came in: some to check on me, some to congratulate me on finishing my first Parent Teacher Conferences. When the last teacher to come in saw all the other teachers standing around my desk, she said, "Oh, is this the after party?"
One funny story from 7th and 8th grade geography... I had asked to see everyone's eyes up front so I would know they were ready to go. One boy (who hadn't done his notes for the day) was scrambling to open his book to the right page. Being a smartaleck, he had his head turned to me and had his eyes flipping back and forth between me and the pages of his book, trying to follow my directions and figure out where we were. I couldn't help smiling because he looked so goofy! All the other students (who were looking at me like they were supposed to) saw me smiling and wanted to know why. Some figured out who I was looking at, so they tried to see what was so funny. And then the people in the front turned around to see. And then no one was ready to start class. But then they calmed down (somewhat) and we started class. They had some really good questions too!
Everything went fine. The parents were cordial and didn't have a whole lot of questions for me. The principal checked on me a few times, to make sure I wasn't having any trouble. Then afterwards, one by one the rest of the teachers came in: some to check on me, some to congratulate me on finishing my first Parent Teacher Conferences. When the last teacher to come in saw all the other teachers standing around my desk, she said, "Oh, is this the after party?"
One funny story from 7th and 8th grade geography... I had asked to see everyone's eyes up front so I would know they were ready to go. One boy (who hadn't done his notes for the day) was scrambling to open his book to the right page. Being a smartaleck, he had his head turned to me and had his eyes flipping back and forth between me and the pages of his book, trying to follow my directions and figure out where we were. I couldn't help smiling because he looked so goofy! All the other students (who were looking at me like they were supposed to) saw me smiling and wanted to know why. Some figured out who I was looking at, so they tried to see what was so funny. And then the people in the front turned around to see. And then no one was ready to start class. But then they calmed down (somewhat) and we started class. They had some really good questions too!
It's "Miss" Heintz
For some reason, yesterday there was more talk than usual about my relationship status. In 7th and 8th grade geography, one girl kept calling me Mrs. Heintz. One of the boys who sits in front turned around and yelled at her, "It's MISS Heintz. Stop calling her Mrs.; she's not married!" Apparently, Mr. E has to go over this small grammatical error over and over and over.
Then, when my 6th graders were doing art, one of the boys asked, "Miss Heintz? Are you going to do what our old teacher did?" I was kind of confused (and so were the rest of my students). He kept going, "Well, he got a girlfriend and then he moved away. So are you going to do that? ...I mean, are you going to get a boyfriend and get married and move away?" I think I said something like, "Probably not." One of the girls piped up, "Oh, I think you're going to get a boyfriend. But you can just stay here; you don't have to move away." Thinking it was time for a subject change, I said, "Well, I don't have any plans to move away right now." The boy who brought the subject up said, "Good. Cause I don't want you to leave."
Then, when my 6th graders were doing art, one of the boys asked, "Miss Heintz? Are you going to do what our old teacher did?" I was kind of confused (and so were the rest of my students). He kept going, "Well, he got a girlfriend and then he moved away. So are you going to do that? ...I mean, are you going to get a boyfriend and get married and move away?" I think I said something like, "Probably not." One of the girls piped up, "Oh, I think you're going to get a boyfriend. But you can just stay here; you don't have to move away." Thinking it was time for a subject change, I said, "Well, I don't have any plans to move away right now." The boy who brought the subject up said, "Good. Cause I don't want you to leave."
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
Vote, Vote, Vote!
The results are in! At least, the ones from the 6-8th graders' mock election. The 6th graders spent a half an hour setting up our classroom as a polling place. We had three booths (desks surrounded by gym mats), two registration tables (one for last names A-H, and one for I-Z), and a tally table (our lab table). Each of the 7th and 8th graders had a job to do, and most of them were very professional about it.
Two people went to tell the classrooms it was their turn to vote. The voters would come in and sit in the waiting area. They would go up to the registration table, have their name crossed off by an 8th grader, and be handed a ballot and a pencil by a 7th grader. Then, a 7th or 8th grader would let them know which polling booth was open (the people manning the polls would raise their hand). The student "guarding" the poll would remind the voter not to write his/her name on the ballot.
Some of the 1st graders had trouble reading the words on the ballot, so the poll assistants would help them read the names. After voting, the voter would fold his/her ballot, stick it in the official ice cream pail, and return to the waiting area. When the bucket got full, I would carry it to the tally table (partially hidden by a tri-fold board) where three 7th and 8th graders were waiting to count the votes. One girl pulled out the ballot, recorded the vote for cats vs. dogs, and passed it down to the next girl (who recorded chocolate vs. vanilla), who passed it down to the final tallier who recorded Obama vs. Romney. This last individual put an X on the ballot and put it in a different ice cream pail.
When all the votes were in, we put my classroom back together, and the 6th graders made bar graphs of the results. They also calculated percentages of the votes cast for each choice. We presented the results to each classroom that participated right before the end of the day. 52 people voted and the results are as follows:
Cats vs. Dogs
Cats= 10 [19%]
Dogs= 42 [81%]
Chocolate vs. Vanilla
Chocolate= 24 [46%]
Vanilla= 28 [54%]
Obama vs. Romney
Obama= 10 [19%]
Romney= 41 [79%]
Other (write in)= 1 [2%]
Two people went to tell the classrooms it was their turn to vote. The voters would come in and sit in the waiting area. They would go up to the registration table, have their name crossed off by an 8th grader, and be handed a ballot and a pencil by a 7th grader. Then, a 7th or 8th grader would let them know which polling booth was open (the people manning the polls would raise their hand). The student "guarding" the poll would remind the voter not to write his/her name on the ballot.
Some of the 1st graders had trouble reading the words on the ballot, so the poll assistants would help them read the names. After voting, the voter would fold his/her ballot, stick it in the official ice cream pail, and return to the waiting area. When the bucket got full, I would carry it to the tally table (partially hidden by a tri-fold board) where three 7th and 8th graders were waiting to count the votes. One girl pulled out the ballot, recorded the vote for cats vs. dogs, and passed it down to the next girl (who recorded chocolate vs. vanilla), who passed it down to the final tallier who recorded Obama vs. Romney. This last individual put an X on the ballot and put it in a different ice cream pail.
When all the votes were in, we put my classroom back together, and the 6th graders made bar graphs of the results. They also calculated percentages of the votes cast for each choice. We presented the results to each classroom that participated right before the end of the day. 52 people voted and the results are as follows:
Cats vs. Dogs
Cats= 10 [19%]
Dogs= 42 [81%]
Chocolate vs. Vanilla
Chocolate= 24 [46%]
Vanilla= 28 [54%]
Obama vs. Romney
Obama= 10 [19%]
Romney= 41 [79%]
Other (write in)= 1 [2%]
Thursday, November 1, 2012
Halloween... Best or Worst Holiday?
Growing up, Halloween seemed like a pretty great holiday. You dress up in costume, get some free candy, have a party at school... how is this a bad holiday? But once you get to the teacher side of things, it's a whole new ball game.
First of all, everyone is talking about their costumes for weeks in advance. Then they ask you what you are going to be. When you answer that you aren't going to dress up, they try to convince you! They even brainstorm some possible ideas. Nowadays pretty much 80% of costumes are gross, so they wouldn't even work at school.
Next reason: kids are jacked up on sugar. It's bad enough they are fed sugar during the class party. Later that night, they'll probably eat their weight in candy! (okay, maybe not that much). Add together the late night and a belly full of sweets... not a recipe for success the next day in school.
We didn't have a party in our classroom; Friday our class is hosting an all school carnival in the gym, so we're going to have a Reformation/Fall party for a brief while after lunch. Even though my students knew we weren't celebrating anything until Friday, they still brought in cupcakes and cookies to share! Urgh! I didn't want them crazy all day, so we doled out the sweets at the end of the day. Make the bus drivers and the parents deal with them, eh?
Most of my students were fairly awake this morning (with the exception of the boys; they looked like they partied hard.) Part of that could be they're getting sick. All morning our room was full of the sounds of coughs. Not little "clearing the throat" coughs. I'm talking those big "almost hack up a lung" cough. Hopefully they get a good night's sleep tonight.
First of all, everyone is talking about their costumes for weeks in advance. Then they ask you what you are going to be. When you answer that you aren't going to dress up, they try to convince you! They even brainstorm some possible ideas. Nowadays pretty much 80% of costumes are gross, so they wouldn't even work at school.
Next reason: kids are jacked up on sugar. It's bad enough they are fed sugar during the class party. Later that night, they'll probably eat their weight in candy! (okay, maybe not that much). Add together the late night and a belly full of sweets... not a recipe for success the next day in school.
We didn't have a party in our classroom; Friday our class is hosting an all school carnival in the gym, so we're going to have a Reformation/Fall party for a brief while after lunch. Even though my students knew we weren't celebrating anything until Friday, they still brought in cupcakes and cookies to share! Urgh! I didn't want them crazy all day, so we doled out the sweets at the end of the day. Make the bus drivers and the parents deal with them, eh?
Most of my students were fairly awake this morning (with the exception of the boys; they looked like they partied hard.) Part of that could be they're getting sick. All morning our room was full of the sounds of coughs. Not little "clearing the throat" coughs. I'm talking those big "almost hack up a lung" cough. Hopefully they get a good night's sleep tonight.
Monday, October 29, 2012
Meetings, Splinters, and Crazy Campaigns
Sunday was the 3rd quarterly voter's meeting at church. It was the first voter's meeting I've ever attended, and it was about what I expected. One thing that is different here (as opposed to my home church congregation) is that the women can vote. Since I haven't switched my church membership, I still couldn't vote because I'm not a church member.
At the meeting, I sat in the back (partly so no one would notice me and partly so I could see everything that was going on). It went along pretty much like you would expect a voter's meeting to go. And then came the school report. The principal reported that the new 5th and 6th grade teacher was doing a great job, fitting in well, and he threw out a couple of other interesting points about the school. Then asked, "Any questions?"
Some one's hand went up. "Am I correct that this year there are no 5th graders?"
"Yes."
"Well, it seems to me that if we're being good stewards, no offense to the current teacher, we shouldn't even have anyone teaching that age group. The students can go with another teacher."
There was a pause. Then he kept going, "How many students are in the upcoming class?"
I started feeling panicked; there are only four fourth graders who will be in fifth grade next year, even fewer students than my current six. If this guy was pitching a fit over paying me to teach six students, how was he going to react when he found out next year I'll only have four?
Thank the Lord, Mr. E figured out a way to sort of smooth things over, "I believe there are eleven students in third and fourth grade." Not a lie! But not really answering the question.
Then another voter raised his hand and said something along the lines of, "Isn't that a question for the Board of Education? And I think they're doing a fine job. Let's move on."
They did move on, and so did I. But then the principal's wife and the pastor's wife came and talked to me about it and that got me all worked up again. I tell you, it is the worst feeling in the world to realize that someone wants to take away your job. Later that afternoon, Mr. E called me to explain that this guy has been saying the same thing for the past five years and he's pretty much the only one. So I can rest assured I'll be okay for now. We'll cross next year's bridge when we come to it. But in the meantime, if you'd pray for a family with some 4th and 5th graders to move into the area...
In other news, one of my students got a splinter today during school. You'd never guess a little splinter could cause so much disruption, but man, we got derailed. First she tried to push it out. Didn't work. Then we dug around my first aid kit for a tweezers. Nothing. But we did find a splinter remover. She didn't know how to use it, so I had to dig around her hand. I felt so bad! I could tell the probing hurt. In the end, she ended up running to one of the other teacher's rooms to get a tweezers and I unearthed the splinter after a few minutes. Meanwhile, the other students had been calmly working on their spelling workbooks, waiting to begin their pretest.
All in all, the day was pretty calm. Calm that is, until we were supposed to switch for math. The 7th and 8th graders were on a field trip, so I was going to keep the 6th graders all afternoon. With our extra time, we were going to learn how to use features in Open Office. The best place to do this was the 7th and 8th grader's classroom. Unfortunately, about half of them forgot to log out of their accounts, so my sixth graders couldn't access their accounts. The passwords for the 7th and 8th graders weren't written down, so we were kind of stuck. Actually, we were really stuck. Finally, I ended up calling it a dud and we went back to our room.
There, we made posters for our upcoming election: Cats vs. Dogs. Which are the better pet? The 6th graders were pretty creative, trying to come up with a slogan and a bunch of pictures to put on their posters. On the dog side, the poster has a crazy/evil-looking cat and a cute, cuddly dog. "Which would you rather have? Vote for dogs!" was their slogan. On the cat side, the 6th graders wrote, "Are kittens cute? Vote for cats!" Then they drew some pictures of cats in the shape of a heart. I was hoping to get them finished sooner so we could work on our ice cream war: chocolate vs. vanilla, but it didn't happen.
At the meeting, I sat in the back (partly so no one would notice me and partly so I could see everything that was going on). It went along pretty much like you would expect a voter's meeting to go. And then came the school report. The principal reported that the new 5th and 6th grade teacher was doing a great job, fitting in well, and he threw out a couple of other interesting points about the school. Then asked, "Any questions?"
Some one's hand went up. "Am I correct that this year there are no 5th graders?"
"Yes."
"Well, it seems to me that if we're being good stewards, no offense to the current teacher, we shouldn't even have anyone teaching that age group. The students can go with another teacher."
There was a pause. Then he kept going, "How many students are in the upcoming class?"
I started feeling panicked; there are only four fourth graders who will be in fifth grade next year, even fewer students than my current six. If this guy was pitching a fit over paying me to teach six students, how was he going to react when he found out next year I'll only have four?
Thank the Lord, Mr. E figured out a way to sort of smooth things over, "I believe there are eleven students in third and fourth grade." Not a lie! But not really answering the question.
Then another voter raised his hand and said something along the lines of, "Isn't that a question for the Board of Education? And I think they're doing a fine job. Let's move on."
They did move on, and so did I. But then the principal's wife and the pastor's wife came and talked to me about it and that got me all worked up again. I tell you, it is the worst feeling in the world to realize that someone wants to take away your job. Later that afternoon, Mr. E called me to explain that this guy has been saying the same thing for the past five years and he's pretty much the only one. So I can rest assured I'll be okay for now. We'll cross next year's bridge when we come to it. But in the meantime, if you'd pray for a family with some 4th and 5th graders to move into the area...
In other news, one of my students got a splinter today during school. You'd never guess a little splinter could cause so much disruption, but man, we got derailed. First she tried to push it out. Didn't work. Then we dug around my first aid kit for a tweezers. Nothing. But we did find a splinter remover. She didn't know how to use it, so I had to dig around her hand. I felt so bad! I could tell the probing hurt. In the end, she ended up running to one of the other teacher's rooms to get a tweezers and I unearthed the splinter after a few minutes. Meanwhile, the other students had been calmly working on their spelling workbooks, waiting to begin their pretest.
All in all, the day was pretty calm. Calm that is, until we were supposed to switch for math. The 7th and 8th graders were on a field trip, so I was going to keep the 6th graders all afternoon. With our extra time, we were going to learn how to use features in Open Office. The best place to do this was the 7th and 8th grader's classroom. Unfortunately, about half of them forgot to log out of their accounts, so my sixth graders couldn't access their accounts. The passwords for the 7th and 8th graders weren't written down, so we were kind of stuck. Actually, we were really stuck. Finally, I ended up calling it a dud and we went back to our room.
There, we made posters for our upcoming election: Cats vs. Dogs. Which are the better pet? The 6th graders were pretty creative, trying to come up with a slogan and a bunch of pictures to put on their posters. On the dog side, the poster has a crazy/evil-looking cat and a cute, cuddly dog. "Which would you rather have? Vote for dogs!" was their slogan. On the cat side, the 6th graders wrote, "Are kittens cute? Vote for cats!" Then they drew some pictures of cats in the shape of a heart. I was hoping to get them finished sooner so we could work on our ice cream war: chocolate vs. vanilla, but it didn't happen.
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Nothing like the smell of manure in the classroom...
Last night, some farmers took loads of manure and spread them all over the fields around our school. Today was very foggy and moist, so the smell just sat there and permeated the building. Since today is Wednesday, our school had chapel over at church. Not everyone enjoyed walking through the wall of smell. Thankfully, the wind started blowing a bit and moved the smell around.
My classroom got pretty toasty once again, but instead of cracking the door (like I did yesterday), I opened one of the windows. At first I didn't think the smell was coming in, but when the 7th and 8th graders came for science, they said it smelled gross. It's probably just as well that I left the door closed.
There are still flies buzzing around my head! My two 6th grade boys immediately grabbed the flyswatters this morning and started hunting. They kept finding more and more. And then one of them had a sudden inspiration, "Hey Miss Heintz! Guess what? We're going to save all the dead flies and make them into a Christmas present for you." Wow, what do you say to that? I ended up replying, "If you do, I will keep it and love it because you made it." The other boy said, "Yeah, we'll gather them all up and spread them all over her desk."
Speaking of presents... the first and second graders gave me a whole bunch of new drawings they had just finished (probably because I was late to art again; those 7th and 8th graders just suck up all the time!). The lovely drawings are currently hanging on the wall by my computer.
My classroom got pretty toasty once again, but instead of cracking the door (like I did yesterday), I opened one of the windows. At first I didn't think the smell was coming in, but when the 7th and 8th graders came for science, they said it smelled gross. It's probably just as well that I left the door closed.
There are still flies buzzing around my head! My two 6th grade boys immediately grabbed the flyswatters this morning and started hunting. They kept finding more and more. And then one of them had a sudden inspiration, "Hey Miss Heintz! Guess what? We're going to save all the dead flies and make them into a Christmas present for you." Wow, what do you say to that? I ended up replying, "If you do, I will keep it and love it because you made it." The other boy said, "Yeah, we'll gather them all up and spread them all over her desk."
Speaking of presents... the first and second graders gave me a whole bunch of new drawings they had just finished (probably because I was late to art again; those 7th and 8th graders just suck up all the time!). The lovely drawings are currently hanging on the wall by my computer.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)