16- MLC Play

Lots of neat things going on today.  The Mystery Class answers have been announced... and both of my classes got bronze (we found 8 sites) and our name posted on the Mystery Class website! This is the first time we've found that many! You can see my class names here under the 6th and 7th grade bronze categories (if you can't find it on the site, press "control" and "F" on the keyboard and type in "Heintz" which will locate my name on the page).  Looking back at the answers I found, I located all 10! First time ever! But since I didn't share my answers with the class, we only had 8 correct.

It was Miss W's last day today.  She brought us mini candy bars to eat at lunch, and then came to the MLC play with us.  Hopefully she can come back for the musical or one of the field trips we're taking!  My kids made her a few cards, and she wrote us thank-you notes (haven't read them yet...).

Lots of kids were excited about the Book Fair today.  I didn't expect much business since we hadn't advertised that it'd be open today, so most kids wouldn't have money to spend.  However... I noticed a lot of the 3rd and 4th grade girls with the little trinkety things sold at the Book Fair so they must've had money stashed away somewhere!  My guess is business will pick up next week now that people know it's going on.

The MLC play was good.  Once Upon A Wolf was about Granny Smelly Feet telling stories, mostly ones that feature the wolf being the bad guy, always dying in the end.  He gets fed up and wants a better story.  So he tries fitting in as Goldilocks, Cinderella's fairy godmother, and a prince.  But none are quite right and in the end he realizes that he's better off as a wolf after all.  It was pretty funny! Also, long.  It ended ten minutes later than usual, thus we made it to the bus 15 minutes later than usual, so it was a scramble at the end of the day to send kids home. We made it though!

Monday's balloon activity: make a special Mother's Day gift.  I think we'll paint terracotta pots and plant some flowers.  That's always a good project.

17- Work Without Shoes On

I don't think anyone went with the "work without shoes on" activity today.  Since I figured that'd be the case, I added "have extra read-aloud time."  Now, all the pinatas are finished and we only have one letter left on the "JUNGLE" poster for the musical.  All other props my class was in charge of are complete!

The penguin pinata group got a little fancy.  Instead of keeping it a plain old emperor penguin, they added yellow strips of paper on its head like a mohawk so it would be a Macaroni penguin.  When they peeked in the closet they got the idea to add yellow yarn to make it stand out even more! It looks pretty impressive!

We had musical practice at church for the first time.  We didn't have any of the set setup yet since there's communion/church on Sunday, but we'll stay after church and put everything in its place then so it's ready for practice Monday.  Only four more practices until the musical!!! Ahh!!!!  Today's practice went all right considering we didn't have actual places for kids to sit and we were missing three of our main speakers.  It can only go up from here!

After school we set up the Scholastic Book Fair that will run the rest of this week and all of next week.  We'll have it open after the musical, after next weekend's 5K, and after church the following Sunday.  Hopefully we sell lots of books!  All I need to do now is put up posters for the fair.

...Remember all those months ago I filled out an application for the WEM Outstanding Educator Award? ...Well... I finally got a call today... and I'm a regional runner up! There are three categories with two main winners and two runners up for each category.  So out of all the applicants in MN (I think), I am one of the two runners up and I automatically get to fill out an application for next year's award.  They're sending someone to school to interview my class and me and pass out my "goodies".  This includes a certificate, a trophy, and $1500! Woo! It's still pretty surreal.

Tomorrow's activity: go to the MLC play. (Some of the boys were grumbling because we were already going to do that... why couldn't we do something actually fun? Yeah, I was not too happy about their attitude.  But when I brought up the option to stop doing the balloons, they all said, "no, let's keep doing them.")

18- Watch a Wishbone Episode

The Wishbone episode was a hit! (When is it not???) The hardest part was deciding which episode to watch.  I really should invest in purchasing the whole show on DVD, but for now we watch on Youtube.  Sometimes the quality isn't that great.  Such is the case with the David and Goliath episode we were going to watch.  The kids were all excited for that story and then the sound was weird on the video, so we switched to the episode featuring the book Arabian Nights where Shaharazad tells tales to the king night after night so he doesn't put her to death.  The particular story she told (for the Wishbone episode) was "Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves".  I don't think my students had heard it before!  We had good discussion afterwards.

The school board did come in to watch us today.  I went about my normal morning routine, but he came in at a sort of boring time when the kids were working on their spelling and there wasn't much for me to do except wander and help them when they got stuck. The board member looked a little bored.  Oh well. Such is life. One guy still didn't show up today. I'm not sure if he'll reschedule or just skip it for this year...

Tomorrow's activity: work without shoes on (most weren't too thrilled with that one, so I said we'd do extra read-aloud tomorrow to make it a little better).

19- Chew Gum

I didn't think having the kids chew gum this morning would drive me nuts, but surprisingly it did!  I had to mentally stop myself from telling them to spit it out practically a bazillion times.  I would start to say something and then remember, "oh yeah, it's chew gum day." Thankfully it was only for the morning.  Mr. E came in to pass back math papers and immediately noticed all the chomping mouths.  He was none too pleased (I think chewing gum is a pet peeve of his), and I don't think he realized it was a special activity in my classroom.  Oops!  I told the kids to not be obnoxious about chewing their gum when they went into the hallways so they wouldn't get in trouble or have to spit it out.  We also made a rule that you can't have more than one piece of gum in your mouth at a time... one boy came to school with SIX in his mouth.  And he wasn't a quiet chewer either... Needless to say, I was happy when the morning was over and everyone threw their gum away.

Tomorrow's activity is to watch a Wishbone episode.  I don't think they can turn that into a crazy activity!

20- Sit Anywhere for the Day

As you may have guessed from the title, today was a bit crazy.  At first they moved their desks so they would block off the computers.  Then they pulled their desks in front of the doors.  Yeah, not such a good plan.  I made them move and eventually they all found a place to sit for the day.  We had desks in rows, desks tucked behind the lab table, desks squished into the reading corner, desks that stayed in the same place... and a few girls who sat on beanbags under the lab table all day.

We had to set up the white table for lunch a bit differently and we had way more room for the tap game, so all in all, it was an interesting thing to try for a day.  Though I am glad we're back to the same old set up as usual!

Electricians hung out at school for most of the morning.  One of the cages around the lights in the gym fell in the night, so we had a very bright light that needed fixing.  And one of the ballasts in my room (above my desk) was still out.  Mr. E sent them to my room first so they'd hopefully be finished by the time musical practice ended.  They were just finishing up when we got back to the room.  It didn't take long for them to fix the thing in the gym, but they still didn't leave.  Then I remembered we got a new industrial freezer for hot lunch.  They stuck around to get that hooked up.  It's one we bought from Target in New Ulm (they got rid of everything since they closed, so we got a great deal!).  It's very loud!  And it's so big we had to move the milk cooler to a new place.  That will take some getting used to!

Tomorrow's balloon activity: chew gum in the morning (must provide your own gum).

Pen Funeral

The 7th graders were taking their spelling test this afternoon when one of them raised his hand.  When I called on him, he said in his most tragic voice, "We're going to need to have a funeral... my pen died!" Cue the fake sobbing.  One of his classmates (while sputtering out fake tears) passed him another pen and the test went on.  Who says 7th graders aren't creative?

Today was the last day of Mystery Class.  We entered our answers online! Now we have to wait for the big reveal next Friday.  I think I found all of them this year.  Of course, in past years I think I've found them all, and then after the reveal I realize I was wrong.  But this year I think I got 'em!

I almost forgot to pop the first balloon of our countdown, but thankfully, my students reminded me at the end of the day.  Monday's activity: sit anywhere you like for the day!  Only 20 more days left of school! ...Scary...

Birthday Singing

In case you didn't know, today's my birthday!

I got to school and found a green elephant balloon animal on my desk (courtesy of Mr. D).  There was also a birthday balloon and a mason jar of flowers from Mr. and Mrs. E.  How sweet! I've enjoyed looking at their bright colors all day.  

Once the kiddos got to school, the chorus of birthday greetings began.  The 3rd and 4th grade girls made a special trip to my room to serenade me with both birthday songs, plus another birthday cheer (the one they sing at restaurants sometimes...).  On the Bookmobile, the kindergartners sang both birthday songs for me.  And the 7th and 5th graders sang to me while they worked on Mystery Class.  Lots of singing for my birthday...

We had dessert today at lunch, a happy coincidence (brownies), and the 5th and 6th graders were really nice to me during our game of 4-square.  "Don't get Miss H out! It's her birthday!"  A few kids wanted to know if I brought treats.  My plan had been to bake something, but last night I hosted Bible Study and didn't have time.  We watched the movie War Room, (if you haven't seen it, it's definitely worth the time, it's a fantastic movie) and Mrs. B brought brownies to share as a birthday treat.  

It's been raining on and off all day, both here and in Truman, which means that it's too wet to plant and my farmer can take the evening off to come visit me!  But if it had been too nice to take the night off, my parents said they would meet me for supper somewhere so I wouldn't be by myself on my birthday.  I have such a great family! :)