Snow Day Tomorrow!

It's pretty rare a snow day is called before the snow even starts falling, but that's what happened tonight! We're in a winter storm warning starting midnight tonight through midnight tomorrow (Friday). 5-9 inches of wet, heavy snow in the forecast. And then 30 degrees Saturday and Sunday. What a strange winter. We kind of knew the snow day was coming, so I had my kids bring home a book to read, just in case.

I'm wrapping up my lesson plan outline for next week and all I need to do now is decide if I want to spend the day catching up on school stuff or if I want to read/cook all day. Cooking is for sure; there's a whole 30 pie crust recipe I'm going to make into pasty pie. I'll use my new Christmas present food processor to speed things along, but I still think it will take a while which is why I haven't had the chance earlier this week. 

I restocked my library pile last night and brought a bunch to school for book commercials. Man they love book commercials. I should try taking a few books I've had for a while off the shelf and advertise them to my students. I bet I'd get takers. This time there were three books everyone wanted to read. So we drew sticks and wrote down the order. I told them to prioritize the library books over our class books since they have a due date (and some of them are books I haven't read yet and want to). There's still a big stack at home... maybe I should chip away at it tomorrow...

Other than that, school was pretty typical. We put our plants away from the PTL plant tour. The parent's were impressed with our garden. They laughed at the "don't touch" signs my kids added to their pots. "Do they really think we're all going to touch their plants?" a parent incredulously asked.

The 7-8th graders finally finished our first read-aloud book of the year (Escape From Chernobyl) and started our next one, The Unteachables by Gordon Korman, a favorite author of ours. They aren't 100% sold on the book yet. I'll win them over by pg50 though. That's my rule. Read at least 50 pages to give the book a chance before you abandon it. It's worked well so far!

Found!

I found a library book in a student's desk. Not such an outrageous occurrence, except this book had been lost. The 1-2nd graders thought they'd taken it back to the Bookmobile after reading buddies, but I checked my library card and it never got checked in... All my students claimed they didn't have it. But this one was under a mountain of loose papers in this 6th grader's desk. She also lost her snowman art project, which is what I'd been looking for originally. It's a shame because she spent a lot of time on that snowman. 

After school I met with Mr. D to plan NLSW fun activities. There's a PTL meeting tonight, so we can ask for money to fund these activities and I want to have a ballpark estimate to request. Then, Mrs. B and Mrs. L and I practiced the duet we're singing on Sunday. Now I'm going to hustle into New Ulm to run my errands before the meeting. If I scurry, I can make it!

My kids are all set for the meeting. For entertainment before, I'm giving a tour of the plant jungle of 5-6th grade. This afternoon they labeled everything and set it out nicely so everyone can see all our growing things. My classroom hasn't been this clean in a long time! My kids wanted everything to look nice for their parents so it was their idea to tidy everything. They forgot the coatroom though, so I did a quick sweep just now. We're looking pretty spic and span. 😎

Water Filler

I think I have a mini-stalker. There's a 1st grade boy who's volunteered to fill up my water bottles every day this week and some of last week too. It started last week when he had to move my water bottles out of the way so he could fill his before school (I always set mine there to fill while I pass back papers to the 7-8th graders). 

The next day, we met at the drinking fountain at the same time. I told him to go first while I popped into the 7-8th grade room. He stuck his head in the room a few minutes later brandishing my full bottles. "I filled em up for ya, Miss H!" he proudly crowed. Of course I thanked him profusely, which probably made him want to do it again. 

Yesterday, the same thing happened, although another classmate of his wanted to fill one. So we compromised by letting the first one fill both and the second one screw on the lids. It worked great. 

This morning, my water bottle filler must've been watching for me or heard me coming down the hall, because when I got close to the fountain, he darted out of his classroom water bottle in hand, making sure he got to me before anyone else could (no one else even paid attention). "I'll get that for ya Miss H!" So, my bottles got filled yet again. Do you suppose it will happen tomorrow too?

Fixed

You'll never guess who called me after school... the IT guy. He actually fixed my printer! And since he was on the phone, I talked to him about the 1-2nd grade projector, which is so dim you can hardly see it with the lights off and the shades drawn. He had a billion excuses why it hasn't been fixed before now (it's been on the fix-it list for at least a year), but I think I have him pinned down to bring a replacement sometime this week. Hopefully tomorrow. We'll see. We've all heard that song and dance before.

Aside from that, it was a typical day at school. Frigid temps again, but my classroom held to 68 degrees all day (still felt really cold). It sounds like today will be our last day of subzero temps. The rest of the week will be around 30! Hooray! Just in time too. My car's coolant light turned on this morning. It leaks coolant one time a year, the week we have subzero temps. I had hoped my previous car fix would solve this problem, but I guess not. The student's dad who fixed my car last time said he'd look at it after work tomorrow. Now I need to decide if I refill my coolant in the cold dark tonight, or do it tomorrow when it's warm... 

In other news, my apartment water heater is FINALLY fixed! Now I can wash all the things that have piled up from last week. Exactly what I wanted to do tonight. Hmm, maybe the dishes can wait another day.

Historical Accuracy

The Mulan project turned out even better than expected! Well, we're only partway through the movie, but so far so good! They're really into it, writing down lots of things I didn't even think of. Not sure how easy it will be to research, but we'll cross that bridge when it comes. I should probably get the ballad of Mulan book from the library. The movie is based on the epic Chinese poem. 

My 5-6th graders did a bit more rearranging today. We moved the sink back to where it was originally and added another computer station next to the couch. They moved their chargers around and I discovered we're missing two chargers. Lovely. No idea how we're going to find them. 

The IT guys came last night and fixed my interactive board! Whew! That makes life so much easier. They replaced the printer too, except they didn't hook it up to my desktop computer so no one can actually print anything. Sigh. In other news, my apartment's hot water heater still isn't fixed. The parts they needed didn't come in today. Good thing I'll be in Mankato this weekend, so I can finally shower! My dishes and laundry can wait. Maybe Monday will be the day. 

Frigid

I hate these days below zero... my classroom is garbage at holding heat, so it's been chilly in here all day. Joe is hunkered under his heat lamp and he's not moving! He hasn't even come out to eat these past two days. Tomorrow doesn't sound much better. A high of 7 degrees with a -27 windchill. Blech. I wonder if school will be late tomorrow. Probably not since today was colder.

After school's cleaning session was not as productive as I'd hoped, but we did move the couch and the sink and the green house. I have half a lab table now; we condensed all the plants on one end and wiped the table off. Much neater! The computer station needs work still. I'm not sold on the couch's location. I also want to move the spinny book racks to where the couch used to be. That kind of cuts down on our bookshelf space though. Maybe I should get another spinning rack. Or I could get a short double sided bookshelf that they could sit on. I need to mull it a bit. 

The 7-8th graders weren't happy with their Africa test grades and don't like how it will effect their quarter two grades. Since I don't give out extra credit (do your work well the first time!), we came up with a few projects our ancient history class can do. One is to make a time travel brochure for one of the Asian empires/dynasties we've been learning about. They also convinced me we should watch the Disney movie Mulan (animated) and analyze how historically accurate it is. They were all on board, so we're going to give it a shot tomorrow. I did preresearch and found a blog post that points out some True/False bits of history in it. That'll be a good starting point for the movie. 

They also want to learn Russian history. Huh, okay. I never learned a ton of Russian history, so we'll be learning it together I guess. We'll probably save that for later in the year when we move on to Europe. Over the summer I wanted to revamp this ancient history curriculum to be project based. I ran out of time/energy, so if they come up with ideas, we can tweak the plan as we go!

Plans

Well, we had school today. The winter weather advisory was not as wintery as anticipated. I only checked the school closings page two or three times before giving up. 

My classroom feels cluttered and something's got to change! Tomorrow is Epiphany which means the decorations get put away. My kids and I came up with a plan for all the 'extra space' that leaves us. We're going to move the couch to make room for another book shelf. Then we're going to shift the computer tables around so we can put the sink against the wall. Maybe even get rid of our two remaining desktop computers. No one uses them anymore and we could use the space! We'll probably put away some of the plant things too. That will open things up. 

Other updates: No news on the water heater fix. Maybe no news is good news? But probably not. One of our janitors lives in my building and she said she called Amberfield and they wouldn't tell her an estimate of the fix time. Ehhh, that doesn't sound good. 

Last night I had a dream someone told me I smelled bad (since I haven't been showering in my cold water) and I ate a chocolate chip cookie without thinking and it ruined my Whole 30 challenge. Huh, I guess you can tell which two things are on my mind most this week. That being said, Whole 30 day three is going well. I made egg veggie breakfast 'muffins'... super delicious and filling. Can't wait to eat them for breakfast tomorrow too! I also found a bunch more breakfast recipes for when I get tired of eggs.